For years, I spent the High Holidays in Fire Island. Beginning in the mid-1920s, this barrier reef about 60 miles from Manhattan has served as a haven for gay New Yorkers. Although it’s a raucous social scene from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the feverish party vibe dissipates by mid-September when Fire Island Jews—gay and …
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Shyleen recalls the moment that sparked her activism. A woman was giving birth in her backyard near her home in Kisii County, southwestern Kenya. As midwives hurried about helping her, passersby crowded around, gawping. What should have been a private moment turned into a spectacle. Even now, years later, the memory of it is still …
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It’s a relentlessly sunny day in Isiolo County, Kenya, and a few hundred villagers are gathered under an acacia tree, its leafless branches so dense they still provide shade. Set against the dusty, beige landscape, the women’s beads are an oasis of vibrant color. They’ve come from across Lengurma — a sprawling network of communities …
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Mohamad Mohamud lives in Garissa County — a remote, arid region of Kenya that spans hundreds of miles with little vegetation. Many who live there are pastoralists: people who rely on goats, sheep and camels to provide them with meat, milk and a means to support themselves. Most years, two rainy seasons are a welcome …
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“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” ~William Carlos Williams (from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”) The Pentateuch’s penultimate portion, Parshat Ha’azinu, memorializes the “Song of Moses,” canted by the great leader on the day of his death. An epic poem …
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