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Short memoriesby David Wilder Rosh HaShana Eve. I was downstairs at Beit Hadassah, where I’d moved with my family from Kiryat Arba two years earlier. A friend of mine was examining emergency medical equipment in special lockers. We were killing time, waiting for the selichot services, special penitential prayers recited prior to the New Year, to begin. I must have […]

OK. This time of the year, leading up to Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, and then climaxing with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, it’s customary to repent, to come clean. So the time has come. Of course, the requirement to confess deals not only with personal sin but also with public transgressions. I’ve decided that I cannot continue […]

It’s been a while since I photographed dead bodies. The last time I remember clearly was the murder of Yossi Shok from Beit Haggai who was shot and killed similarly on a Friday afternoon a few years ago. That attack entailed a few miracles. I recall that there were others in the car, teenage girls, who miraculously weren’t hurt. But […]

Part 1. Direct talks The United States: Welcome to resumption of direct negotiations between Palestine and Israel.  The goal of these talks is establishment of a Palestinian State, the borders of which, to be agreed upon during negotiations, will be established according to the pre-June 4, 1967 boundaries. The sides will have an unlimited opportunity to express their opinions and […]

(As printed in the Jerusalem Post-http://goo.gl/p4RZ) A couple of months ago I had a little shouting match with some of the border police next to Ma’arat HaMachpela, the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. After a little while – when we had reached a dead-end – one of the regular police, a little older than the others, came over put […]

Welcome to IsraelAv 25, 5770, 8/5/2010 I’d already spent two years in Israel when I came back officially as an Oleh Hadash, a new Israeli immigrant. I remember it fairly well. January, 1978. Having finished university and done a stint on Kibbutz, the time had come to get serious. The plane landed sometime in the early evening. I was by […]

Av 17, 5770, 7/28/2010Consolation Eighty-One Years Later This is our consolation. We are here. We are in Israel, we are in Hebron, we are at Ma’arat HaMachpela. We did not fade away and dieThis past week I found Shabbat morning prayers at Ma’arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron to be particularly poignant. There were three […]

Av: Remember, never forget, Gush Katif – Five years ago Tammuz 29, 5770, 7/11/2010 Tonight begins the new month of Av, and with it, the next nine days of mourning, remembering the destruction of the two Temples, the Beit HaMikdash.It’s not easy to mourn, to feel deep sadness for events that occured thousands of years ago. We never experienced the […]

Tammuz 24, 5770, 7/6/2010 A Hebron Triple-header Yesterday was a triple-header. Three very different games. Sometime in the afternoon I discovered an item on the internet which, on one hand sent shivers down my spine, yet on the other hand seemed quite fitting for the days and weeks of mourning approaching the 9th of Av. The internet item sent me to […]

Whatever the price, whatever the sacrifice, we will not back down. We will not give up one centimeter of Arab landWe are approaching ‘the three weeks’ as they are known, three weeks beginning on the Hebrew date, the 17th of Tammuz, thru the 9th of Av (the 29th of June – 20 July). These three weeks are a time of […]