Ticket to Lesbos
Gotta book a ticket to Lesbos, my bureau chief says it can't wait any longer. It’s April 2015 and a ship carrying 400 migrants from the island of Lesbos had docked the previous day at the port of Piraeus. Something is happening in Lesbos and I have to check it out immediately.
Is it as bad as one of my colleagues already there says it is? He has been closely covering the refugee story for two years and says he’s never seen so many people. “Something is changing on the island, something is changing in Greece,” he tells me. So I go to take a look.
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The latest on fleek vocab: 'Inshallah'
Instayam. Social fleedia. Leoing. Do you have any idea what these words mean? Neither did I, until I looked them up in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary. Based on what I found, I would probably only ever use these words if I wanted to seem cool and trendy while talking to teenagers.
There is, however, one recently headline-grabbing word that I do use regularly: “inshallah.” Its literal translation from Arabic is “God willing,” but it also means so much more.
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When 'Broad City' went on Birthright, and taught us all a lesson about American Jews and Israel
When Ilana and Abby from Broad City announced last week that they were going on Birthright Israel, my heart sunk.
For those who haven’t been watching, the show follows two young women from New York as they make their way through life in Manhattan. Main characters Abby and Ilana are Jewish, and their heritage is a central part of many of the show’s gags. Much like Golden Globe-winning Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the characters’ New York Jewish heritage is neither fetishized nor exoticized but is instead a well-integrated part of the humor throughout.
Last week’s episode showed the pair running to catch a flight, the destination of which was kept a secret right until the end. But we soon figure out that their “Birthmark” trip is actually Birthright Israel, the all-expenses paid 10-day trip to Israel offered free to all young Jews worldwide ages 18-26.
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