saffo

ok so i stayed up late last night after writing my last post and finally finished reading the book. once i finished the chapter on auschwitz i breathed a sigh of relief... it's not that i don't want to know about the holocaust. it's an important reality of history for us to face. but it was just so emotionally difficult to get through. i wanted to clarify on what i meant about that in the last post... i have read many horrible things, but this book... hits close to home, i guess. for instance... Read Full Story

so i've been reading greece: a jewish history  by k. fleming  for the past several weeks. i was hoping to have it finished before the semester started, but i didn't make it that far. i definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in understanding the history of the creation of the greek state, jewish history— particuarly sephardic history—, the fall of the ottoman empire, the holocaust (from a non-ashkenazi-centric perspective), zionism, the nation state, and this complicated... Read Full Story

you may have noticed i added two new things at the top: "links" and "reading list." i hope to work on building these in the coming weeks if and when i find the time... "links" is pretty self-explanatory. as for "reading list." several friends of mine have for a while been asking me to write down recommendations for stuff they should read. i'm hoping to compile an annotated bibliography of books and other references worth checking out. i'm not sure yet exactly how i'll organize it. but... Read Full Story

you know, looking back on all my past blog entries... i can't help but feel embarrassed by some of the older ones... things i said that i'm not quite feeling anymore, reading different meanings into text that might not be the ones i originally intended, seeing the stories that and the struggles i may have unintentionally left out... but i think that embarrassment is also a sign of growth. i realize that this blog has, in many ways, chronicled a great deal of the growth i have gone through... Read Full Story

my mother tells me that she thinks about egypt every day. i tell her so do i. she asks me... which egypt? egypt today, or egypt in 1956? i tell her... both. i ask her... "what AM i?" she tells me i'm an american. my heart sinks. Read Full Story

i get really sick of biting my tongue around parents. so i just want to put this out here in general. if you have children or plan to have children and consider yourself to be my friend and/or an ally to LGBT people, please read this and seriously consider the position of power that you occupy/ will occupy. dear straight/cisgender 'allies' who have or plan to have kids- did you/will you just assume, based on your childs genitalia, what their gender is? did/will you assume that this child... Read Full Story

So it's my first post of the new year. A few years ago a friend of mine commented that she enjoyed the fact that I have a mix of personal stories as well as more large-scale political things on my blog. I haven't really posted anything personal on here in a while, so I figure I might as well... Part of what's weird about being back in school is the notion of "break"— that there's a certain segmented amount of time where I go back to being just myself and not a "student." Well, I'm on... Read Full Story

had a shitty day today. but this made up for everything. more info here . Read Full Story

Privilege is something that is deeply ingrained in people, to the point that it often becomes impossible for those who have it to see it. What might be patently obvious to the oppressed is often impossible for the privileged to see. One form of privilege that Americans have, especially formally educated ones, is the sense of entitlement to make decisions about what's best for others. Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than when it comes to Palestine. Personally, I have my opinions about... Read Full Story

this friday, the united states will have been at war in afghanistan for a decade. the united states has been at war my entire adult life. the united states has always been at war. from 1492 to the present, the united states has always been at war. do you remember where you were when it happened? october 7th, 2001. march 20th, 2003. i remember shock and awe on cnn. bombs dropping on baghdad. the people i knew and cared about watched on in horror. and we knew we were not innocent... Read Full Story