Have laptop, will travel.
Californian Jan McGirk yo-yos between the Middle East and America's Left Coast. Based in Jerusalem since June 2006, the freelance writer and investigative journalist is increasingly intrigued by the clash of religions and subsects in the Holy Land. And in La-la land. She worked as a full-time foreign correspondent for the British press, filing dispatches from the sub-Continent, Southeast Asia and Latin America for more than a decade. Her blogs and cyberpunditry have gained a wide following in the US, Europe, and Asia.
A book about life in the world's megacities is in the works.

Blog Entries by Jan McGirk

Herding Big Cats Won't Save the Wild Tiger

Posted October 21, 2009 | 05:47 PM (EST)


Tiger farming advocates say that legally selling body parts of the big cat could thwart the poachers. The profits for selling tiger bone wine to China's nouveau riche are so vast that now African lions are killed and smuggled into China in order to supply "mock tiger" for the...

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Flying Rabbis, Lady Gaga and the "Spiders of Allah"

2 Comments | Posted August 18, 2009 | 05:24 PM (EST)


Fifty flying rabbis recently took to the sky in an aircraft, blowing on sacred ram's horns in an effort to purge swine flu from the airspace over Zion. And now Lady Gaga has arrived in Israel, wearing a spiked Star of David on her black leather fetish gear. Truth...

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Swine Flu Outbreak in Israel?

10 Comments | Posted April 26, 2009 | 07:42 PM (EST)



Swine flu cases breaking out inside Israel? Sure, it's possible. An Israeli man, age 26, who had recently visited Mexico, has been hospitalized in Netanya, in the north of the...

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Israelis Line Up For Pizza Obama

Posted January 16, 2009 | 05:22 PM (EST)


Right on cue for the inauguration, Israelis are starting to warm to the new leader of the free world. I spotted this harbinger of Pizza in the Middle East by the brash Jerusalem blogger, Israelity bites.



They deliver. And hope the new American President...

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Israeli Daily Denounced by French Government for Attack on Obama

Posted October 29, 2008 | 11:00 AM (EST)


JERUSALEM --- Conservatives the world over are getting nervous as November 4th draws nigh.

A last-ditch attempt by the Israeli hawks to trash Barack Obama has appeared in the respected daily Haaretz, which has been noticeably tilting right in the past few months. An anonymously sourced news...

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Israelis Sending Word To U.S. Jews: We Prefer Obama

Posted October 7, 2008 | 03:49 PM (EST)


JERUSALEM -- Ardent grassroots Obama-supporters from Israel are out to convince Jewish voters in the United States that the Democratic candidate would be a welcome change in the troubled Middle East.

Israelis across the political spectrum, from leftwing actors to retired spy chiefs and generals, are challenging...

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Phony Biden Broadcast And Disturbing Palin Church Sermon Raise Alarms Among Jews

Posted September 4, 2008 | 09:40 AM (EST)


While the American media obsess about whether Alaska Governor and aerial wolf-sniper Sarah Palin is ready for prime time and national office, many Israeli political buffs have been scrutinizing the 2008 vice presidential candidates in light of foreign policy issues.

Today, Sen. Joe Biden's photo was splashed on the front...

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The Abominable Snow Job Of "The Obama Nation"

Posted August 20, 2008 | 05:57 PM (EST)


The anti-Obama rhetoric of the first stages of the McCain-Obama race has been laced with falsehoods, unfair innuendos, and sneaky appeals to religious fundamentalists. One of the worst examples is Dr. Jerome Corsi's abominable snow job on Barack Obama: his book "The Obama Nation." Unfortunately this fallacious book seems to...

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Huckabee Campaigns For McCain In Israel

Posted August 19, 2008 | 08:45 AM (EST)


JERUSALEM -- In the wake of the evangelical Saddleback presidential faith forum and just as the veepstakes heat up for the Republican campaign, 2008 presidential candidate ex-Arkansas governor and Baptist minister with a grin Mike Huckabee turned up for his tenth trip to the Holy Land. The timely invitation came...

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Obama In Ramallah

Posted July 23, 2008 | 08:26 PM (EST)


RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Barack Obama roadshow kept up its grueling pace Wednesday. The usual delays and frustrations that typify life in the "Muddled East" were effectively excised for the senator's 36-hour visit to the Holy Land. He kept to a strict timetable with about 100 war-zone-weary journalists...

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Obama In Jerusalem

Posted July 21, 2008 | 06:36 PM (EST)


JERUSALEM -- Excitement is mounting as Senator Barack Obama and his entourage approach Israel and the West Bank. This trip is much higher profile than his junket
here as a junior senator in January 2006. As America's first mixed-race candidate for the presidency, the presumptive Democratic nominee...

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