popular articles/op-eds

The trouble with calling health care workers "heroes"
Boston Globe | April 10, 2020

Five ways to address the challenges of direct-to-consumer health products (with Steve Joffe)
STAT News | April 2, 2019

The new face of medical advice: the online pregnancy forum
Washington Post | July 10, 2018

Zapping their Brains at Home
The New York Times | July 22, 2016

Consumer Neurotechnology: New Products, More Regulatory Complexity 
The Neuroethics Blog | June 14, 2016

At Tribeca, 'Vaxxed' Gets Axed and Science Wins, for Now
Undark | March 27, 2016

Dialing up Your Brainpower: How should we regulate those mind-zapping gadgets that promise to boost your memory? 
Slate | December 18, 2015

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From 2008-2012, I worked as a Tel Aviv-based freelance science & travel writer. Below is a selection of articles from that time.

science

My feature in the 2011 issue of Scopus magazine profiled eleven scientists working on environmental and sustainability issues at Hebrew University (pdf). I wrote a piece on green tea and the brain for Technion's Focus magazine, and an article (pdf) about the Bronstein twins, two scientists who have revolutionized facial recognition technology, for the Spring 2010 issue of 18 magazine.

My participation in the 2011 World Conference of Science Journalists caused controversy ; see this article in Science ("At Science Journalism Confab, Arab-Israeli Tensions Caused Disruptions") and this Jerusalem Post article about the same event ("Immigrant Anna Wexler: Unexpected Symbol of Israel").

travel

My piece about seal hunting in Greenland was published in the September 2012 issue of Overnight Buses and anthologized in The Best Travel Writing, Vol. 9 (2012). Another travel essay, detailing how I accidentally became President of the Jury at Serbia's World Testicle Cooking Championship was published in Best Women's Travel Writing 2011.

In the winter/spring of 2012, I blogged weekly for the travel website Vagablogging. My travel writing has been published in magazines (Maxim, 18, Glimpse, Budget Travel, Mir Afishu), books (Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, A Stingray Bit My Nipple: True Stories from Real Travelers, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure) and online (WGBH Lab, TelAvivCity.com, hotels.vc, Glimpse Online).

other

"A Crucial Choice" - StoryCollider storytelling performance at the Oberon Theater in Cambridge, MA on December 12, 2013. 

A personal essay about my journey to make the documentary film Unorthodox, published in Unpious in late 2011: "From Rebel Teenager to Off-the-Derech Filmmaker"

"Revivalism" - 18 magazine article (pdf) about the Yiddish revival in Israel, Spring 2010.

In 2008 I maintained a blog for the WGBH Lab on documentary filmmaking.