Leigh Cuen

‘They don’t hate Israel or love Israel. They just don’t know.’

By Leigh Cuen August 11, 2011

When the opinion editor of Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Ben-Dror Yemini, visited the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year, he gave a lecture tour stretching from the campus of Stanford University to the network of Bay Area JCCs. He talked about the things he knows: Israel, the media and multiculturalism.
“The main problem that I recognize here is ignorance,” Yemini said from across a coffee table in his hotel in downtown San Francisco. He wore a crisp black suit and round, wire-framed glasses. “They don’t hate Israel or love Israel. They just don’t know.”

Read More...

When Fiction Becomes Real

By Leigh Cuen January 19, 2011

David Grossman was in the middle of writing a book about Israeli parents coping with their child’s military service. Then his son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War. What followed was “To the End of the Land,” Grossman’s most powerful novel yet.

Read More...

Reconsidering Jewish Studies

By Leigh Cuen February 12, 2009

New USF program mixes academics with activism.

Read More...