I spend a lot of time on the road between New York and Syracuse during the academic year. What I find always moving are the place names of the cities, towns, and rivers streaming by outside the window. In the United States, there are great geographical and historical separations between places and between places and things. In Israel, I like the mix of place names here in the center of the country between Hadera on the coast and Afula a bit further in land. Separate and unequal, the mix of Hebrew and Arabic place names juts up close and together, and side by side in ways that sometimes seem very intimate –visually, if not socially and politically.