From the column, the grit folds way and falls from Saladin to sand the dust of more desperate eras. Of Karak, the gnarl of rock and favor between Jerusalem and Mecca lay film across a wasted earth. A request:...

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...I arrive in Jordan proper after they detain me at the Jordanian side of the border crossing and make me watch an hour-long Arabic soap opera with the Arab equivalent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and then release me without asking me any questions.

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To elaborate on my postcards from Ramallah last week, I first owe a huge debt of gratitude to my compeer Lilit at Heeb magazine for sharing the pictures with Jewschool. Ultimately, Ramallah is one of those places that some of...

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...As I witnessed with Hassan in East Jerusalem, people were simply curious; they wanted to know why we'd ever come to Ramallah, where we were from (ahem..Canada), and whatever other information we could relent in our limited speech. A small conversation would turn into a circle of eight or ten people around us (which was moderately disconcerting at times), but we were invited into the shops and given keepsakes of the capital of the West Bank.

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Mohammed is the vizier of the Faisal Hostel. He's not to be messed with. He is Palestinian and grew up in Ramallah. At 14, he quit high school and moved to East Jerusalem to work at the Faisal where...

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Downtown Ramallah My camera can't even believe it... But I've arrived. The circle where everyone is isually angry and shouting when covered on CNN, Central Ramallah Arafat and Nasrallah portraits for sale... Jihad posters! There's No Place Like Home......

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Hassan and I arrive at the Faisal Hostel in East Jerusalem after the place I've stayed in previous visits turned out to be full of drunk yeshiva kids. Walking across the Green Line to the Damascus Gate entrance to...

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I've been without consistent internet access as of the last few days, so be sure to follow me on the trust fund itinerary and travel log. It's like knowing where I am without having to hear about it at nauseating...

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An interesting turn of events at the Old Jaffa Hostel; I met my political doppelgänger from the opposite side of the spectrum. I emerged from debate/conversation some three-and-a-half hours later both floored and renewed. Hassan is Iraqi and grew up...

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...It's a small cobwebbed building that inspires a modest patriotism; you sit in this small room probably the size of the Oval Office (except it's rectangular) and wonder how people, so few people, would decide to be heroic enough to to actually sign a document that the world endorsed but their neighbors would never accept. You wonder why they keep signing documents that all its neighbors will never accept. Is the heroism in having that faith?

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Conversation To welcome a guest is better than to welcome the Divine Presence. The gates of prayer are never closed. Rosa Aver, 14, who died in Auchwitz. This is the story of a people which was scattered, over all the...

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...Israel is an idea. Hebrew and Arabic are its official languages. In its biggest museum, there are Monet paintings given from the Jews of Paris and Signac works given from Antwerp. Max Ernst has donated twelve of his own paintings to hang beside Arab artists, political sculptures and photography that encapsulate the sentient conversations of Israeli society today. Biblically-themed art is rampant and Marc Chagall is difficult to miss. There are names of Jewish artists you've never heard of, their dates of birth tend to begin in the early 20th century and the years of their deaths lay heavily between the years 1941-1945.

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I couldn't take pictures inside of the museum, so I took whatever pictures I could from the sculptures in the front and in the outside garden. You know, I was exceptionally moved by this piece and had to comment on...

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A Fight About Zee Fan by Alexander Bijou In most countries in the world, when the sun comes up, the temperature rises. For a great number of scientists or pseudoscientists (meteorologists), even this principle is not too radical. In the...

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Born in Iran, modified in Syria, fired from Lebanon; the Katyusha cannot hit strategic targets with accuracy. This is a close-up of what was struck on August 13. The house was on the corner of the major road that the...

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“Only I Get To Pick On My Little Brother” by Amelia Chandler-Lewy All armies are the same Publicity is fame Artillery makes the same old noise Valor is an attribute of boys Old soldiers all have tired eyes All soldiers...

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This morning I woke up in a four star hotel (thanks trust fund!) with a mini-bar and an ocean view from the 18th floor. I felt completely renewed from what I can assume were numerous hours of unhindered sleep....

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After the sirens stop, I give a vendor at the station my last unexchanged $20 and tell him to take his cart to the soldiers and pass out ice cream. He doesn't argue with me. I leave the station to...

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...The reality for a naïve Westerner arrives, a missile fired indiscriminately with no aim but for life has actually just exploded into a mountain of neighborhoods less than half a mile away. There are broken roofs and ball bearings and other unimaginable things pressing further in that morbid spectrum. It reads much simpler on newspaper pages, especially since it’s rarely this border’s story.

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Basics 2 - Large bottled water (liter size) 1 - Liter cola (they do exist) 1 - Blunt object with which I may remove the top of an empty liter bottle (in case...you know) 2 - Cans of Kosher tuna...

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In this week's Torah portion, I was genuinely compelled to find commentary from the rabbis that I agreed with, some insights that applied to where the world is right now and how to deal with the situation. I couldn't. In...

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At the site of the bombing everyone speaks in English so there I pretend to be foreign. There is no more grief only Top 40 music and drafts a half-hidden collection jar. At the site of the bombing there is...

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...His real name is Itzik. He was born in Greece and moved here when he was two. He has one son, three daughters, does not mention his wife. He normally works as a taxi driver and a bus driver in alternating weeks, but has time off because of the lack of tourism. He speaks English, Greek, French, Arabic, and Hebrew. He fought in Lebanon during the 1982 invasion. He is completely broken. He stammers and repeats increments of time to denote when he thinks the war will end, when there will be quiet, when he won’t stay up all night smoking and coughing.

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... At the site where Rabin was shot, I anticipate a crowd to be there (considering the day’s unsteadiness, Nasrallah’s threats to strike Tel Aviv), people appealing for a sense of strength induced by a scene like Memphis might have been for Americans in the late 1960s.

No one is at the Rabin memorial so I walk around the corner to the square where the peace rally took place before Rabin was assassinated. ...

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I decide to wonder who can teach a person to ever feel as powerful as an indigent street magician, as disquieting as a consternating chanteuse, or at most, as hollow as a faithless theologian. After all, how the lessons are constructed and how they are absorbed are entirely subjective and completely arbitrary, most people miss them, perhaps more than once. But sometimes they seem to arrive on unexceptional afternoons. Sometimes they have to be sought out. Sometimes they have to be bankrolled by trust funds. I won’t bother mentioning what was on the news when I finally got home.

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