About Benjamin Kerstein

An interesting commentary in todays Yediot by Roni Shaked claims that the Palestinians have begun referring to their current situation as the “waksa” (or “vaksa”, hard to tell in Hebrew transliteration) as opposed to the famous “nakba” and the slightly … Read More

Moshe Feiglin, interviewed here at YNet, is a rightwing activist working hard to bring theocracy to Israel through his bid to take the leadership of the Likud Party. His Jewish Leadership movement has thus far failed to come even close … Read More

As with all things pop cultural in Israel, the Sopranos has recently come to an end slightly later than it did in America. Israel seems to work on a permanent two or three month delay (sometimes more) than the rest … Read More

Israel's Channel 8, which regularly foists documentaries and educational programs of varying quality upon us, has unfortunately chosen to inflict Israel's most asinine expatriate on the Hebrew speaking world. The irritator in question is Canadian-Israeli television producer Simcha Jacobovici and … Read More

The New York Times Magazine’s recent profile of Tzipi Livni is too lengthy to be dealt with in a single post, but a few issues spring immediately to attention. For one, the Times is once again (forgive the egregious pun) … Read More

Today’s Yediot Acharanot contains a lengthy article (thus far unposted and untranslated on the web) on a recent meeting between Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Liberman and NATO commanders in which he was reportedly told that, due to American and … Read More

[Note: Benjamin is the Shvitz's new Israeli-based correspondent. He'll be blogging here on a regular basis about politics and culture in the Middle East. --MW]  Living in Beersheva has its advantages and its disadvantages. Usually the latter loom larger than … Read More