Latest Posts

  • The Kibbutz: Dinner With My Host Family

    I had dinner with my host family for the first time tonight. For context, most Ulpanists, if they so desire, can ask to be “adopted” by a host family, a kibbutz family who will take you under their wing, invite… Continue reading

  • The Kibbutz: An Aside

    En route to a meteor shower, one of my classmates (who also knows the two couples mentioned in the previous post) tells me that the two women of the pair have been friends since middle school and that, of all… Continue reading

  • The Kibbutz: Some Politics and History

    I met a pair of couples this weekend and was able to learn a bit more about the inner workings of the kibbutz, and some history. One of the couples lives on the kibbutz, with the husband being born on… Continue reading

  • Two Rolls and a Bee

    I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being today. I had forty pages to go when Hebrew class ended at five, and I decided I needed to finish it before dinner. There’s a sculpture garden on the kibbutz which I absolutely adore, so… Continue reading

  • Kibbutz Observations: Two Rituals

    I was lucky enough to witness two rituals in the 36 hour period between Friday morning and Saturday afternoon that helped deepen my understanding of the kibbutz: a party, and a memorial. Lila Lavan The first was a party, called… Continue reading

  • First Observations of the Kibbutz

    I arrived at the kibbutz Ma’agen Michael yesterday. Thus far my time has been spent meeting the other Ulpanists (students in the five-month hebrew language program), getting oriented and acclimated to the program, and exploring the kibbutz’s physical space. It’s… Continue reading

  • A Metaphor

    What if we understood civilization as a prism, refracting the white light of our deep and true selves, our primal, mammalian, amphibian, vertebrate, replicating selves, into the many-coloured splendor of our collective norms, habits, and daily affairs? The prism represents… Continue reading

  • Smoldering Fire in Big Sur

    There’s mighty powerful influences around. I’m halfway through a two-day trip up Highway 1, camping out at Big Sur. Quite the quintessential Californian adventure, I must say. I’m not sure if it’s the setting or something bigger, but I’m feeling all kinds… Continue reading

  • I wrote a column!

    As some of you may know, I spent the first few seasons of college writing for Berkeley’s marvelous independent student newspaper, The Daily Californian. I was an arts writer, and at one point wrote a weekly column (“Painting With Thought”)… Continue reading

  • Idle Thoughts While Studying Political Economy

    Reading Dani Rodrik‘s 1997 essay “Has Globalization Gone too Far”, he asserts (during a discussion of common critiques of globalization) that “A common view is that the complaints of nongovernmental organizations or labor advocates represent nothing but old protectionist wine in… Continue reading