Comment trail:

@ The Spine: Tel Aviv's centennial birthday

A song
and a picture:
Nature in
Tel Aviv------>















An interesting discussion @ Bob's about Hannah Arendt

@ Mick Hartley: Springtime there, and here

@ PoliGazette: Turkey's looming regression into darkness

@ Z-word blog: About Israel's "Arab Jews" and such like:


Just for the record, my own position is that it is possible to speak legibly about Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi or Yemenite Jews, but not about "Arab" Jews. "Arab" is more than a culture or a nationality, just as "Jew" is more than just a race or religion. For Jews who live in Arab lands there may have been some overlapping in taste in music, food, dress with their Arab neighbours but Jews formed a separate ethnic group which everyone was aware of and assiduously preserved. I would venture to suggest that while there are Arab Christians, Armenians (who are also Christians) who live in Syria do not designate themselves as Arabs, just as Armenians living in Israel do not consider themselves Armenian Hebrews.