Read an excerpt from Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram

Rasul Bayram's book Against the Tide, translated by yours truly, has been doing respectable business on Amazon. You can now read a four-page excerpt on Rasul's official site.

Here's to Perfection

Perfection comes in many forms. Shouldn't something perfectly awful be celebrated as much as something perfectly beautiful? Absence of talent can be just as monumental as its presence! So here's to the Mona Lisa of What the Fuck:



Once the initial spasms of laughter subsided, it occurred to me how closely the song echoes patriotic praise of Israel. In the mythologies of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, "no office were in desert no park were in desert no roads were in desert no cars were in desert" until the respective country turned things around. It's always interesting to see the similarities in the ideologies of sworn enemies.

Favorite line, because it's both poignant and hilarious: "students were zero now they are the million, hospitals were zero now they are the hundred"

Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated by Polina Skibinskaya

Xlibris Book Publishing Company has published Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated from Russian by yours truly. The book follows two dynasties - a Lebanese Muslim family and a family of European Jews - through the creation of Israel after World War II and the escalating tensions in the Middle East. The story of two families, whose paths cross through several generations, is a crash course in proxy wars, identity politics, religious nationalism, and the transnational human toll of the Middle East conflict.
When it comes to politics, Rasul and I don't always see eye to eye. But while I don't share his respect for Reagan , I can't help but relate to the relationship at the heart of the book. The story of the two families trapped on the opposite sides of the conflict asks the simple, but necessary question: when superpowers collide, who pays the price?

Emma Rosenthal Tells It Like It Is

Over the years, I've had many conversations with Jews and Gentiles, Zionists and anti-Semites, family members and strangers, trying to explain the -Zionist Jew phenomenon . The suggestion of our mere existence is often met with more disbelief than that of the Sasquatch.

But we do, indeed, exist. (The jury is still out on the Sasquatch - he might want to consider starting a blog.) Our existence is inconvenient, both to the anti-Semites who want to pretend all Jews think and act alike, and to the Zionists who want to do the same. What's more, our ranks seem to be growing. The more the Israeli government and Zionist organizations all over the world push to stifle criticism of their deplorable ideology and murderous actions, the more people push back.

Writer, teacher and human rights activist Emma Rosenthal formulates the reasons she is not a Zionist better than I ever could. She says:

I am not a Zionist because I believe in universal human rights and do not believe that the establishment of one more elite leadership based on nationalism, will bring about a more just world. I believe with all my being that an injustice to one is an injustice to all, that when one is oppressed, with each drop of blood that is shed, with each aspiration that is quashed, each of us is diminished in our capacities, each of us becomes more unsafe.

Read the rest of her excellent article Open Letter: Re: jewbitch ur a mental case? at Emma's Room.