Off the beaten track tours • Visit sites • Meet locals • Discuss Human Rights & Politics
By Miri – The singer and actress Leila Mourad appeared in 27 films and sang over 1,000 songs, many of which became classics and reserved her a space among the greatest Arab vocalists of the golden age of the 20th century. Until today she is considered to be one of the greatest Egyptian singers, second […]
By Miri – When I’m guiding tours in Jaffa and Tel Aviv I usually tell the participants that the best thing I can do to further their understanding of what is going on in this region, is by complicating issues. Rather than providing them with a logical or linear version of history, my aim is […]
By Miri – One day I went out to show some friends from abroad the place I live in: Jaffa. That same day the Muslim community was celebrating one of their most important holidays, Eid el-Adha, usually translated as the Feast of Sacrifice. As we were approaching one of Jaffa’s main roads we suddenly heard […]
By Miri – Many people believe that Palestine/Israel is an unsafe place to travel and a lot of foreign embassies and consulates caution about visiting a region that is seemingly always at the verge of a new eruption of violent conflict.Most of the times locals will however tell you that it is completely save to […]
By Miri – General, your tank is a powerful vehicleIt tramples the forest, it crushes a hundred men.But it has one flaw:It requires a driver.General, your bomber is strong.It flies faster than the storm, it loads more than an elephant.But it has one flaw:It requires a mechanic.General, man is very useful.He knows how to fly, […]
by Fred Schlomka –The term ‘democracy’ is used today by so many people from different backgrounds that the word has begun to lose any definitive meaning. In particular the dichotomy between the reality of the ‘Jewish Democracy’ in Israel and the Liberal Democracies of the West seems to be diverging rapidly, resulting in a serious […]
by Neil GunnI was looking forward to my first visit to Bethlehem so it was particularly good, on that September morning, to leave my depressing Jerusalem hotel room and head off into the early sunshine. The Jaffa Road was coming to life and the ‘ting ting’ sound of the Jerusalem Light Railway could be heard […]
By Miri – “The army is the supreme symbol of duty and as long as women are not equal to men in performing this duty, they have not yet obtained true equality. If the daughters of Israel are absent from the army, then the character of the Yishuv will be distorted.” David Ben Gurion The […]
By Miri – Tel Aviv is frequently referred to as “the bubble”, and rarely anything seems to be able to affect its integrity, its sense of an ideal world. Not even a visit by President Obama.Except for the indifferent Tel Avivians everybody else in the region seems to have gotten excited quite a bit by […]
By Miri – Obviously the Arab – Jewish divide is by far not the only one in the area and there are way more ethnic or religious groups whose relationships are rather complicated, whose identities have been mobilised and played out against each other during the manifold conflicts that have been shaking the Middle East […]
By Miri – One thing that keeps on impressing me about Palestine is its endless local variety, its heterogeneity. You can be in one village in the West Bank and hear people making jokes about the particular accent of the neighbouring village, which is not even a kilometre away. As someone whose Arabic is far […]
By Miri – Anyone enquiring about the landmarks of the city of Haifa will most likely be right away directed to the majestic Shrine of the Báb and its gardens on Mount Carmel. Together with the Shrine of the Bahá’u’lláh near Acre, these sites make out the Bahá’í World Centre. Much of the international governance […]
