Last summer, I bought two paperback translations of works by Amos Oz from an independent bookstore/coffeeshop in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. One was Where the Jackals Howl, a thin volume of stories, which I devoured over the final few weeks of  my trip. The second...

Anyone who knows me also knows I'm a magaholic, and that there's little I enjoy more than a great magazine. (In fact, I take great pleasure in merely good or even flashily mediocre magazines, and my subscription addiction borders on the pathological.) I also get a...

I’ve been thinking a lot about cars the past few days. How they control—and often threaten—our lives. These reflections have been rekindled, in large part, because a colleague and friend was badly injured in car accident a week ago. I don’t know the details of the...

There is plenty to catch up with in news of the kibbutz. Most recently, Ha'aretz printed an interesting article about the evolving volunteer programs on kibbutzim—how more volunteers are now coming from places like India or Latin America, and how these new volunteers...

I'm going through transcriptions of my interview from June 6, 2010, with Abdessalam Najjar, one of the founders of Wahat Al-Salam/Neve Shalom (aka the Oasis of Peace), who now works in the community's Communications & Development Office. Part 1: History of...

Last summer, during a month travelling in Israel, both my first and final stops were at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam—AKA, The Oasis of Peace. This unique intentional community of Israeli Arabs and Jews, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has existed since...

That was the text, in sea-blue diagonal lettering, across the dirty white tourist T-shirt I was wearing when I arrived home, to Ottawa International Airport, after eight months in the Middle East (and two more weeks in England).  I had been living in Israel, but...