Merle Feld

I don't think of myself as suffering from jet lag, but here I am wide awake at 3:30 am and during the day doing everything in slow motion! Relieved returning home that no house plants had died nor anything in the garden - the garden ridiculously overgrown with weeds but after two hours of concentrated effort looks quite sweet again... (more…)

What's missing from this picture of my time in Israel?

For more than 20 years, since the first intifada, I have always seized or created opportunities for activist peace work here - now finally, just pleasure and tourism for Merle? Not exactly, though times have changed. (more…)

I've been packing for over three hours, just about done now. I decided to do one last laundry this morning for the sole reason that when I am home I want the smell of Jerusalem's air in my skirts, my tops, my socks. One day here is like two weeks in the "regular" world (more…)

Taking a month for myself, virtually unheard of for me. A magical week in the south of France with a beloved cousin, and then three weeks in Israel - now only one week remains.

It's 40 years since I first came to Jerusalem to spend a summer, so young, in so young a country. Most vivid image - the dusty back-water airport, the chaos, the heat, immigrants arriving from everywhere, and, once done with customs, released outside into the blinding Mediteranean sunlight, overwhelmed by the tears of reunion we observed all around. We knelt and kissed the ground... (more…)