Toward the end of my journey I traveled north on the train to the Nahariyya station, where I met Rachel Tzvia Back, a poet with whom I have communicated by email for many years. Recently we published a correspondence in Bridges magazine.

Rachel's lines from her poem "Notes...

What is a city? A city is what has fallen. Been built upon. Or covered over.

Myths of cities: Troy. Jerusalem. Persepolis. Petra. These ancient places that are always built on top of one another.

My favorite sightseeing destination: cities that have excavations of the ancient cities underneath the ground....

The name of Ramallah means Mountain of God, and it seems true: God always wants a mountain. Isaac was supposed to be sacrificed from one, Noah came to rest on top of one, Jesus was tempted on one, Moses listened to the voice of God on one.

Though I'm madly...

What I promised was a set of reflections on practicing Ramadan in the so-called "Holy Land." My plan was to come to a city in the West Bank for the first part, then return to East Jerusalem before heading north to some of the cities in Galilee with large Muslim...

It's not hard to guess why when we went to Ramallah I kept reciting under my breath the poem "The Emperor of Ice Cream" by American poet Wallace Stevens. Stevens' short poem describes ice cream being made in house of mourning. Though there is ever-present sadness the poet still wishes...

I was driven from the sea through the mountains to Jerusalem. Where every street has three names that do not always translate from one to another. Street of the "Mujahideen" translated into English and Hebrew as "Lion's Gate Road." But the "mujahideen" are not the 20th century martyrs but meant...