The Sunny Side of the Wall
Something new under the sun?
- By Cliff Keller — Just before dawn some mornings during the days leading up to Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, the highest hill in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ir Ganim has been visited by handfuls of Orthodox Jews who faced the Old City and prayed. Though...
Change, shortages and substitutions
By Cliff Keller — During Israel’s ongoing coronavirus lockdown, a refreshing, cooperative spirit, albeit mandated by law, seems to have caught on in the Land. Despite our new restrictions, Israelis are permitted to eat, drink, walk their dogs and take (prescription)...
(Black and) Blue and White
By Cliff Keller — We have been misinformed. Recent events suggest that the world’s oldest pastime, if not profession, contrary to longstanding claims to the contrary, must surely be criticism. Criticism’s probable precedence over all other human pursuits makes perfect...
Israelis test their thorny natures against the inconvenience of lockdown
By Cliff Keller — Due to the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, we in Israel are now, by law, “locked down,” a social condition during which everyone keeps his or her distance from others whenever it’s convenient.
Israel bears down to reckon with COVID-19
By Cliff Keller — The malls have closed in Israel. As of March 15, 2020 and recent regs passed to hinder the spread of COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus, so have all Israel’s gyms, public swimming pools, discos, bars, restaurants, movie theaters, heritage...
Irreconcilable Differences
Irreconcilable DifferencesBy Cliff Keller — In its Proclamation of Independence, Israel promised itself and the world that it would adopt, by October 1, 1948, a written constitution with which to govern itself. It failed to do so and that failure weighs heavily upon...
Dead Before It Was Born
Dead Before It Was Born - By Cliff Keller - Rajab Abu Siriya, a writer for the Arabic language newspaper Al Ayyam based in Ramallah, Israel, did not think much of President Trump’s recent “Deal of the Century.” In an article for Al Ayyam entitled The Enemy’s Deal,...
A Perfect Example
A Perfect Example By: Cliff Keller — The day before Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani’s first funeral in Iran, he had four of them, a friend and I went on a search for a good hardware store in and around the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Gosh. My friend Derek (not his...
Going out and coming in
Going out and coming in By Cliff Keller — Mornings are much different here, in Jerusalem, than the mornings Marcia and I remember while living in the States. Birds, for example, that look for all the world like pigeons—perhaps more like pigeons who, in their past,...
Providence and unlimited broadcasting…
Providence and unlimited broadcasting… -By Cliff Keller- “When I was young, I said to G-d, ‘G-d, tell me the mystery of the universe.’ But G-d answered, ‘That knowledge is for me alone.’ So I said, ‘G-d, tell me the mystery of the peanut.’ Then G-d said, ‘Well George,...