Judy Halper, at The Blogs

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Nov 30, 2023, 10:32 PM

Bloody Thursday

Screen capture from video of an assailant, bottom right, stabbing Aya Abu Hagag in Lod, November 30, 2023. (X. Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

This Thursday, the seventh day of the ceasefire, was a bloody one in Israel. Aya Abu Hagag, a 24-year-old pregnant woman, was bringing her children to nursery school. She was brutally stabbed to death by a masked male, on a...

Nov 26, 2023, 12:54 PM

Hostage release is not a leftist plot

In the renamed 'Hostages and Missing Square,' Tel Aviv. Image, Yossipik via Wikimedia Commons

We’re at it again, even before the dust has had a chance to settle on the Gaza border. While tens of thousands of Israelis showed up to support the families of hostages and call for their release, commentators on...

Nov 18, 2023, 3:30 PM

What the media missed about Vivian Silver

Image: Facebook (Vivian Silver, Women Wage Peace)

Calling the slain peace activist naïve is a bit rich coming from those who sold- the idea that 'If you will it, it is no dream'

Nov 12, 2023, 11:27 AM

A story of four glasses, in five parts

Image: Flightless Tofu via Wikimedia Commons

Part one: We’ll start with the glass factory in Hebron. The glass itself predates our story, broken, sorted according to color, melted down and recycled into new glassware. The factory has been owned by the same family since the...

Nov 7, 2023, 12:26 PM

Can we say the P-word?

Photo: Yaw Kuma Ansu-Kyeremeh (Ghana) via Wikimedia Commons

“Peace,” went the tagline of the now-extinct pirate radio station The Voice of Peace, “is the word.” Peace, in those days, was something to pray for, something to sing about, an ideal that did not exist on Earth. Our...

Oct 29, 2023, 11:51 AM

We are not ants

Image credit: Amuzujoe via Wikimedia Commons

Last week I conducted my own private war. The fire ants that we had, as a kibbutz, exterminated, were back. The hot autumn weather – in the mid-30s (well over 90○ F) – confused them into thinking it was...

Oct 24, 2023, 12:15 PM

The three-body problem in our war

Here’s a thought experiment: Take a strip of land 365 km (141 mi) squared, one that’s populated with over 2 million people. Close it off with fences on three sides and patrol the fourth border, the sea. You have kept that...

Oct 19, 2023, 11:04 AM

Who will milk the cows?

Former Israeli chief of staff and minister of defense Moshe (Bougie) Ya'alon milking cows under fire in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on the Israel Gaza border during Operation Cast Lead, January 2009. (Wikimedia Commons)

Israeli citizens (and the US administration) are stepping in to fill the breech left by a failed and clueless government

Oct 15, 2023, 1:09 PM

Whose lives are forfeit?

Wikimedia commons, 2014

We leave the TV on, sound muted, just to check for the flipping orange rectangles, each with the name of a region where sirens are blaring. Rockets falling on kibbutzim that are empty of everyone but milkers and guards....

Oct 11, 2023, 12:53 PM

Don’t give me slogans

(Facebook)

After terrorists invaded and went on an hours-long killing spree, I need to know that you generals have a plan, that you can justify the price we're paying

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About Me

Judy Halper is a member of a kibbutz in the center of the country. She has worked as a dairywoman, plumber and veggie cook, and as a science writer. Today she volunteers in Na'am Arab Women in the Center and works part time for Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom.

Contact Me