Uniformed children streamed out of the school building, the older girls wearing the thick, long sleeved, polo shirts favored by the administration because, unlike the boys’ button-down shirts, they can’t be opened to reveal a hint of breast. Adam...
When my daughter said that I speak Hebrew, a girl in summer camp pantomimed firing a gun and asked, “Is your mother one of them?” “Ima! There are kids up there, and they’re speaking Arabic!” After a year and...
The Israeli Minister of Culture gave me a Hebrew literature prize. I’m grateful. And trying to reclaim Hebrew from those who use it to oppress. Hebrew is not the private domain of the Israeli military or state A week...
In addition to the six Palestinian NGOs, Israeli officials branded my neighbor, my life partner and an ice cream company as terrorists. No evidence needed. Job Interview In 2017, a few weeks after I gave birth to Adam, I...
After a year and a half of anonymity, it feels good and also a bit scary to emerge from the protection of a pen name. I began publishing this blog in December 2019, seven years after I moved to...
We waited for hours, the children and I on one side of the checkpoint, Osama on the other, hoping to make it to the airport. Cleaning the refrigerator “I knew you would clean again after I finished,” Osama said,...
“I am a Jew married to a Palestinian,” I told the supermarket man, with a smile that I hoped was courteous, pluralistic and also conversation-ending. I picked up Forat and Adam from school and preschool. My ultra-Orthodox nieces and...
I wrote another letter asking for the travel permit, because it was my turn to make a move in this sadistic game of occupation bureaucracy. Waiting “When are you traveling?” asked my friend Sawsan. She knew about our plans...
Opportunities for relatives to visit from Gaza are the rarest of pleasures – even if they’re often shrouded in sorrow. My kids met their aunt. In 2012, the Israeli restrictions on Palestinians traveling between the West Bank and Gaza...
Kids from east Jerusalem take on their parents’ fears of losing their residency rights. The stress of the corona virus pandemic doesn’t make things easier. Three-year old Adam was screaming. Lately it feels like he is always screaming. We...