Empty Nest Expat

Loving Life in Chicago Summer of 2014 This summer I spent two-and-a-half months back in America. It was the longest I'd been home...

Trayvon Martin Sometimes events at home are so dismaying I can hardly bear them. Such as it was with the Trayvon Martin verdict. This ...

  A photo of the Beşiktaş Forum, a nightly neighborhood discussion happening in my neighborhood park and twenty other parks through...

I have a Kurdish friend, now of European citizenship, who says, "when I lived in Germany, I tried to be interested in everything happen...

The other day one of my American friends back home was grousing about a politician calling Christmas trees "holiday trees." Ther...

People of a certain age in the Czech Republic have had the misfortune of experiencing the full blast of the worst of the 20th century.  The ...

The Czechs had a phrase during communism times: "If you're not stealing, you're stealing from your family."  Since the gov...

Scratch any American and you'll find someone in love with the mythic narrative of his or her own country.  That's why I could never ...

Deported Czech Jews working as conscripted laborers in Estonia I haven't yet been to Terezin, the concentration camp that is frequently ...

Here's an article in the New York Times about the Jewish and Czech legend of the Golem. Click on my title to read it. Enjoy!