Yesh Matsav

Recently I went with longtime family friend Steve Wizner to visit the law school at Al Quds University in Abu Dis, which is just outside greater Jerusalem along route 1. Steve is on the international advisory board of the law school’s clinics, and decided to swing by to meet with the staff to learn about […]

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Michal and I were invited to attend a seder last on Wednesday evening (erev pesach) at the apartment of a friend of our friend, Lisa. We didn’t know whose house we were going to, or who would be there until we arrived, but Lisa did let us know that it would be a mostly English […]

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This will be my first live, insta-blog. I’m sitting in the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, enjoying the free internet service, which I suppose is subsidized by the $2.50 bottle of holy land mineral water that I just purchased. As I sit here waiting for the flight, I find myself surrounded not by hairy […]

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My letter to the editor below was published recently in the NYT in response to an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof, in which he argues that good hearted liberals (i.e. his average NYT reader) should oppose the inclusion of labor standards in trade agreements because they will lead to the loss of good factory jobs in […]

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Blowing an opportunity with India Dec. 2, 2008 Kevin Kolben , THE JERUSALEM POST Like many others with India connections, for much of the last few days I have been bolted to my computer screen, trying to follow and absorb every development in the horrible attack on Mumbai. These are places and institutions very much […]

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Yesterday evening we held a small day after birthday celebration for Michal at our small place. To get ready for the event, I ran around trying to locate all those traditional birthday party necessities, such as decent goat cheese, charcuterie, wine, and of course some birthday candles for the gateau au chocolat that I bought […]

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This week Michal and I took an amazing trip to the Negev. We will write more about this soon, but I thought I’d share a short anecdote about the process of renting our car for the journey. We booked a car online with El Dan, one of the major car rental chains in Israel. When […]

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Recently, Ulf, Gabriela, Michal, and I went to a wedding of Gabriela’s first cousin’s son, Daniel, which would make him Michal’s second cousin. For Israelis, the wedding probably just blended into some of the approximately 2000 that they go to in the course of an Israeli lifetime. For me, however, it was a small peek […]

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Yesterday was my first day of Ulpan (language class) at Ulpan Gordon. I was told to come in the morning for the placement test, and when I arrived I joined the teeming masses of seekers of Hebrew knowledge, and was given an exam to assess my reading and writing skills. Needless to say, they’re rather […]

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On Friday I returned to Tel Aviv after 17 hours or so of traveling through four different airports – Dhaka – Doha, Doha – Amman, Amman – Tel Aviv. It’s not easy to get places in the Muslim world directly from Israel, or the other way around. I brought two bags with me – one […]

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