Category: Featured Articles

50,000 Steps in a City Where the Sidewalk Never Ends

by adminin Featured Articles, Writing
THE New York Times
In Montevideo, Uruguay, the nearly 14-mile waterside promenade La Rambla serves as an outdoor living room for locals. It’s also a perfect antidote to visitors’ winter blues.
Photographs by Tali Kimelman
Photographs by Tali Kimelman
La Rambla draws Montevideanos to the shore of the Río de la Plata to bask in the sun of the Southern Hemisphere summer.

For a window into the soul of a city, take a stroll along the waterfront: Think of the Seine walkways in Paris, the Copacabana promenade in Rio or the Charles River Esplanade in Boston. Or the nearly 14-mile palm-fringed ribbon called La Rambla, in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

One of the longest sidewalks in the world, La Rambla meanders along the shimmering estuary Río de la Plata, past beaches, wine bars and purple-blossomed jacaranda trees, statues and sculptures, soccer matches and friends engrossed in conversations over cups of yerba mate.

If you go in the summer — as the Northern Hemisphere shivers in the cold — you may find yourself part of a mass migration of locals toting folding chairs to the promenade, turning it into, essentially, the city’s outdoor living room.

People sitting along a stretch of curved sea wall above rocky waters. In the foreground, two men in black T-shirts are sitting on folding chairs. There is a white dog in one man’s lap. In the background, there is an old church and a line of high-rise buildings.
A section of La Rambla near the Old City. Locals bring folding chairs, pets and cups of mate to socialize along the promenade.

The promenade stitches together different pieces of Montevideo, a city of about 1.3 million, socially as well as geographically. On it, you’ll find Uruguayans from all social strata. It’s “the city’s thermometer,” as Natalia Jinchuk, a Montevideo native and author, described it to me.

With my own thermometer dipping and my imagination stoked, I planned an early-winter long weekend in Montevideo, a flower-speckled city that melds Old World and Modernist architecture, to boost my spirits with my own ramble on La Rambla.

A brightly lit amusement-park ride spins people sitting in chairs above the ground as the sun sets over the skyline of a city and the water next to it.
The amusement park at Parque Rodó.

On a balmy Friday morning, I set out on foot from my home base, the Palladium Business Hotel, at the edge of the fashionable Pocitos neighborhood, and headed toward Parque Rodó, an urban gem of a park a few miles west along La Rambla.

The red-and-white-striped promenade runs between a busy road and the Río de la Plata, a wide waterway separating Uruguay and Argentina. The path follows a roughly west-east axis, changing names as it winds from the Capurro neighborhood, northwest of the Old City to the high-end Carrasco area in the east. The most popular section runs from the Old City to Pocitos.

Sailboats moored on a glassy bay, their bare masts silhouetted against a partly cloudy pinkish sky.
The Yacht Club Uruguayo, near the Pocitos neighborhood.

Heading west on La Rambla, I saw sailboats bobbing outside the century-old Yacht Club Uruguayo. Women sat on a grassy knoll, their young children toddling about. Two friends on a bench appeared to be deep in conversation over bread and strawberries. A couple sipped a cup of maté, a caffeinated drink common in South America, from the same metal straw. Near a busy skateboard park, I passed some food trucks, including Soy Pepe el Rey de las Tortafritas (chuckle-inducing translation: I Am Pepe, the King of Fried Bread). At the Playa de los Pocitos, a handful of shirtless men played soccer on the sand. I stopped in front of a granite plaque to read “Sonnet to a Palm,” by the Uruguayan poet Juana de Ibarbourou, and was moved by its final stanza likening a palm tree to an eternal homeland.

A palm-tree-covered hillside is bathed in golden light beneath a blue sky. The bottom of the hill slopes into a small lake.
Parque Rodó includes a lake where you can rent a paddleboat.

Parque Rodó, the destination on that leg of my ramble, includes an amusement park, a lake where you can rent a paddleboat, a “castle” housing a small children’s library, the National Museum of the Visual Arts and a modest flea market. I happened upon a small plaza with benches ringing an octagonal water fountain; both bore tiles embellished with arabesque designs that reminded me of the Middle East. I rested on a bench, enjoying the feel of the tiles, hot beneath my bare legs, and thought of the winter winds howling back in the United States.

A broad five-story building built of warm, gray stone with two towers and a glassy top floor between them. There is a wide plaza in front, with geometric designs in red tiles.
The architecture of Montevideo ranges from Old World to Modernist, with many beautiful buildings lining La Rambla.

La Rambla strings together neighborhoods with distinct architectural styles as well as heritage sites and parks. With dozens of statues and other works of art, it is a tentative candidate for UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites — its entry calls it “a veritable open-air gallery.”

Some have described La Rambla as a through line uniting the country’s past, present and future; the Uruguayan artist and writer Gustavo Remedi said the promenade ties together a city that “has a tendency to fall apart.” Marcello Figueredo, the author of the nonfiction book “Rambla,” which offers a detailed look at the waterfront walkway, told me the promenade was “both a limit and an escape,” a border between Montevideo and the rest of the world.

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Back on city streets, I headed toward the Pocitos neighborhood, wandering garden-like lanes rich with architectural details: the contrasting lines and curves of Art Deco, Venetian and oriel windows, and red roofs. I glimpsed hand-painted floor tiles and smelled caramelized sugar through the open doorway of Camomila, where I enjoyed a lemon tart and a cortado in a small, sun-dappled courtyard.

A bartender wearing a dark apron, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a dark brimmed hat is holding a small torch next to a tall, icy drink with mint and an orange slice on top.
The motto of Dalí, a bar in Pocitos whose name is inspired by the painter, is “There is nothing more surreal than reality.”
A woman holds a deck of tarot cards fanned out in one hand. The “El Diablo” card, which has a picture of a person holding a butterfly beneath two grasping hands, is on top of the deck.
The Dalí bar does one-card tarot readings using a replica of the deck created by Salvador Dalí.

On my way back to La Rambla, I stopped at a small secondhand store, 3B Bueno Bonito Barato (Good Cute Cheap). Though it was narrow and cluttered, I found some gems, including a pink bolero embroidered with jade vines and orange, yellow and blue flowers, a design that evoked the jacaranda blossoms piling up outside on the sidewalk like drifts of snow.

Just down the street, Dalí, a kitschy bar and tapas restaurant, caught my eye with the tagline “There is nothing more surreal than reality,” and everything inside flowed from that: When someone ordered the Jamaica cocktail, Bob Marley’s “Is This Love?” blasted from the speakers as a singing waitress delivered the red, yellow and green drink; everyone joined in, belting out the lyrics. The waitress also offered one-card tarot readings using a replica of the deck Salvador Dalí created. I drew the magician, which, she told me, signaled that if I believe in my own powers, I will manifest my dreams. And I thought I’d just stopped in for a drink.

A woman wearing flowered pants, a pink top, a gray bucket hat and a bright yellow fanny pack on the front walks with other people down a brick-paved street lined with coffee shops, stores and benches, where people relax and look at their phones.
The Old City of Montevideo, near the Port Market.

You can’t go far in Montevideo without smelling smoke from the city’s many steakhouses, or parrillas, grilling meat over wood fires. Much of that aroma comes from the Port Market, a maze of restaurants and bars in a hall with a wrought-iron roof made in Liverpool and shipped to Uruguay in the 1860s.

The market, wedged between La Rambla and the Old City, would be a seven-mile walk west from my hotel along the winding promenade, so when I set out on Saturday, I plotted a shortcut through city streets, with plans to rejoin the promenade at the market.

Three people are sitting at a bar where, in the background, sausages and other meats are being grilled.
Meat lovers converge on the Port Market, where they can eat grilled delicacies at parrillas, or steakhouses.

Near the city center, I was delighted to discover Uruguayans practicing their tango moves for an impromptu audience at Juan Pedro Fabini Square — named for the engineer who proposed La Rambla to the city in 1922. After passing a stone gateway to the Old City, I browsed tables displaying local art and handmade jewelry along the main pedestrian thoroughfare that connects the Old City and La Rambla.

Then I heard the sound of candombe, a style of Afro-Uruguayan music, coming from a side street. Men decked out in white and blue, and women wearing white turbans, appeared. The men banged drums, and the women swooshed their flowing white skirts back and forth to the rhythm. Candombe is ubiquitous during Montevideo’s carnival, which runs from January to March.

Eventually, I arrived at the Port Market, which Mr. Figueredo, the author of “Rambla,” calls a “smoke-filled temple.” Though meat is indeed god at the market, even vegetarians will feel a sense of awe. Diners sit elbow-to-elbow at bars that ring grills beneath ornate iron arches, the sun filtering in through skylights. In the cathedral-like space, it was hard to tell the difference between indoors and outdoors.

A wide, crescent-shaped beach lined with tall modern-looking buildings, most of which have large windows and balconies. People are lying on the sand and swimming among the low waves offshore.
Pocitos Beach with La Rambla in the background.

Having clocked more than 50,000 steps in two days, I decided to spend Sunday relaxing in the section of La Rambla alongside the well-heeled Punta Carretas area, which juts out into the Río de la Plata not far from the Old City.

At Baco Vino y Bistro, I tried crostini topped with local goat cheese alongside a glass of Uruguayan tannat, the country’s national wine. Dark red, rich with fruit, the wine packs a tannin-filled punch with each sip.

Back on La Rambla, I couldn’t resist checking out Artico, a cafeteria-style fast-seafood restaurant right along the shore packed with delicacies like quinoa with shrimp, Galician-style squid, and an inventive, savory pumpkin pionono filled with tuna, cream cheese, arugula, bell pepper, onion and black olives — all priced by weight.

A child in a yellow T-shirt kicks a soccer ball on a grassy field overlooking the water at sunset. Two people are sitting on folding chairs, while others are strolling and sitting in the grass nearby.
Enjoying the sunset in the Punta Carretas neighborhood. Soccer is one of the most popular ways to spend the long summer days along La Rambla.

La Rambla was in full swing: It was the weekend before Uruguay’s elections, and a celebratory mood prevailed. Music blared from beneath canopies, and supporters of politicians from all sides handed out the same thing to passers-by: the blue-and-white Uruguayan flag with a tiny sun in the corner. Cars honked as they passed; everyone waved and smiled.

Down on the beach, people played soccer and volleyball, vendors sold cotton candy and candied apples, and clumps of friends, many sitting in those ubiquitous folding chairs, passed around wine bottles. Laying a towel on the sand, I peeled off my dress to reveal a skimpy one-piece I’d bought in Pocitos, and claimed a prime spot in Montevideo’s outdoor living room.

A couple sits arm in arm, leaning back along a stone wall next to a bench and a column. They’re looking out over the blue water, which extends to the horizon.
Locals use La Rambla for sports, celebrations, socializing and, of course, for enjoying the view with loved ones.

I’m Israeli, my ex-husband is Palestinian – and our union has never been stronger

by adminin Featured Articles, Writing
THE GAURDIAN
At this moment, no one understands our pain better than one another. My ex-husband and I are both clinging to what’s most familiar: the two of us, our kids, our family.

It’s a Monday afternoon – just two weeks since 7 October – and I’m floating somewhere outside myself as I teach my weekly multimedia class at the university. I hear myself cracking jokes and responding to students’ questions. I feel myself smiling. But when I look down at my arms and hands as I pack up at the end of class, I don’t recognize my own body. There’s that familiar golden peachy tone, that skin that took Tel Aviv’s sun so many years ago, and carried it back with me to the US. And yet, I can’t quite place these particular arms and hands.

But the phone, the phone is familiar. After I wave my last student goodbye, I pull it from my purse and read the latest messages. My ex-boyfriend in Tel Aviv – an Israeli vegan, anti-Zionist pacifist – tells me he’s now looking for a stun gun for self-protection. Another friend, a photojournalist who lives in the north, not far from where Israel has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah, is searching for a bullet proof vest. He’s driving around with an axe in the back of his car, he adds, punctuating the sentence with the laugh-till-you-cry emoji. I send messages to my distant cousin in Pardes Hanna, a laidback town between Tel Aviv and Haifa, asking about her and her family, and to one of my closest friends, who lives in Eilat – a city that will soon be under rocket fire from Yemen. All over the country, my loved ones are terrified.

Tears start to fall down my cheeks, my eyes leaking uncontrollably again, as they have for weeks now.

Then I check the news and I see that the country I lived in for almost a decade, the place where I became the adult I am today, the state I’m a citizen of, is pummeling Palestinians in Gaza, and thousands of civilians are dying.

I am Israeli. My ex-husband and our two children are Palestinian.

The evening of 7 October was the last time I managed to go grocery shopping; since then, Mohamed – my Palestinian ex-husband – has been haphazardly picking up just enough food for us to keep feeding our two children, aged seven and six.

Not only did Mohammed take up grocery shopping without any discussion, but he is living with us again now, despite the fact that we’re divorced.

Since the fall of 2022, Mohamed and I have been trying to follow a custody arrangement sometimes referred to as “bird nesting”, in which the children stay in one place and the parents rotate in and out – keeping the children under one roof at all times but ensuring that the parents never are.

We have all but remarried

The small home I share with our children, our dog and our cat has served as the nest or home base; prior to 7 October, Mohamed lived, most of the time, with his brother, coming and staying with the kids when I was out of town for work or in the rare event that I was gone for leisure. Our parting was, for the most part, amicable, and there was the occasional family dinner and sleepover. But in the end, he always went back to his brother’s.

Since the war began, however, we have all but remarried. At this moment, no one understands our pain better than one another. In the midst of our shared grief, we both reach for and cling to the thing that is most familiar – the two of us, our kids, our family.

On 6 October, I was wrapping up a work trip to the Seattle area. Anxious to get home to my children and worried I’d somehow miss my flight, I woke in the middle of the night. When I picked up the phone to check the time, I saw a notification from my ex-boyfriend, who has remained one of my closest friends.

“In case you wondered,” he wrote in Hebrew, “I’m OK.”

Oh God.

I knew to check the news. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

After arriving at Seattle’s airport at 6am, I called Mohamed, who had just woken up.

“Did you see what happened back home?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s gonna get bad.”

“Get bad?” I bristled. “It’s already horrible.” Terrifyingscenes flashed through my head: people hiding in their homes, sending frantic WhatsApp messages to loved ones – “I hear shooting” – and the heartbreaking goodbyes rendered over text – “I love you.”

But I knew what Mohamed meant: it was going to get bad for the Palestinians. I told him he was right because I, too, feared Israel’s response. The brutality of the Hamas attack, I knew, would give the Israeli government carte blanche, a sense of absolute immunity to do whatever the hell they wanted to Gaza. And, certainly, we’d see some sort of crackdown in the West Bank, as well as violent acts of revenge.

Whatever happened, I knew, it was going to be a disaster for both sides. A selfish thought ran through my head: we’re never going to go home again.

Mohamed’s family lives in Ramallah, which is where Mohamed and I first met. It was 2011, and I was visiting to report a story about the Palestinian Authority’s bid for an upgrade of its status at the UN. He was a journalist; my Arabic was weak and I needed a translator. A friend connected us, and we felt the sparks right away. I was living in Tel Aviv then, but by the time we started dating in 2013, I’d moved to Jerusalem and was teaching at a Palestinian university in the West Bank.

Despite the fact that my professional work and personal life was increasingly rooted among the Palestinians, our courtship was fraught. Mohamed’s father had been a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israelis had arrested, tortured and deported him from the West Bank to Jordan in the late 1970s; the family had only been able to return from their forced exile in 1997, several years after the Oslo Accords had been signed.

When Mohamed told his father that he intended to marry not just a Jewish woman but one who held Israeli citizenship, his father rejected the match. Unable to live in the family home together in the West Bank and unable to live together legally inside of Israel, we left in 2014 and came to Florida, where we married and had our two children.

The last time we were back as a family was in late 2016, when our daughter was nine months old. We were unable to enter together as a family. For the first time since she was born, my daughter spent a day away from me as she and Mohamed traveled through the only crossing Mohamed can use as a Palestinian, Allenby Bridge, which just so happens to be one of the only crossings I can’t use as an Israeli. We reunited in Ramallah, where Mohamed registered our daughter as a Palestinian.

Today, our situation, which was already complicated, seems impossibly so.

Wanting to bring a sense of normalcy to our home on this side of the ocean, I picked up some groceries on my way back from the airport: fixings for tacos, quesadillas and guacamole. That would be the last time I would manage to go to the store for over two weeks.

That night, Mohamed and I made dinner together as the kids watched a movie; we sat down as a family to eat. Afterwards, there was no talk about him leaving. In the morning, we agreed we wanted to give the kids a sense of calm and normalcy, so we decided to take them to the beach.

On the way there, Mohamed and I had a conversation in code, with me relying on what little Arabic I’ve retained in the nine years since we left the West Bank. I told him that what happened on 7 October wasn’t muqawamah, resistance. It’s a crime. And if it’s considered muqawamah well, then, I guess I don’t support resistance. Fine, don’t call me a leftist any more. I don’t care.

Yes, I’m an Israeli citizen but Palestine is part of them, part of us, part of me

In the front seat, I babble incoherently but quietly in my strange mix of English, Arabic and Hebrew – the latter of which Mohamed doesn’t fully understand – until our daughter asks from the back: “What’s going on?”

She’s seven. She’s smart. She’s just finished reading the entire Harry Potter series.

“There’s a war in Israel,” I say.

“Oh,” she says. “Who are they fighting?”

There’s a pause. I can’t be the one, I can’t say it, because I don’t want her to think I hate them, the “them” who are half of her – the them who, I feel, are also part of me. My children are Palestinian; I carried them in my womb. During pregnancy, something called cell migration takes place, the baby’s DNA crossing into the mother’s bloodstream and organs, where it “can persist for decades”, scientists say.

Yes, I’m an Israeli citizen but Palestine is part of them, part of us, part of me.

I don’t have the heart to tell Farah who the Israelis are fighting. Instead, I say nothing and I turn and look at Mohamed, waiting for him to answer.

“Ya baba,” he began, glancing in the rearview mirror. Baba means Dad in Arabic and parents address their children like this – Mohamed calls the kids “Baba” and mothers call their children “Mama”.

He hesitated.

“Mohamed,” I prodded.

He’d already told me he wanted to shelter them as much as possible from what is happening, but we can’t not tell them that there’s a war. Details, they don’t need. But the broad outline, they have to know.

Finally, he tells our daughter: “Ya baba, the Palestinians.”

I’m relieved she doesn’t ask another question.

But I do in the days that follow. I have so many questions and I ask Mohamed things I’m ashamed to admit now. I ask him if he supports Hamas’s “operation” on 7 October, the massacre. I ask him if he thinks this helps the Palestinian cause. I ask him if his family in the West Bank – the blood relations of my own children – handed out candy to celebrate the horrible, brutal deaths of Jewish people, my people.

These questions are racist and unfair and I’m disgusted by them, by myself for asking them. I admit as much and I apologize. Mohamed is compassionate. “You’re human,” he says. “You’re upset.”

And I’m upset as my Facebook feed fills with people sharing the pictures of the missing and dead from the nature party and the kibbutzim next to Gaza. I sit and read it all aloud to Mohamed, translating the Hebrew to English and imploring him: “Look at the pictures. Look at the people.”

He takes a seat on the couch next to me, pats my back – a gesture our son has learned from him – and holds my hand.

And I try to be there for Mohamed, too, in his grief, as he mourns the loss of Palestinian life. I put a hand on his shoulder as he sits, reading the news on his phone. I hug him when he has no words but his face tells me how sad he is.

Is it strange that in these days, the darkest we’ve experienced in the decade we’ve been together, we’re closer than ever?

For the foreseeable future, I can’t imagine this changing. There’s no small irony here: at a time when our people are battling the fiercest since 1948, we are completely united. We’re opposed to people dying. Period. It really is that simple.

Setting the lofty, political symbol of our union aside, with two kids, there’s day-to-day life to manage. The fridge has gotten a little too bare and it’s time for me to pick up some food. On Sunday, I sat down and did something I have never managed to do in all my years as a working mother: I made a meal plan for the entire week. It’s bizarrely sumptuous. Those who died on 7 October will never enjoy a meal like this again and now, in Gaza, people are dying in droves. Others are facing food and water shortages. Shame flickers inside of me. I’m ashamed of this grocery list and the meals I’m going to make.

Mohamed is keeping me – us – together despite the fact that we tried to part

Inside Whole Foods, my phone still in my hand, I do a lap in the produce section. And then another. I have a list but I can’t pay attention to the words. I put a red bell pepper in the wagon, a few avocados. My phone pings and I talk to my ex-boyfriend in Tel Aviv and then I look at the international journalist WhatsApp group that I’m on, that’s getting terrifying, with heartbreaking reports from Gaza. I look up, dazed, and remember I’m in a grocery store.

There was something Mohamed wanted me to get. What was it? I call him. “I’m at Whole Foods. What was it you wanted me to get?”

“Chicken,” he answers.

“Chicken, chicken, chicken,” I chant as I make another loop in the produce department.

A few minutes later, I can’t remember what it is, exactly, that Mohamed wants me to get.

So I call again.

Finally, I leave the store. I load the paper bags into the car and begin to drive away. I call Mohamed, who doesn’t even sigh when he answers, as he would have before 7 October.

“Aiwa, ya Mya?” he answers. “Yes?”

“What did I forget?” I ask him, as though he is there with me, as though he can read my mind.

“I don’t know. The chicken?”

“Fuck. The chicken.”

In a normal time, this would be funny. Or annoying. But today, it makes me cry. I am crying because I realize that I’m unraveling, and because our home over there is unraveling. I’m crying with gratitude that Mohamed is keeping me – us – together despite the fact that we tried to part.

“Who’s picking up the kids today?” I ask through tears. I know we have had this conversation half a dozen times today already.

“You are?” his voice, patient as ever.

“Yes, but who’s taking them to what?”

He reminds me of our plans and so I race to the children’s school, pick them up, drop our daughter at dance, drive our son to the nearby basketball court, where Mohamed meets us. I head to another grocery store, this time with the word chicken scrawled in ink on my disembodied hand.

I don’t know what the future holds for us as a couple. I know that we have two kids to take care of – two children who share both of our blood, and whose hopes and dreams and futures we are equally concerned about regardless of how the world defines them and regardless of how they might eventually define themselves.

Israeli. Palestinian. Both. Neither. At this point, it doesn’t really matter to us. We want them to be safe and happy, healthy and productive.

As for the two of us, we have tried to separate but can’t manage to part. The analogy isn’t lost on me. But the tragedy I circle around – one I’ve been obsessing about for years now – is that in order for us to exist together, in peace, we had no choice but to leave the land that we both love dearly, the place where we met, the land on which we fell in love.

That we can exist in peace together is a beautiful thing. But what does it mean that we can only exist in peace together outside the land we would like to share?

Who Gets to Wear G-Strings Now?

by adminin Featured Articles, Writing
THE New York Times
More women are adopting the “less is more” philosophy.

Codi Maher noticed that bikini bottoms were shrinking a few years ago. “First it was cheeky cut, then Brazilian,” said Ms. Maher, a 30-year-old real estate agent in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. As the fabric covering women’s derrières disappeared, she started thinking about getting a thong swimsuit of her own: “I was just like, everyone’s wearing them, screw it, I don’t care.”

Her sister, Cassidy, 24, said she started wearing thong bikinis a year or two ago because she believed the cut made her “butt look a little better.” She also likes the lack of tan lines, a sentiment repeated by numerous women. “Sometimes I feel uncomfortable,” Cassidy said. “But I’m starting to feel more confident seeing other women wearing them.”

Some attribute the latest surge of G-strings and thongs to celebrities who wear the swimwear style, including Emily Ratajkowski, Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kate Hudson. “The thongkini is Hollywood’s swimsuit of choice,” Popsugar declared. “Anticipate lots of thong, string and cheeky cuts,” Rolling Stone wrote.

Though the terms are often used interchangeably, G-strings and thongs are different. G-strings have a thin strap running between the buttocks, connected to the waistband. A thong, while still offering the T-back look, has a triangle of fabric at the top, covering the space between the buttocks and the lower back. Another category called Brazilian bottoms offers more coverage than thongs; these are skimpy and high-cut, elongating the leg and exposing most of the buttocks. But all of these variations point to one thing: Skin is in.

Major retailers, including Victoria’s Secret and Billabong, are offering G-string and thong swimsuits as part of their 2023 swimwear collections.

While the thong has ancient origins — and iterations of the garment have popped up around the globe — the style first appeared in public in the United States in 1939 ahead of the New York World’s Fair, after the city’s mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, mandated that showgirls perform covered rather than completely naked (as was both common and contentious at fairs in this period). The 1939 mandate was part of the mayor’s larger war against displays of “filth and lewdness”: In 1937, Mr. La Guardia backed a citywide ban on 14 burlesque theaters that led to police closures of such striptease clubs for the first time in the city’s history. The ban was contested and quickly made its way to the New York Supreme Court, where lawyers for the burlesque clubs tried unsuccessfully to force the city to reissue their licenses.

Decades later, on the West Coast, another legal strike against displays of flesh spurred swimwear innovation: In 1974, when the Los Angeles City Council banned public nudity, the Austrian American designer Rudi Gernreich responded by inventing the thong bikini.

“The thong is my response to a contradiction in our society: Nudity is here; lots of people want to swim and sun themselves in the nude; also lots of people are still offended by public nudity,” Mr. Gernreich said in a manifesto in the 1970s, citing, according to Vogue, “Brazilian swimwear, sumo wrestlers’ mawashis and thong sandals as references” for the style.

The same conflict Mr. Gernreich identified would eventually propel the G-string all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court ruled on G-strings in the case of Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc. in 1991 and in City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M. in 2000. In both cases, exotic dancers who wanted to completely strip down argued that laws requiring them to wear G-strings infringed on their First Amendment rights. But the justices upheld the legislative requirements, in rulings that are “widely derided as failures in terms of First Amendment reasoning,” according to Amy Adler, a law professor at New York University.

The court deemed female nudity a threat to social order and upheld the G-string as a “solution to crime, disease and mayhem,” Ms. Adler said. The garment is all about dualities — a thing of “fantasy and dread,” she said, at once pointing to and hiding a woman’s sexuality.

In recent years, a number of North Carolina municipalities have loosened restrictions and enforcement of nudity laws to accommodate an increase in scantily clad beachgoers. (Thus far, municipalities in South Carolina have declined to follow suit, despite calls to get rid of the thong law.)

For now, the legal wrangling over thongkinis seems confined to the Carolinas. Thong bikinis are legal in most parts of the United States, but laws vary by city and county. In Florida, for example, thong swimwear is prohibited in state parks, including some portions of the state’s beaches.

Regardless of the legality, many women say the cut helps them make peace with their bodies. In the past, skimpy swimwear was often considered the province of women with conventionally “perfect” bodies, but today, G-string, thong and other barely there bottoms are embraced by women of all shapes and sizes.

Nikki Sutton, a paralegal from Atlanta with two kids, explained that she ordered a white thong bikini ahead of a trip to Puerto Rico because she wanted to “feel sexy for a second.” Though she had recently gained 15 pounds, she said, she decided to rock the thong anyway because it would push her outside her comfort zone and force her to be “completely content” with her body exactly as it was, “with every piece of what I have going on — inches, weight, the whole thing.”

“That’s what a thong does to me,” she said. “It’s empowering and it forces me to feel a little more comfortable in my skin. I have to walk with a certain level of confidence, whether I feel that way or not.”

Ms. Sutton said she hoped that her flaunting what she sees as her imperfect body in public would encourage other women to be comfortable in their own bodies, no matter their shapes or sizes.

Wearing a G-string is “liberating,” said Laura DiBiase, a 32-year-old college counselor from Los Angeles, because it symbolizes “taking ownership of your body.” Ms. DiBiase said her adoption of the style was tied to her personal fitness journey: As she started hitting the gym more, she became more confident and started wearing G-string bikinis, which in turn enhanced her confidence.

But some see the style as a double-edged sword.

“There are certain bodies that are just marginalized — fat bodies, older bodies, bodies with visible disabilities,” said Celine Leboeuf, an assistant professor of philosophy at Florida International University. “There can be something liberating about claiming those clothes that people say you shouldn’t be wearing because of your body. But then you fall onto the other edge of self-objectification.”

Mari Heredia, a 49-year-old medical technician from Boynton Beach, Fla., said she wears a thong swimsuit because “I need to tan my booty.”

The last time she wore one, she added, was 20 years ago, on holiday in Cancún. Reflecting on her body today, she said: “I’m fat, but guess what? I have two kids. This is my natural body.”

Five women wearing bikini tops and thong, G-string or Brazilian bottoms pose on a beach, smiling and raising their arms.

Today, G-string, thong and other barely there bottoms are embraced by women of all shapes and sizes.
(Photo: Melody Timothee for The New York Times)

Israelis Fear Their Democracy Is Crumbling — and the U.S. Isn’t Coming to Help

by adminin Featured Articles, Writing
Politico
Out on the street with 130,000 protesters.
Ohad Zwigenberg / AP Photo

As Shabbat comes to a close and Tel Aviv stirs back to life, protesters begin to gather on HaBima Square. At a nearby cafe, I sit among a small group of Israelis who wonder aloud about this fraught moment for the country… and we decide to join the crowd.

Democracy in Israel may face dire threats, but a festive atmosphere prevails during this Saturday night march, which quickly fills Kaplan Street, a major thoroughfare in the heart of the city. People smile and snap selfies; they bang on drums and toot kazoos — sounding out the rhythm of Ha’am doresh tzedek chevrati! (“The people demand social justice!”). A Palestinian citizen of the state weaves a cart through the crowd calling “Bageleh, bageleh!” offering the Israeli version of a bagel (which is nothing like a bagel at all) with za’atar held in small sacks of twisted newspaper.

On an island in the middle of a thoroughfare, which has been blocked off to traffic by police, stands a family of five. They hold a sign that says, in Hebrew, “Worried about our children’s future.” The woman — tall, thin, with straight blonde hair — wears her sleeping one-month old in a cloth sling tied tight to her chest. A restless five-year-old boy whining “Ima,” mama, clambers about on a stroller, his seven-and-a-half-year-old sister admonishing him to be quiet. The couple, who identify themselves only as Avi and Hila, say it’s hard to get out of the house with a newborn and two young children, but they’re here anyway because they feel that the country they know is at risk — “We’re going to lose our democracy,” Avi says.

Some 130,000 demonstrators swarmed the streets that night last month to rally against the country’s new far-right government — arguably the most extreme in Israel’s history — and an agenda that even centrist politicians say threatens Israel’s democracy. The protest wasn’t a one-off. Pro-democracy demonstrations have taken place every Saturday since the start of January, bringing in some of the largest crowds in recent memory (though smaller than the 2011 social justice protests that, at their height, brought approximately a quarter million people to the streets).

The new government is led by a familiar face, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in and out of office since 1996 and is still on trial for corruption charges.

But the coalition he cobbled together to regain power includes elements that once composed the fringe of Israeli politics. That includes Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right religious nationalist who heads a political party named “Jewish Power.” Previously, he was a member of Kach, a party that was outlawed in Israel and that spent 25 years on the U.S. State Department’s list of terror organizations; in a twist of irony, Ben Gvir is now serving as the country’s national security minister. Since taking the helm, he has visited the Al Aqsa compound in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, home to the third holiest site in Islam. Al Aqsa is sacred to Jews as well, but such visits are viewed by Palestinians as a huge provocation — an act so contentious that Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 visit is widely credited with sparking the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Another controversial figure in the new government is Bezalel Smotrich, a settler and the leader of an ultra-nationalist religious Zionist party. Smotrich is now serving as a finance minister; it is widely believed that, in this role, he will ensure West Bank settlements get the money they need to continue to grow, threatening what little possibility remains of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

Already, this new government is making moves to chip away at the country’s democratic space. A proposed overhaul to the judiciary would render the High Court’s judgments toothless and would destroy its independence, upending the country’s system of checks and balances. The government also announced an intent to shut down Kan — the country’s only publicly funded broadcast news service — with Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi “calling public broadcasting unnecessary.” Outrage was so intense that it’s been put on ice for now as the government focuses instead on pushing through its controversial judicial reforms. Netanyahu defends the reshuffling of the judiciary, dismissively calling them a “minor correction.”

But even Israel’s own president, Isaac Herzog, is sounding the alarm. In a speech given on Sunday — the day before a massive nationwide strike that brought 100,000 Israelis to protest outside of the Knesset on Monday — Herzog warned that the country is “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse.”

“I feel, we all feel, that we are in the moment before a clash, even a violent clash,” Herzog said. “The gunpowder barrel is about to explode.”

When I wade into the crowd on that Saturday night, just after Shabbat has ended, there’s another consistent fear I hear from Israelis: that this new government will undermine its standing in the world, including with its most important ally, the United States. But while there are fears about losing American support, some Israelis also voice concern that American backing will continue regardless of what this new government does — a scenario they view as enabling and dangerous. Because what would an Israel — held accountable to no one, left entirely to its own devices — look like?

Avi, who works in high-tech, a key Israeli industry, says he is particularly worried about the government targeting the rights of secular Israelis, women and LGBTQ individuals — which could also prove to open rifts between America’s Democratic Party and the Israeli government. (Just a few days later, hundreds of Israeli high-tech employees would take to the streets, leaving their desks abruptly at midday to march on Rothschild Boulevard as they carried signs that read, “No democracy, no high-tech.”)

Asked if Israel’s relationship with the United States is a concern, Hila replies, “It’s always a concern. We’re supposed to be the only democracy in the Middle East and that doesn’t seem like where we’re going with the latest changes.”

Maya Lavie-Ajayi, a 48-year-old professor at Ben Gurion University, says she hopes to see some sort of intervention from the Biden administration and the European Union. “We see Hungary and we see Russia and we know you get to a point where [citizens] can’t fight back anymore.” She added that while Israel isn’t there yet, “I think that we need support to keep the democratic nature that was problematic in the first place.”

Lavie-Ajayi notes the withdrawal of American support would be a powerful lesson to Netanyahu: “Bibi would understand that he can’t just do whatever he wants, that he doesn’t have an open ticket to chip away at the democratic nature of this country.”

It’s not just people in the streets who see the prospect of pressure from abroad. In December, over 100 former Israeli diplomats and retired foreign ministry officials sent an open letter to Netanyahu expressing concern about the new government’s impact on the country’s international standing, warning that there could be “political and economic ramifications.”

Indeed, senior American officials seem to share at least some of protesters’ worries about the direction Israel is taking. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visited Israel last month reportedly in hopes of “syncing up” with the new government. Then came Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip, during which he said he had a “candid” talk with Netanyahu, with Blinken touting the need for a two-state solution with Palestinians and the importance of democratic institutions.

Still, it seems unlikely Israel will lose American support — including billions in military aid — anytime soon.

“This administration will go to great lengths to avoid a public confrontation with the new Netanyahu government,” says Aaron David Miller, a longtime State Department official who worked on Middle East negotiations and is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At the same time, Israel’s shifting politics — particularly with a government that’s now more religious right than secular right — could have unintended reverberations. It’s taken for granted that American liberals are likely to grow ever more skittish with an ultra-conservative Israel. But some in conservative corners are also worried, according to Yossi Shain, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University, professor emeritus at Georgetown University and former Knesset Member from Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular nationalist party on the right. He says he’s constantly on the phone with American counterparts who are deeply concerned about how the new government will impact the country’s security and economy.

“The Israeli right pretends to reflect American conservative values, but in fact distorts them,” he adds. “It builds on clericalism and religious orthodoxy that negates liberties, the core of American conservative creed.”

Now, Shain says, some of the same political actors who helped foster the circumstances that enabled this government to rise are wringing their hands.

To which Israel’s pro-democracy protesters would likely respond, “Told you so.”

Back on the street in Tel Aviv, many in the crowd, though not all, link the decades of Palestinian occupation with the decline of Israel’s democracy.

“Rights for Jews only is not a democracy,” reads one poster. A massive black sign — made out of cloth and held up by half a dozen protesters — depicts the separation barrier, guard towers and barbed wire that contain the West Bank; in the middle, a dove bearing an olive branch bursts through the structure. “A nation that occupies another nation will never be free,” says the sign in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

Nearby, a woman calls through a bullhorn, “Democracy?”

“Yes!” the crowd responds.

“Occupation?”

“No!” they cry.

“I’m terrified of a situation where [Israel’s new government] doesn’t reduce American support,” says Rony HaCohen, an economist, pointing to the way the military occupation of the Palestinian territories has become normalized amid a lack of American censure.

But one protester questions even the United States’ ability to rein in its closest ally in the Middle East. Jesse Fox, a 41-year-old doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University, says that while he’d like to see the Biden administration raise some pressure, he believes Israel is already headed down “the path of Hungary” and other countries that have abandoned democratic principles.

“It starts with the court reforms,” he says. “After that, they have plans to try to bring the media under government control. And then, who knows?”

And as an American Jewish immigrant who has lived in Israel for the better part of 20 years, Fox adds, “I want Americans to realize that, right now, being ‘pro-Israel’ means opposing the Israeli government.”