Jo-Ann Mort writes frequently about Israel and the Occupied Territories, most recently for The Washington Post opinion page and The New Republic about the current government.
Jo-Ann Mort
By Jo-Ann Mort
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Culture ‘Friends,’ Tel Aviv-style
The quickest way to summarize Eytan Fox’s new film, “The Bubble,” is to describe it as an Israeli version of “Friends.” But unlike the characters in the American television show, these 20-somethings collide with reality in a dramatic fashion. Also, it’s not exactly a comedy. Noam, Yali and Lulu live and work on Sheinkin Street,…
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Israel News Preaching Peace and Love, Armed With Just a Guitar
‘I’m here as a soldier of love,” reggae star Ziggy Marley proclaimed last Thursday, as he performed at Ra’anna’s municipal park in a suburban-style city in the center of the country, far from the katushyas that are hitting in Israel’s north and from the Qassam rockets falling in the south. It was the same message…
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Israel News Top Barghouti Ally Holds Court In City Abuzz With Diplomacy
Ramallah, when I arrived, was abuzz with diplomatic activity, the likes of which it hadn’t seen in months, since the Hamas electoral victory that led much of the international community to shun the Palestinian Authority. This past week, an American congressional delegation came to visit P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, followed by the French and German…
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News In Israel’s Largest Muslim City, Strife Stirs Complex Emotions
The mayor of Umm El Fahm, Sheikh Hashem, interrupted our interview to take a call. He spoke in Hebrew, asking about the safety of the children of the person on the other end of the phone line. Afterward, he explained that the mayors of Arab villages were meeting tomorrow with Jewish regional councils to discuss…
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News From His West Bank Oasis, Palestinian Adviser Talks Peace
Jericho is one of the few places in the West Bank where there is no wall and no separation barrier. Just two checkpoints, Israeli and Palestinian, stop traffic to and from Jerusalem, eight miles southwest. And yet it is, in its own way, a world apart. A desert oasis, just north of the Dead Sea,…
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Culture A Lebanese Writer’s Palestinian Story
Elias Khoury has enough to deal with in his hometown. The editor in chief of the weekly literary supplement of An Nahar, the secular, leftist Beirut daily, recently lost two colleagues: columnist Samir Kassir and publisher Gebran Tueni, both of whom were presumably murdered by the Syrian government. “Everybody like me — intellectuals who are…
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News Waves of Emptiness Mark History in German Capital
The waning sunlight reflects off of the golden dome of the Moorish-style Neue Synagogue, located on Oranienburger Strasse. Built in 1866, the synagogue was a center of Jewish life in East Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood. Today its insides are mostly gone, the combined casualty of Kristallnacht and Allied bombing, and the Friday night service is held…
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News Idealistic Newcomers Reshape Desert Town
LETTER FROM SDEROT SDEROT, Israel — On August 15, Deputy Mayor Shai Ben-Yaish will report for reserve duty in Gaza, just five miles away from his desert township of 28,000. “It’s a little surreal,” he exclaimed in a recent interview at his office in the Sderot’s municipal building, during a brief cease-fire and reprieve from…
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