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...
Under different circumstances, I would have asked my wise friend Tally for advice on how to be a good friend to someone who is dying.Since I began writing this blog, my beloved friend Dr. Tally Kritzman-Amir has reviewed most...
My children’s cousins in the Jabalia refugee camp are fasting for Ramadan. On the other side of our family, their cousins are doing Passover cleaning. When I moved in with my partner Osama a decade ago, he told me...
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...
We turned our lives upside down trying to evade the coronavirus. It finally arrived in a weakened form, leaving us in maddening, beautiful isolation together. A sick day Osama left to take the children to school and preschool...
Children are aware of stratification by gender and ethnicity. They notice who works in preschools, who their parents’ bosses are, and who cleans public toilets. Rereading a book from my childhood Forat lay on her bed and lifted her...
“Do you think one of the neighbors would try to hurt the children?” Osama asked, trying to decipher the societal codes that surprised us both. Children should be seen and not heard A year after we moved to North...
"Ima, tell me a story about a lion that eats Adam," Forat asked me. She still feels betrayed that I gave birth to her competition. The birthday salad Forat sat at the table, assembling goodie bags for her brother...
In the four decades that passed between my U.S. grade school education and that of my daughter, Columbus Day lessons have changed, but not enough. A capital city that’s also a nature reserve I entered the apartment and took...