All Blog Posts Tagged 'tel' (15)

Israel's president is no angel

When the residents of Kiryat Malakhi, the southern Israeli town whose name means “City of Angels,” picked Moshe Katsav as the youngest-ever mayor in the country’s history in 1970, he was 24. For decades he was the town’s symbol, an immigrant born in Iran who made it to the top of the establishment and was elected Israel's president in 2000.

Now it has been proven that they picked the wrong man.

Far from being an angel, Katsav stands convicted of two counts of rape and…

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Added by Matt Rees on January 1, 2011 at 6:44pm — No Comments

Israeli settlements: frozen, still cooking

JERUSALEM — Palestinian negotiators said again this week they’d refuse to re-enter direct peace talks with Israel unless the current partial freeze on construction in Israeli settlements is extended when its term runs out in September.

But as <a href="http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201007_By_Hook_and_by_Crook.asp">a report</a> released this week by the Israeli human-rights organization B’Tselem reveals, a real settlement freeze…

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Added by Matt Rees on July 24, 2010 at 4:05pm — No Comments

What do YOU think of me?

A friend of mine was lunching with a Scandinavian author a while back. At one point, the writer joked: “But that’s enough of me talking about myself. What do YOU think of me?”

Unlike that writer, I don’t care what you think of me. Don’t be offended – I don’t care what I think about other people, either. The more I write, the more I realize that I’m interested in myself alone.

That, I believe, is the necessary focus of all art – even…

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Added by Matt Rees on May 6, 2010 at 7:22pm — 2 Comments

The war Israelis and Palestinians plan

JERUSALEM — There’s an old Arab aphorism: “A man with a plan takes action; a man with two plans gets confused.” Apply that to the Israelis and to the Palestinians, and the nonsensical sequence of recent events in the Middle East starts to fall into a comprehensible pattern.

It’s not a pleasant pattern, because it leads to war.

First, before we get to the fireworks, let’s recap all the nonsense.

The…

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Added by Matt Rees on April 6, 2010 at 8:01pm — No Comments

Israeli settler sect: Messiah is coming

GIVAT ONAN, West Bank—On this windblown outpost in the hills north of Jerusalem, a small fringe of Israeli settlers strives to bring the day of redemption promised, as they believe, in the Bible.

A controversial sect shunned by nearby Israeli settlements, the Brothers of Onan believe that by “spilling their seed” on the land of the ancient biblical Jewish homeland, they will hasten the coming of the Messiah. With the Israeli communities of the West Bank…

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Added by Matt Rees on April 1, 2010 at 6:00pm — 1 Comment

Back to Israel: Recall what's foreign

When you live in a foreign place, it can become home. You forget how foreign it is.

Then you go to another foreign country, only to discover that it doesn’t seem so foreign. And you realize that the place you live actually IS extremely foreign.

That’s what happened to me during the last week, when I toured Germany to read from my third Palestinian rime novel THE SAMARITAN’S…

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Added by Matt Rees on March 26, 2010 at 12:34am — 1 Comment

Coffee cultures of Israelis, Palestinians...and Hawaiians

>I have a lot of good reasons for staying in the Middle East as long as I have. While the main thing keeping me here 14 years and counting may truly be inertia, I also enjoy being an outsider, researching my Palestinian crime novels on site, visiting the Palestinian towns whose atmosphere of violence, decay and liveliness makes me feel so creative.

But let’s get down to brass tacks: I’m here for the coffee.

There’s no…

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Added by Matt Rees on March 4, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Israel grapples with a new kind of violence

Good, old-fashioned murder catches off-guard a country always prepared for war

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

TEL BARUCH, Israel — It may surprise you to learn that many Israelis are only now realizing they live in a violent place. And they’re freaking out.

Not the terrorist violence for which Israel is something of a byword.… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 21, 2009 at 10:42pm — No Comments

Poetry from the ‘driest’ book of the Bible: Yakov Azriel’s Writing Life

A few years ago I was at a literary conference near Tel Aviv. I found an eclectic mix of writers on the panel with me. I’m a crime writer. You wouldn’t expect me to be paired with a writer of poetry who takes his inspiration from the stories of the Bible. But as Yakov Azriel read his poetry, I sat beside him… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 5, 2009 at 8:12pm — No Comments

Rabbis: No pie for Jesus!

Her methods may be kosher, but in Israel baker Pnina Konforti faces a bigger commercial obstacle: She's a Messianic Jew.

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

GAN YAVNEH, Israel — I always thought that by following kosher laws religious Jews only missed out on certain flavors and debatable delicacies. Turns out that by turning their back on “treyf”… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 13, 2009 at 4:57pm — No Comments

Israelis riot, thanks be to God

Orthodox Jews face off against secularists in the Holy Land — a sign that all is well. By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

JERUSALEM — Ultra-orthodox Jews have been rioting the last few weeks against a parking lot the municipality wants to leave open during the Jewish Sabbath, leading to dozens of arrests and quite a few moderate to… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 4, 2009 at 5:27pm — No Comments

Culture and harshness in Central Europe: Adam Lebor's Writing Life

Political writing at its best highlights the unexpected changes in parts of our world that are hidden to us. That’s true of writing about the corridors of power in our own capital cities, but it’s even more of a factor for a writer like Adam Lebor whose work – fiction and nonfiction – has captured the dynamism and double-dealing… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 29, 2009 at 5:55pm — No Comments

Netanyahu holds his line

Israeli Prime Minister ignores Obama and reiterates same policies

by Matt Beynon Rees on Global Post

JERUSALEM — It’s as if Obama never happened.

Less than two weeks ago President Barack Obama laid out his plans for the Middle East in a speech in Cairo. He called for a freeze on Israeli settlement… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 15, 2009 at 4:24pm — No Comments

The Writing Life interview: Alon Hilu

The most original voice in Hebrew fiction is that of Alon Hilu. His first novel “Death of a Monk” took a blood libel against the Jews of Damascus in 1840 and offered a startling alternative perspective on how the murder at the heart of the scandal might have taken place. The second of his novels “House of… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 3, 2009 at 11:55pm — No Comments

Tel Aviv at 100

Israel’s hippest, most tolerant city celebrates its centenary

By Matt Beynon Rees on Global Post

TEL AVIV—Purple fireworks sprayed off the roof of Tel Aviv’s City Hall last week to open festivities marking a century since Zionist pioneers began construction of the “first Hebrew city.” Watching among the crowd in Rabin Square, Marko Martin wept.

A German… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on April 13, 2009 at 5:41pm — No Comments