I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel. There are aspects I found familiar—the light-skinned Palestinians who speak of “passing,” the Black and Arab Jews whose stories could have been staged in Atlanta instead of Tel Aviv. But for most of my time there, I felt like I was outside the crosshairs. The attitude in that hotel, for instance, was less “Nigger get out” and more “What the fuck are you doing here?” They were right. The hotel was very nice. But knowing how it had been gotten, knowing how it was secured, knowing the
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