Monthly Archives: May 2006
Nomad Land
1. The wooden slats I call shelter are a thatch, a barn, a quiet cross over my heart. A needle can be the difference between a padding of straw blocking the rain over my head, and wandering. Do you know … Read More
Jews of the Mystic River
Not Poland, or Gan Eden But East Boston Where narrative is history And history is geographic Mensheviks Bolsheviks Trotskyists, of course Those who parse Gematria Or holy alphabet Build ships in Quincy Drive trucks in Chelsea Sew button holes, tailor … Read More
Aliyah: Trans(Per)forming Jewish Ritual
The body is nothing more than a garment. When they are naming souls in the upper world and they call out “So-and-So, the daughter of Such-and-Such,” no body yet exists, not even in the womb. Not only that—what about the … Read More
France’s Jewish Prophets: Alain Finkielkraut, Albert Memmi, and the Looming Crisis of Liberalism
French Jews have long had a privileged relationship with their country’s intellectual life. Sometime they have been an object of intellectual effervescence – as at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, which occasioned the invention of the very term “intellectual” … Read More
A Different Sensation
Poetry will steer me to another recollection, a different sensation: years later your image suddenly before me like a luminous landscape of yourself rising from the commotion of the street. In the unvanquished light of the sun we met like … Read More
Waiting for Broza
Sara kept her eyes on the passengers who got off the plane; she was afraid that if she took her eyes off of them, Eyal would suddenly come out and surprise her, and she wanted to look composed. She was … Read More
An Encounter with Truth
I was lying with my partner. It was in the afternoon… or was it at the crack of dawn early in the morning. We are starting to rise to the world. Embraced, Entwined. And without warning a radical truth enters … Read More
Leaving Homeland
I am back in the place that I wanted to get away from, with its self-styled citizenry; its self-proclaimed superiority; its forest of buildings that make you feel small. New York City: the place of superlatives, where anyone who’s made … Read More