Blog archive by year
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Or see 2015 blog entries below
Banned from Boston, December 3, 2015
I was planning to reflect on the last few months during which the international community has awakened to the horrors of the war in Syria, the…
With all due respect to Harry Potter, November 4, 2015
Dear JK Rowling, To be honest, I am probably one of the few people on the planet who has never read your books. But I know your stories of fantasy…
In memoriam: Hashem Al-‘Azza October 29, 2015
On October 29, 2015 The Boston Globe reports 11 Israelis killed, 127 injured, 58 Palestinians killed, 2100 injured in what is usually referred to as…
A Busy Week: Bringing Gaza home, October 2, 2015
This has been a busy week with four presentations on Gaza in Albany, Hartford, and West Barnstable, the latter two as part of the Ninth Annual Tree…
Bedford’s Third Friday Film Series, September 19, 2015
Thirty five people came to the kick off for Bedford’s First Parish Peace and Justice Committee as the "Third Friday Film Series" for 2015-2016. …
Breaking the siege, one video camera at a time, September 1, 2015
It is not often that one has the opportunity to break the siege of Gaza without getting into the crosshairs of the Israeli navy. On March 25th of…
Report back from the White Mountains August 29, 2015
World Fellowship Center in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is a warm and welcoming family retreat that has provided a place for progressive…
Gaza comes to the Berkshires, August 2015
I just completed two events in Western Mass, one at Café Palestina in Great Barrington and another at a private home in Montague. In total almost 50…
But your name is Rothschild…. August 2, 2015
I am sometimes asked, “How can you do what you do when your name is Rothschild?” Or I get a facebook comment: “Never trust a Rothschild,…
Freud meets Palestine – July 27, 2015
As a physician/activist interested in the political as well as psychodynamic foundations of the ongoing struggles in Israel/Palestine it was an…
April 6, 2015, The Great Escape
I have been saving this Kalandia escapade from April 2 and now I have a follow-up story four days later to share as well. My Ramallah host drives…
April 5, 2015, Home Visits In Jalazone
M. has been a psychologist at the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture for six years. After a lively supervision session with…
April 3, 2015, What’s Mine Is Mine And What’s Yours Is Mine
It is Good Friday and Erev Pesach and I am celebrating the day by taking you, dear reader, on an exploration of the landscape of occupied…
April 1, 2015, The Aim Of Torture Is To Kill The Soul
It is a grey, rainy, foggy day, but I first need to describe the view from the lovely apartment where I am staying in Al Bireh, an area just east of…
March 31, 2015, Traveling While Muslim
I am sitting in the Jerusalem Hotel sipping coffee and taking a deep breath for the first time in a while, having had more than the usual…
March 30, 2015 part two, Here Death, There Death, But Let Me Do Something Useful For People
The Wefaq Society for Women and Child Care founded in 2010, seeks to achieve gender equality and improvement for vulnerable children through economic…
March 30, 2015 part one, We Don’t Hate You, We Just Don’t Understand What You Are Thinking Of Us
Another sunny day in Gaza, another ride along the beckoning Mediterranean, another trip where the smell of raw sewerage permeates the car for…
March 29, 2015, So If You Killed My Child, You Think You Are Strong?
One of the greatest casualties of the ongoing war on Gaza is childhood. The Gaza Community Mental Health Program Deir al Balah Community Center has…
March 28, 2015, Sisterhood is still powerful
The Al Bureij refugee camp is located in the Middle Governate of Gaza on the eastern side of the main north/south road, Salah-ed-deen, which used to…
March 27, 2015 This could be my reality.
The day started with a shock, it seems that today is day light savings time in Gaza (who knew?) and I have already lost an hour. This doesn’t seem…
March 26, 2015 part two, We Are Not Numbers
Because Gaza is so isolated with the long standing blockade and constricting siege, visitors are often asked to multitask as sherpas, bringing…
March 26, 2015 part one, Sunshine, sand, and post assault dysphoria
In another universe, driving along the coast of the Mediterranean would be one of those vacation dreams filled with fresh fish and relaxing moments…
March 25, 2015, What do you say to a mother who has lost everything? Jump into the sky.
Today I return to the Aisha Association for Woman and Child Protection to learn more about the impact of war on women and their families. I am joined…
March 24, 2015 part three, Passport toilet paper
There is a photo hanging in my home of a juicy looking orange hanging from a tree; the fruit is pierced by a large screw, a brutal metaphor for the…
March 24, 2015 part two, Happy (late) Mother’s Day Pink Bunny
When the taxi stops in front of a large institutional looking building, the Palestine Avenir (is that Avenue lost in translation or what?) for…
March 24, 2015 part one, The Most Massive Child Abuse In The World
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, has been given an impossible task. Originally a…
March 23, 2015 part four, I want you to see what is beautiful!
Through some personal connections in Detroit, I end up calling two cousins who live in Gaza City, planning to share with them my documentary film,…
March 23, 2015 part three, Patriarchy, addiction, poverty and the crushing culture of violence: The constriction of women’s bodies and minds
The UN OCHA data is blunt: The 2014 military operation in Gaza left 302 women and 582 children dead, 10,870 wounded, (2,120 women and 3,303…
March 23, 2015 part two, Kindergarten: see German definition: Children’s garden
Wejdan Diab, Marwan Diab’s sister, welcomes me to the Meera Kindergarten in Gaza City where the walls are painted Disney bright; I spot many…
March 23, 2015 part one, Running on Empty
I first met Dr. Mona El-Farra several years ago in Washington DC and I have followed her work and reports primarily through the Middle East…
March 22, 2015 part two, No time to mourn
I first saw the spanking new administrative buildings for the Gaza Community Mental Health Program in 2005; ten years later there is a rusty…
March 22, 2015 part one, Mish mushkela, No problem
The drive to Erez checkpoint is deceptively bucolic as the rain trickles through lush rolling farmland, vineyards, fruit trees, wineries reminiscent…
March 21, 2015, History in the hills: what keeps me up at night
The Shabbat streets are quiet and a cool cloudy day soon punctuated by a more serious rain greets me and my colleague as we take a taxi to Neve…
March 20, 2015, Schmoozing East Jerusalem style
Friday is a get-over-jet-lag schmooze-with-friends-and-colleagues kind of day, much of it spent in a lovely modern apartment in the Germany Colony, a…
March 19, 2015, Guilty as charged: I did once have a Jawal Card.
Two weeks ago when the permit to Gaza finally arrived the travel nightmares began, lost luggage, harsh Israeli interrogators, forgetting a flight,…
Welcome to Israel, Bien Venue
I often encounter some metaphorical weirdness on my flights to Israel, and, true to form, on my layover in Toronto, my flight leaves from gate E69,…