Author: Iris Keltz
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The Other Side of the Green Line
Sheikh Mahmoud (courtesy of Nizar Khatib) The Stone House, June 7, 1967. Blessedly the war was short. I was a newlywed. Nineteen years old. An American Jew from NYC who married into a Palestinian family from East Jerusalem, Jordan after a very brief courtship— an unlikely occurrence. Faisal and I were busy planning our honeymoon…
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Grand Bubby Mom
that dark shadow stealing across bedroom window what is it? darkness creates uncertainty bamboo wind chimes tremble…. an angel? a messenger from beyond? spirit claiming a beloved? certain things cannot be avoided. mom’s death came late one day shy of her 108th birthday. Max’s death came early a youthful new father of 35. Max has…
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Remembering the 6-Day War
La JicaritaAn Online Magazine of Environmental Politics in New Mexico July 11, 2025 Fifty-eight years have passed since the ’67 War, a war I survived under the protection of a Palestinian family. We had no idea that the face of the Middle East had been irrevocably changed. June 5, 1967 I am a newlywed. Nineteen…
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Obsolescence
Message on a numberless birthday January 13, 2025 by iris keltz strive to make yourself obsolete your revolutionary ideas, commonplace your vision for the world, ordinary stretch arms and legs beyond fringy circles of the well-informed leave your echo chamber unlock the Orwellian web reined by confusion where truth is mythology and mythology is truth…
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Christmas is Cancelled in Bethlehem this Year
Christians and Muslims and Jews stand in solidarity with Gaza friends for the suffering and genocide in Gaza.
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I, Too, Sing America
“question mark” image captured in deep space by a telescope. Verse 1. I too sing America I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me,…
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Apartheid Separation Wall
A Palestinian living in Ayda Refugee Camp, one mile north of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, points to his trees on the other side of the Apartheid Separation Wall. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI visited the refugee camp and said, “It’s tragic to see these walls being erected.” The Palestinian farmer whose hand points toward his fields…
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We Remember
Zochrot means remember. Our group walking through a national park near Jerusalem with Eitan Bronstein, a rugged-looking middle-aged Israeli unquestioningly joined the Israeli army at eighteen. Years later, he learned a more complex version of history and became the director of Zochrot, an Israeli organization whose members erect handmade signs in Arabic and Hebrew naming Palestinian villages…
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Ayda Refugee Camp
Photo taken by Iris keltz in Ayda Refugee Camp in the Occupied West Bank. 1948 is the date of the Palestinian Nakba. Over 500 villages were destroyed, erased, bulldozed, destroyed. In Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramleh, Lynda, and more Palestinian homes filled with their owners’ belongings were given to homeless Jewish immigrants. Palestinian watched their villages…
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Gaza on my mind
I remember Gaza in 1998. I was traveling with a group sponsored by Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salaam/the Oasis of Peace. A unique village in Israel where Palestinian and Jewish Israelis lived in community sending their children to the same school where they learned each other’s language, history and customs. Our tour included Gaza. Abject fear made me…
Through My Eyes 