Three Reasons. . . Four Thousand Middle Eastern Women Recently a group of 20 Israeli women set off from northern Israel, near the Lebanese border, planning to walk to Jerusalem. All along the way they were joined by other women and two weeks later, 3,000 strong, they reached the Palestinian city of Jericho where they […]
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The truth about what is happening in Syria is complicated, full of contradictions and hard to know. The truth about what we should do or not do concerning Syria is simple, after we shed our biases. Almost everybody I know, here and in the Middle East, has an opinion, often irrelevant. I too, because […]
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The Solution We Are Afraid to Try A relative of mine who had earlier divorced in his wife, created a scandal in our family with his relationship to another woman. There were two horrifying things about the relationship. First they were a man and a woman living together and not married. Second, she was black […]
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Several years ago I was in Burlington, N.C., and needed a place to spend a couple of hours while my daughter was in a meeting at Elon University. Someone recommended a little coffee shop on the main street past the campus. There was, they told me, a comfortable place to sit and read my book. […]
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In its precarious position in the middle of the great upheaval of the Middle East, Lebanon faces four serious threats. (1) ISIS, ubiquitous and brutal, on its eastern border and infiltrating its cities. The Lebanese Army has already faced it. Soldiers have been captured, some have been beheaded. To make this really complicated, ISIS is […]
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I have a sister who is very ill. Actually I have three sisters, but this story is about “Deanie,” the second of four girls, the sister who is only 18 months younger than I. If this doesn’t sound like one of my blogs about the Middle East, hang on. In the end everything is connected. […]
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“On Sunday rain and sleet and snow fell all day and the hills around us turned white—from a few kilometers up the road, all the way to the top of Mt. Sunnin, and along the road to Damascus. Our house was oblivious to the cold.” This is the final paragraph of a tiny section called […]
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