Raindrops keep falling on my head as I stride through the busy, crowded streets of Boston, Massachusetts. It's a late Monday afternoon in early September and feels more like spring than fall, mainly because of the hot rains we still get from time to time. It's times like these that I miss home the most. I am a daughter of the desert. It's who I am. I don't b...
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus- Mya: "Anthropology..., what is anthropology, I hear you ask? Well, broadly speaking we are interested in people, human societies and formation of culture. We draw on social, linguistically and biological sciences, the humanities and the natural sciences to explain human behaviour and interaction with societ...
My name is Janet Barbara Finkelstein and I was born and raised in Tel Aviv, deep within the Nation of Israel. I'd like to tell you about my wonderful new life as a follower of Islam and a part-time resident of both the United States of America and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Once upon a time, I was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Forces. Until I fell in l...
Note to Reader: The following tale is centred on the Al-Nablusi family, who are Palestinian-Americans, and it follows them on a journey through love, sex, spirituality, tradition versus modernity. The father Faris Al-Nablusi, whose family originate from Nablus in the West Bank but he was born in Haifa, is a professor of Cognitive and Neuroscience at Berkeley...
This story is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. THE WINTER OF 1946-47 was long and cold in northern Montana. On Christmas Day my father pulled me on my brand-new sled to a neighbor's house, where we borrowed a load of firewood that we stacked on our back porch. I seem to remember that the thermometer read --55 that day,...
"Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm someone else." Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass "Not East, not West, not North and not South- only this spot I am standing on now." Abbas Kiarostami "Yeki Ya Schehrezade! (Oh Schehrezade, w...
December, 2001, King Saul Blvd, Israel. Imi Morgenstern tried not to roll his eyes as his director of personnel continued his rant for what must have been the second year in a row. If Morgenstern didn't know any better, he would have sworn that nothing got done in Human Resources but kvetching. "We still have all of these new kids who come in thinking that...
Note to Reader: Hasbara in Hebrew means public diplomacy, we follow the story of Maya Ram, a Israeli patriot, public relations woman and sex addict. A secular Ashkenazi Jewish woman, Maya has had the finniest education money can buy. But money cannot give her the life education she needs and craves and the story that follows is the story of this life educati...
* * * * * Copyright Oggbashan November 2006 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. * * * * * The following are fifty-word essays with random thoughts on a Christmas theme. The title isn't counted. 1. Peace at Christmas At Christmas we speak of peace on earth, goodwill to men. There is normally more goodwill...
The voice just gave a greeting, in a friendly contralto. Halili's eyes left the flagstones and met those of the woman before him. He made a noise in acknowledgment, but he didn't want to speak to anyone. "You look down. You in trouble?" That was no large leap. Halili usually had a haunted look, anyway, but now he was sitting on the granite steps of the po...