My first journeys in the Middle East started in 1961 when I was just 13 and accompanied my parents who had gone to Jerusalem to attend the Eichmann trial. I spent most of that summer on a kibbutz in the north learning agriculture with the other kids. I studied in Jerusalem in 1966-67 when the ’67 war broke out, replacing our final exams. Clearly, it was time to start studying Arabic and balancing my education.
In the late 1960s when I was living in Brussels with Marc Zussman evading the war in Vietnam, we began our travels throughout the Middle East and Africa. Subsequently, I have traveled, studied, lived in, and written about North Africa more than anywhere else. My heart remains there, always, even when I’m unable to return. And it has been a great honor and pleasure when my family there has been able to visit and stay with me, at last, at my home in San Francisco.
Sources
Sample Papers
-
- Sages of the Zohar—in Darkness Finding Light
- Tracking the Mother-Tongue: Tamazight from the Middle Atlas to the Amazigh Diaspora
- IV Opening Space for Religion Ch 7 Amazighité, Arab/Islamic Hegemony, and the Christian Evangelical Challenge
- Seeing the Small Picture: The Middle East Through the Eye of the Beholder—with notes
- Kaddish in Two-Part Harmony: Sacred Space vs Sacred Time in the Blogosphere
Docs
- How the Middle East Works (Session 1): Four Models
- How the Middle East Works (Session 1): Fall 2024
- How the Middle East Works (Session 2)
- How the Middle East Works (Session 3): Fatma’s Lessons
- How the Middle East Works (Session 3): Dearest Hajoura—Lessons I Learned from your Grandmother
- How the Middle East Works (Session 4): Ancient Models, Modern Maps
- How the Middle East Works (Session 4): Baraka—Grace, Healing and Political Legitimacy