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Our Strange Victory Over the Coronavirus: Quarantine Reflections

(This post was originally published in the Tel Aviv Review of Books in late May, after Israel all but declared victory over the coronavirus outbreak. By mid-July, Israel was up to around 1,500 new infections per day, amid talk of a new closure to stop the second wave.)    I knew that victory was near when my elderly neighbor sent a

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July 14, 2020
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My grandfather was a death row doctor – he tested LSD on Texas inmates

The following article was the result of several months of research and investigation in Huntsville, Houston, the Texas State Archives in Austin, and in a series of boxes of family keepsakes held by my aunts. The full article can be read here Eusebio Martinez was polite — even happy — as he entered the death chamber that August night in

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October 31, 2017
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My Gaza War

I rear-ended some settlers in a mini-van in the West Bank that afternoon, just before pulling into the settlement of Talmon for the funeral. There was no damage and we parted ways with a smile, joining the convoy snaking up to the ceremony. Hundreds of people were waiting in Talmon to bury 16-year-old Gil-Ad Shaer, murdered 18 days earlier on

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June 12, 2016

Knife bait at the park – watching my daughter’s blind spot

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Ask yourself: Could you fend off a crazed attacker armed with only a stick of sidewalk chalk? Could you subdue a man with a knife, hold him until the police arrive, and give a man-on-the-street interview that will go viral? Most crucially, could you spend an hour and a half at the park with a group of toddlers, without checking your cell phone even once? All these questions went through my mind on Tuesday morning, when it was my turn for […]

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Deadly force in deadly times

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The video that went viral in Israel on Monday left little room for debate. Three Special Patrol Unit police officers are standing outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, when one of them asks a young man for his ID and all hell breaks loose. The man, later named as Muhammad Ali, 19, from Shuafat, takes a knife and stabs the neck of one of the police officers and then jumps and stabs a second one, before he is taken down in a

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The spy who came in from the cold – to lead the police

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Roni Alsheich, deputy head of the Shin Bet (Israel security agency) was introduced – somewhat – to the Israeli public last Friday as all but a shoo-in for the new chief of police, finally, mercifully bringing the hunt for a new chief to an end. Alsheich (whose name can now be printed, saving us the silly requirement of calling him simply “R”) brings impressive credentials – a former company and deputy brigade commander in the Paratroops – he has spent over

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They came to watch the bridge explode

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Judging by the pre-game hype in the national press, something akin to the moon landing or the planting of the US flag on Iwo Jima took place in Tel Aviv on Friday morning, as hundreds gathered in the center of town to see the iconic Ma’ariv Bridge blown up and brought to Earth.   The situation on the ground at judgment hour didn’t live up to the hype, but it was a carnival of sorts nonetheless.   Ori Benaim was sober

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Blackface as racial solidarity?

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Every protest movement needs a great song.   Earlier this month the famed comedy trio Shlishiyat Ma Kashur released a protest video, a clip full of anger ripped from the front pages. A serious departure for the trio, “Ayalon Darom” (the title taken from the Ayalon freeway, which was blocked during rush hour during a protest by Ethiopian Israelis in May) depicts the three actors as Ethiopian Israelis fed up about racism in Israeli society, sick of being seen as nothing

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Looking for a quick fix to ‘price-tag’ attacks, human rights be damned

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These days, Israel’s leaders are desperate, or at least at a loss on how to stop a fringe element of Jewish extremists that has long figured out how to dictate the path of this country, no matter how few they are.   Desperation was the message put out Sunday by the diplomatic-security cabinet when it approved the use of administrative detention for Jewish extremists suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism directed at Palestinians.   A controversial practice, administrative detention involves

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Meek Mill vs Drake – Good for the Jews?

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(In light of the terrible, awful events in Israel/Palestine in the past few days, it was decided that a temporary departure for this blog may be in order) The latest hip hop feud has certainly been good for one Jewish Canadian (Drake), and very, very bad for Meek Mill, (not Jewish, and a native of Philadelphia, which is not in Canada). Now that I have your attention with that ridiculous headline (I worked at a Jewish/Israeli news site where we would

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Avera Mengistu – a flawed focus on racism

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For the past 10 months the family of Avera Mengistu has lived with trauma and uncertainty.  Their son has been missing in Gaza, his whereabouts and health unknown, with no sign of life. The fact that he crossed into the Strip willingly, and has a history of mental distress is probably of no consolation. They have also, it turns out, not been treated with the level of urgency and sympathy one would expect for the family of an Israeli citizen held

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Not our boys

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It’s a common refrain any time there’s a mass shooting in the US, which are almost always carried out by white men. The killer – if it’s a white man – must be mentally deranged, possibly even under the influence of harmful medication, something, anything that could explain cold-blooded cruelty on that level. This refrain has been repeated this week, ever since Dylann Roof walked into an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot dead 9 congregants last Wednesday night.

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Not ‘Israel’s Baltimore’, but real cause for concern

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Suddenly, a whole lot of people in Israel are talking about Baltimore. The city has become a buzzword in Israel for riots and protests against police brutality and racism. Coinciding with the publication of a video of an Ethiopian-Israeli soldier being beaten by police, the images of riot cops clashing with protesters and row houses in flames became a symbol to many of what could happen in Israel if the situation spun out of control, if years of frustration in the

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