iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

“..the Israeli nation and the Palestinian nation live on this small piece of land that we have to share one way or another.” The Sun just published my interview with Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh whom I interviewed Last December at his home in Ramalla. www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/607...

thesunmagazine.org

To Remain

I have been thinking that people all over the world these days are feeling a sense of despair because, like me, they are seeing the destruction of the world as they knew it. But it has occurred to me ...

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

My essay, Zion, about being in Shangri-La Tibet on October 7th 2023, is now up at Liberties Journal @readliberties.  I wrote about my despair and about trying to hold on to hope. Because, really, what do we have but hope?   Read the full essay at libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

libertiesjournal.com

Shangri-La: October Seventh, 2023

I was in Shangri-La, in a village in the Tibetan Himalayas on October 7th, 2023. More precisely, I was in the Shangri-La tourism zone of Yunnan, a popular Chinese travel destination marketed as the “t...

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I’m pleased and honored that my manuscript in progress, Jerusalem Syndrome, was a semi finalist for the 2025 Hudson Prize. I’ll keep working on it and hope to find a home for it soon.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

“For many American Jews, being pro-Israel really has little to do with Israel.” From my interview with Shaul Magid for The Sun Magazine, in which he talks about his concept of “counter-Zionism” and why so many American Jews are more “pro-Israel” than many average Israelis. tinyurl.com/c4ukn8ra

tinyurl.com

Long Shadows

Hertog: How do we disentangle anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Magid: I certainly don’t think that anti-Semitism is the only reason people are out in the streets protesting the war in Gaza. You jus...

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people" Exactly 425 years ago Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for arguing that the earth revolves around the sun.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

On my laptop, I just came across this old document that dates back to the previous Trump presidency. These are tips for resistance and maintaining community. I don't remember where I got all these tips, but I think some of them are helpful... Do you have anything to add?

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

I asked DeepSeek if it's censored. It's own honest answer: "DeepSeek’s models are required to comply with strict Chinese regulations, including censorship of politically sensitive topics. For instance, it avoids discussing subjects like Tiananmen Square or criticism of the Chinese Communist Party."

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Reposted by Judith Hertog

High Peaks Pure Earth @hpeaks.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

She complained that life in Hangzhou was stressful and competitive. “But today I am Drolma,” she said, “a #Tibetan girl who is free and joyful and lives without care.” @jbher.bsky.social @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/24/c...

foreignpolicy.com

How Tourism Trapped Tibet

The region is becoming a theme park for the Chinese nation.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

“But today I am Drolma,” she said, “a Tibetan girl who is free and joyful and lives without care.” Foreign Policy just published my article and photo reportage about China's commodification of Tibet. foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/24/c...

A tourist dressed in a Tibetan costume poses by copper prayer wheels as a photographer aims his camera lens at her.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

@genesegrill.bsky.social 'Humor was central to her': Portrait of Hannah Arendt as an unknown poet, translated by Samantha Rose Hill and Genese Grill. www.haaretz.com/life/books/2...

haaretz.com

'Humor was central to her': Portrait of Hannah Arendt as an unknown poet

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

The LA Times has proposed to improve “journalistic objectivity” by having AI algorithms write “two-sides” of each stories. Soon we’ll have AI write our news, read our books, make our decisions, create our art... and then we can all just go to sleep and let AI live our lives. tinyurl.com/5xeyhjyk

theguardian.com

Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’

Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong also wants to include more conservative voices in paper’s opinion section

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

“Both sides”? Who decided that there are only two sides to everything? How about three sides? Four sides? A multitude of sides? “Two sides” was a cost-cutting concept media companies came up with to claim they’re “unbiased” when quoting 2 sources without actually researching the story.

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Reposted by Judith Hertog

Daniel Martin @fizbin.bsky.social · 22/03/2024

I don't know who needs to know this, but Pro Publica has an online thing that will format a letter to your US health insurance company to demand the records behind a claim denial. (which the insurance is then legally required to provide in most cases) projects.propublica.org/claimfile/

projects.propublica.org

Find Out Why Health Insurance Denied Your Claim

You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s free tool to generate a letter requesting your claim file f...

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

As an Israeli, I must say: there’s no denying Israel is committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon agrees.   To American Jews and AIPEC I say: Your uncritical support of Netanyahu hasn't helped the Israeli people. It helped these extremists stay in power.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

And don’t succumb to despair. Which is really, really hard.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

#20BookChallenge A favorite from my teenage years. I wrote an essay about rereading it as an adult.

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

And if your local bookstore doesn't carry everything you're looking for, you can order used books online from independent marketplace Biblio: www.biblio.com

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

#20BookChallenge Funny, smart, sad, subversive: a travelogue against travel.  I first fell in love with Diski when I read this 2014 essay in the LRB about her cancer diagnosis. Maybe the funniest patient essay I’ve read. Unfortunately,she died less than 2 years later. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

Cover of Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

“Pro-Palestine” activists in Montreal have succeeded in canceling the screening of a film that shows architecture's complicity in the Israeli occupation. Why? Because the filmmaker happens to be Canadian-Israeli. What a way to promote awareness of your cause and make allies! Humans are indeed mad.

filmoptioninternational.com

Rule of Stone | A film by Danae Elon — Filmoption International

If Jerusalem stone could speak, it would tell this story: from Imperial British bylaws about cladding with it, to the conquest and annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, and architecture’s role in maki...

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

#20BookChallenge To distract herself from the ruins of her own life and the disintegration of Lebanon, Aaliya sets herself the pointless task of producing literary translations into Arabic that no one will ever read. Appropriate reading now, as Lebanon is recovering from yet another war.

Cover of An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

#20BookChallenge I read this book when I first arrived in the US. It has shaped my view of this country ever since. A good Thanksgiving read!

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

#20BookChallenge This account of Alexandra David-Neel’s 1923 journey to Lhasa inspired my life-long fascination with Tibet. I just wrote an article for Tricycle Magazine, in which I retrace her footsteps and realize she could be quite arrogant, prejudiced, and insufferable. Still, she’s my hero.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

#20BookChallenge About the history of the Hmong people and their displacement to the US. About war. About the US medical system and its values. About the way culture shapes how we see the world. About disregard for other people's reality. About cultural chauvinism. About a little girl who is ill.

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

#20BookChallenge I read this holocaust memoir at age 15 and it has shaped my worldview ever since. Menahem Arnoni committed suicide not long after publication. Unfortunately, "Mother Wasn't Home for Her Funeral" was only published in Dutch.

Book cover of Dutch Holocaust memoir Mother Wasn't Home for Her Funeral

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

“Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you."  #20BookChallenge Stoner: I resisted it initially because I thought it’d be about smoking dope. In fact it's a quietly devastating book about life, failure and resignation. Few books move me to cry, but this one did.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

“Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you." I know I'm not supposed to add an explanation, but I'm bad at following rules The Jungle: An expose of the horrors of early 20th-century extreme capitalism. Particularly scary if this is what the new US government wants to recreate.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

A recent petition urged to boycott Israeli writers because they live under a genocidal fascist regime. Should we now start boycotting American writers for the same reason?   Don’t punish people because they live under a bad regime! Instead of picking sides and virtue-signaling, let’s forge bonds

Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

“I learned that people do not listen to anything much that doesn’t sound like their own voices.. You are either for or against.”  My friend Joana Chen published this call for nuance and compassion in response to two writers' petitions that have been circulating consequenceforum.org/navigating-a...

consequenceforum.org

Navigating a Broken World - Consequence Forum

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

“People will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.” wrote Voltaire, who was born exactly 330 years ago today, in a letter to his friend Louise Dorothea of Meiningen. In the years that have passed since he wrote this, people seem only to have gotten madder.

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

I just returned to the US after a three week family visit in Amsterdam. Has everything suddenly gone dark here, or is it just that we’ve switched to winter time?

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Judith Hertog @jbher.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I never took to twitter/X because it takes me twenty minutes to write a good sentence and twenty more to edit it down to 280 characters. Ideally, I then use a day of reflection to make sure I’m ready to release it into the world. But I’ll give Bluesky a try. (With still 40 characters left. Wow!)

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Today 35 years ago, my father died at the age of 88. This is him in 1902, one year old. Here is an essay that I wrote about him a few years ago: indianareview.org/2016/02/onli...

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I’m an optimist by nature but reality turns me into a pessimist.

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The biggest problem are the people who are convinced they have the solution for all the world’s problems.

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We need more kindness; not more opinions. Or is that an opinion? Never mind...

The one thing for which I thank Trump: He has cured me of imposter syndrome. Whenever I feel unqualified to do something, I think of him being president.

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I try to be fanatically committed to being moderate.