In East Jerusalem: With Yu, a fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

The professional and the dilettante 

Minutes after a drive-by shooting attack at a nearby East Jerusalem light rail station, I caught up with Yu Zhang, my brilliant and adorable friend from China currently a fellow at the prestigious W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. (At Tel Aviv University, Yu wrote a master's thesis on Canaanite Cult Behavior and the Egyptian Political Hegemony: A View from the North of Israel.)

A shout out to Yosef Halper at whose eponymous used bookstore on Tel Aviv's Allenby Street Yu and I met. Yosef and I were talking books and kvetching when Yu walked in looking for specific archeology texts. She used terms I recognized from a course I had been taking and asked, Is Dr. Omer Sergei your professor at Tel Aviv University? Yes! Our immediate deep-dive freewheeling conversation has happily continued, time- and geography- permitting.