“Are you an American Jew, or a Jewish American?” The teacher’s question, posed to Marty Friedman 33 years ago on a teen trip to Israel, totally threw him. He could not answer. But ultimately, it was one of two “gifts” he received during the tour, he told a crowd at the Osher Marin JCC on…
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Israel at 70
Israel at 70
This beautiful, messy country … my Israel
Sticky arms and face from three popsicles too many. Dirty feet from running around barefoot in orange orchards. Hair wild from dipping in and out of the…
Israel at 70
Eyewitness to Yom Kippur War, Ethiopian aliyah and more
I became interested in Israel as a teenager. Lacking any serious knowledge or Zionist education, I remember during the Six-Day War betting an Arab…
TV & Film
‘By the time I visited Israel, I had seen 500 Israeli films.’
I was raised in a New York labor union Jewish family, and from my childhood through my teens my parents sent me to a commie Quaker camp, so I missed out…
Israel at 70
Acts of nonviolence can heal the world
This past summer, in the South Hebron Hills, a girl called down to me from the gnarled branches of a tree and knocked me in the head with a ripe, fuzzy…
Israel at 70
Israel’s world-class universities are a valuable investment
Israel is known worldwide as the startup nation for its technology innovation, second only to Silicon Valley for its technology success. According to…
From the J. Archive
What we wrote about S.F.’s Israel celebration in 1948
May 21, 1948 Birth of the State of Israel was celebrated in San Francisco in the Veterans Building with a rousing mass meeting sponsored by all the…
Israel at 70
How I met my brother
When our tour guide Gadi rolled down the window and addressed the security guard as “achi” — “my brother” — I was surprised that he just happened to have…
Israel at 70
My joy and my heartache
On a beautiful fall day in 1966, finally fulfilling a longtime dream, I took a train from Amsterdam, then a boat from Genoa, Italy, to Haifa. It was a…