Even half a world away from the conflict in Gaza, in an area code as safe as Khan Younis is deadly, I still feel the weight of helpless despair as I comb through the news—on Twitter, via Facebook, dominating the nightly news and newspaper headlines—broken only by fits...

[This excerpt from my book-in-progress seems tragically all too relevant given the latest violence in Gaza.]After my visit to the Arava Desert, I drove north out of the desiccated rift valley, headed west, dipped into and rose out of the earthen maw of the Rimon...

Despite its inevitability, it was the worst of all possible news today, from the West Bank, with the discovery of the bodies of the three yeshiva students not far from Hebron. Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Gilad Shaar had been last seen hitch-hiking from...

During my research, I've been curious about the impact of the kibbutz as an idea and an institution beyond the borders of Israel. Living or volunteering on a kibbutz has shaped the lives of tens of thousands of non-kibbutzniks, of course. But the idea of the...

I've been shamefully neglecting this blog, while busy with teaching—and also finishing the manuscript whose research this blog was set up to track! In short, the first draft of the book is nearly done. It's too long—by nearly 100,000 words—but then again, there's a...

For years, kibbutzes in Israel reliabley delivered the votes of their members to the left-leaning Labor Party (and its predecessors) in exchange for a guaranteed seat in the Knesset and (back in the days when Labor actually formed governments) a hand on the levers of...

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