Ariel's journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Magazine, Harper's, Smithsonian Magazine, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Washingtonian, and This American Life.
A Biblical Mystery at Oxford
[A MacArthur genius, a Hobby Lobby executive, and a phantom first-century Gospel of Mark]
The Atlantic
Burned
[How a small-town auto mechanic pulled off a $1 billion Ponzi scheme]
The Atlantic
The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side
[A Manhattan prosecutor takes on New York’s genteel antiquities trade]
The Atlantic
An Intoxicating 500-Year-Old Mystery
[A prominent medievalist takes a new approach to unraveling the Voynich Manuscript]
The Atlantic
The Passion of John Wojnowski
[A man's 14-year vigil outside the Vatican embassy]
Washingtonian Magazine
A King with No Country
[Profile of Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the last king of Rwanda]
Washingtonian Magazine
How to Save a Dying Language
[Linguists hunt the last speakers of Aramaic]
Smithsonian Magazine
The Mystery of Mount Baldy
[A boy's near-death inside a Lake Michigan sand dune, and a geologist's search for answers]
Smithsonian Magazine
The Anti-Redskin
[A clash between a wealthy Indian chief and the billionaire owner of Washington's NFL team]
The Atlantic
Warp Factor
[John A. Rogers builds electronic circuits that melt in the body]
Smithsonian Magazine
"My True Self"
[A Vietnam vet returns to the U.S. Naval Academy after a gender transition]
Baltimore Sun
Inventing the Real McCoy
[UCLA’s Aydogan Ozcan is turning your smart phone into a medical lab]
Smithsonian Magazine
The Life of the Party
[Profile of Joe Englert, DC nightlife visionary]
Washingtonian Magazine
Lobster War - Part I & Lobster War - Part II
[Guns fired off the island of Matinicus, Maine]
Christian Science Monitor
Working The Line on the Iraq border
[Trucker life on the Iraqi-Turkish border]
Christian Science Monitor
Trashball
[Street trash, dispensed from a gumball machine]
New York Times
SELECTED ESSAYS
Evening in Jerusalem
[The strange death of Savta Miryam]
New York Times Sunday Magazine
A Time to Put Aside the Armor
[Seeing my father through the eyes of my son]
New York Times / "Modern Love" column
Hollywood Calling
[How do you say "I am the Walrus" in Aramaic?]
Brown Alumni Magazine
Deep Underground
[A country boy makes the DC subways his new playground]
Christian Science Monitor
Water Takes the Fear Away
[Annals of Superstition]
The Algonkian