Review Archive

I’ve been privileged to call many places home in my life. I’ve lived in Israel and in Northern and Southern California, but chief among my many homes is Berkeley Tuolumne Family Camp. No matter where on the planet I lived during the off-season, every year of my life–without fail, and including one year in utero–we would make the trip to Groveland, a stone’s throw away from the West Entrance to Yosemite Valley, down to the South Fork of the Tuolumne river, where families from all over the world have a chance for a quasi-rustic week away from it all. Some 70ish tent-cabins adorn the hillside and straddle the river, with wooden bases painted a forestry-mandated café noir and canvas tarps acting as roofs. A dining-hall-slash-kitchen sits right about in the middle, where the 250-300 campers would sit together (family style) for meals thrice daily, served tasty eats by a cheerful

A boy bounced up a pebbled path between a wall and hedge as tall as he was. During the day, he enjoyed skipping up the path, but at night it scared him. He always ran through it at night. Skipping joyfully, he turned sharply to the left and ran to the door of the bottom-rear apartment in the multi-unit–but homely–building at 47 Sokolov in Nahariya, grabbing the brushed metal handle that always left his hand feeling a little gritty, and turning it until the bolt clicked in a satisfying way and the door swung open. The hallway–it could hardly be called that, he recalls–was tight, with doors on the left and right leading to the bathroom and bedroom respectively. A few feet in front, a large wooden armoire of sorts served as an all-purpose desk, holding the phone, pens and paper, and all manner of knick knacks that may have