Nineteen years ago, inspired by the words of the Western Shoshone tribal chief, I trespassed onto the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and found myself in handcuffs. I was a college student in need of a haircut in the hands of a Nevada police officer with a buzz cut who escorted me to a makeshift stockade topped with barbed wire, then to a prison bus, then to a town jail in Tonopah. Rather than book me, he took off my cuffs, pushed me out to the sidewalk and told me “go back to where you came from.” I wandered over to a local pizza restaurant, and thanking the Blessed Holy One for my freedom, ate one of the worst pies of my life.
read more in today's ol' opinion column of the Jewish Week. I connect a few dots between Mordecai Ben Noah, Jack Abramoff, and a place we call in Hebrew 'Lat Vegat.'
