Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

Jeepers – I was born under shelling and have been trained since youth about duck and cover, Some of the fears were not realistic (such as the atom bomb in the fifties), but I’m so tuned to it I am not totally lost when the possibility of missiles on my house becomes actual.

Anyway, I only had a few months here, a month there – nothing long drawn out. So when I was talking to a friend from Sderot yesterday, and noticed how hard it was for him to get into the poetry reading we were at, it took a few minutes for me to realize how deeply the eight-year terror of missiles is part of his life. It’s in his body, in the sudden movements, in the sadness in his eyes. Every time I get a letter from someone (and I do get a few) about how Israel’s killing people can’t be compared to the Hamas missiles because the Hamas missiles are primitive and do no damage, I really want to scream. The missiles hitting ashkelon are Russian Grad missiles, They have little balls in them to do maximum damage, and although only three people have been killed this time around, its not for want of trying. It’s because we spend a lot of energy and money on training people and building shelters.

Having said all that, I’d stop now. I’d stop bombing and wait to see if they stop the missiles. If they don’t, we can start again. If they do, we can start talking.

Easy to say. We won’t. They won’t.

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December 31, 2008

Wow – the last day of the year. Although I am hooked to the reality show called “Casted Lead,” and don’t leave the tv, I agree with Steve King who thinks the way to end this year is with a poem by D.H. Lawrence:

There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fire-glow.

This fire-glow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.

Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.

Your shoulders, your bruised throat!
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!

As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!

(”Look! We Have Come Through!”)

December 29, 2008

You’ve got the war covered from all the different sides. Let me take some different sides. What if I am a man in Sderot whose business has been destroyed over the past few years, and his entire self-image as a man because he can’t control anything that happens to him? And he’s been saying – even on tv – let’s work this thing out with the Hamas so they won’t throw indiscriminate rockets on the population for a while and maybe allow us to open the gates like we did before? What if you’re this man and you start hearing the bombing in Gaza one day and the rockets stop falling on you? You know how awful it is to feel that terror the Gazans are feeling, but a little relief and joy creeps into you. And you remember how terrible you felt whenever the Gszans passed out candies and celebrated when your garage went up in smoke, and you feel like maybe this is the time to pass out candies too. And you are torn.

And what if you are an Arab student from Nazareth studying at Tel Aviv University? Maybe you have Jewish friends, and when you’re at the university it feels almost normal. But you know that one of the guys in your class is a pilot and maybe he missed class yesterday because he was bombing. And maybe you’ve got an exam today and can’t concentrate. But school is going on as usual, except for the demonstration today at 12 at the entrance to the university. Would you be able to take your exam?

At twelve I thought to go to see the demonstration against the war. But because it was raining, and I seem to have caught some evil cold in my chest, I decided to skip checking it out and go to my office instead. At the university a class was just getting out and students were examining the midterms that had just been returned. Jews and Arabs seemed unaware of the demonstration a hundred meters away. And when I spoke to some, this fact was confirmed. Later, when I saw it on TV, however, it looked serious.

Do I want the war to stop? I do. Do I want the years of rockets to end? I do. Is there a way to discuss this? I doubt it.

Do I justify Israel’s war right now? (Gulp) Yes. The fact that 340 people have been killed does not escape me, and the fact that at least 180 were Hamas leaders does not mollify me, but I can’t see the alternative. I do, however, want to reevaluate my position and the position of my country every day, with every move.

December 28, 2008

My sciatica, which has been more or less dormant for the past two and a half years, since the last Lebanon war, is now alive. So a nerve, half the length of my body, sears through me. It is of course connected to the war. Who can watch the agonies of Gaza in peace? But who can allow the alternative? I think of the streets of Gaza I haven’t seen since the seventies, the orchards I visited then, the people with whom I shared meals, the children who played with my own. I think of the writers I’ve met from there in the past few years, a beautiful woman, a tall thin moustached gentleman, and so many others, whose names I dare not mention because they may be punished for meeting me. It is first the individuals who come to mind, and then the population. After that I remember the rockets that have been raining down on the south for eight years.

A few days ago I was asked to join a meeting which was going to be problematic. Since I usually function well as a mediator, and I like all the parties involved, I agreed. Well the fact that I understood both sides didn’t help at all – there was no solution except legal arbitration because there was no real good will on both sides. Good will on both sides, a belief that both sides want to solve a problem. If we had that with Hamas, we’d be fine.

December 29, 2008

You’ve got the war covered from all the different sides. Let me take some different sides. What if I am a man in Sderot whose business has been destroyed over the past few years, and his entire self-image as a man because he can’t control anything that happens to him? And he’s been saying – even on tv – let’s work this thing out with the Hamas so they won’t throw indiscriminate rockets on the population for a while and maybe allow us to open the gates like we did before? What if you’re this man and you start hearing the bombing in Gaza one day and the rockets stop falling on you? You know how awful it is to feel that terror the Gazans are feeling, but a little relief and joy creeps into you. And you remember how terrible you felt whenever the Gszans passed out candies and celebrated when your garage went up in smoke, and you feel like maybe this is the time to pass out candies too. And you are torn.

And what if you are an Arab student from Nazareth studying at Tel Aviv University? Maybe you have Jewish friends, and when you’re at the university it feels almost normal. But you know that one of the guys in your class is a pilot and maybe he missed class yesterday because he was bombing. And maybe you’ve got an exam today and can’t concentrate. But school is going on as usual, except for the demonstration today at 12 at the entrance to the university. Would you be able to take your exam?

So after a day of 60 rockets, we only got 8 today. And now that we’ve announced we’re going to do something drastic, Hamas is hiding. This is a neverending game. They shot the rockets, they said, because we killed 3 Palestinians. But they were getting rockets ready to shoot on Israel. As my dear late mother-in-law used to say about kindergarteners, “It all started when he hit me back.”

Today I thought it would be a good idea to visit Sylvia’s mourners at Petach Tikva. It was, but my timing was awful. It took us over an hour each way because the traffic crawled. We came home exhausted, and now have a tenants meeting to go to. But I do have a wonderful piece of news – Ezi’s petscan today was perfect.

Robert and Sylvia Rosenberg, z”l, two wonderful people who lived well, but much too briefly.

I think it’s a good time to donate blood – we’ll be needing it very soon in large quantities.

This is the cat who doesn’t care that the news is so scary,

but doesn’t like being disturbed.

I would have written more, but we had a flat tire in Kfar Shmariyahu on our way home from a Hannukah party. It was about 9:20 at night and we were on a main street – a white-haired man and an awkward woman. Ezi of course handled everything in twenty minutes, but in that 20 minutes not a single person stopped to ask if we need help. I find that strange for Israel. And I’m cold and tired now.

December 24, 2008

Orit Kruglanski is revitalizing the classic poetry reading series, Kippod, on Monday night at 70 Hayarkon Street, at 9:30. I’ll be there too.

I don’t want to talk about Sylvia Rosenberg’s death. It is too much.

Instead I will mention the evening at Beit Leyvick on Saturday night. I will never understand why they don’t advertise these evenings better. There is so much going on there. This evening was a muiltilingual reading of Jewish poetry. There were readings in Polish, Hebrew, Russian, Georgian, Ladino, English and of course, Yiddish. But my reading was the strangest to me – I was asked to read a poem in Friulian.

Daniel got it off this site . It took me a number of readings to understand the poem at all, but now I know it is about the edelweiss and the soldiers who were lost in World War I.

What a coincidence that St. Lucy’s Day, the shortest day of the year, is the same day as the first candle of Hannukah. It’s the day that really needs light.

And boy, do we need light. The rockets are falling on Sderot and can now get to Beersheva, Ashdod, etc.. and every alternative is bad.

On the other hand I find myself the funniest I’ve been in a long time. Take for instance as the vet was delicately cutting out the stitches from Shusha’s back as I am holding on to her. “Will she be able to wear a bikini?” I ask him and he started shaking. “She could do better than that – she can go nude,” he said, and pulled the last stitch out.

This morning I – there being nothing else on television (which has literally gone down the tubes around here) – was watching some show about babies and the fact that they recognize individual primate faces until the age of six months, when all primates except humans look alike to them. The explanation about brain synapses needed for human identification didn’t work for me. I was thinking that maybe people only recognize others as individuals when their behavior is as as an individual. Maybe that’s why Hamas made such fun of Gilad Shalit’s heart-wrenching desire to return to his parents. They cannot recognize him in any way as an individual, but as part of the system they believe is the cause of their problems. Recognizing individuals is something you learn in your society. I was thinking – free associating – really, that if women on the street have their faces covered, there is no way to identify their individuality. They cannot be recognized as people.

Phyllis said something interesting today that fits in – that in the U.S. a woman has to buy clothes that do not seem different, but fit in with the model. Nevertheless the clothes, she said, should have some distinguishing feature for which a person gets compliments, which she shrugs off immediately as insignificant. This conversation took place in Comme-il-faut, while we were having lunch and then looking around at the clothes. And the business of individuality came up with the food as well. Whenever we go to Pappa’s with guests from the States, they always asks for alternatives to the menu. “Can I have the Pizza without sausage but with peppers and onions?” or “What if I order the pasta from the first item, but with the sauce from the third?” They’re pretty accomodating there, and of course I go to Pappa’s alot, so I have gotten used to it. But recently we’ve had a lot of experiences where the waiter goes back and asks the kitchen and then comes back again with a refusal. At Rocca’s, for example, the argument went as far as the manager. My friend wanted a hard boiled egg and was refused and the manager sat down at our table and explained that it would be impossible. Later Oren explained to me that the problem in changing items and combinations on the menu is one of inventory and cost-accounting as well as efficiency in the kitchen. But at Comme-il-faut, the waiter, Edan, managed to find a way to get us what we want, and continued to smile.

IF YOU LIVE IN ISRAEL, TOMORROW, AT 10:00 P.M., TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS FOR 10 MINUTES FOR GILAD SHALIT. IF HE HAS TO SIT IN THE DARKNESS, SO WILL WE.

So I’ll never be a fortune teller. Livni won and Mofaz didn’t. The possibility of a new world is before us. I had a moment of doubt last night. But would I have trusted Madoff? probably not – he promised too much.

The whole trick I think is to work on as small a scale as possible.

Since a few queries have reached me about where I keep my dog when I go away, I will share my secret with all of you: Hagit’s Animal House. Hagit is one of the best professionals I know in the business and it is worth it for me to drive into the center of the city to leave Shusha with her. Shusha is a problematic neurotic canine who had problems getting along with others, but when she’s at Hagit’s she behaves like the elegant dog she appears to be and comes home happy and calm.

I want to put a picture of a cat on line today – sleeping on the newspaper stand, looking perfectly comfortable with today’s news. It may take me until tomorrow to upload it, but the news is current. Look for it tomorrow.

In general I try to take my lead about the news from the animals around me.

We’ve been getting the local economic newspaper, Globes, as a free trial for a month. It is wonderful because Shusha is paper-trained and can pee on the stock market, the details of the investment companies, as well as the politics of “Haaretz.” A real release for me.

my bet is that Mofaz wins in Kadima and that will mean Bibi for PM. Thank goodness we’ve got Stanley Fischer.

Anyway, we’ll find out shortly unless the computers for the Kadima primaries crash.

We were so bombed out we saw “Afula Express,” one of the dumbest films I’ve seen in a long time. It was clear it was going to be dumb when the key line, early in the film, is (and it is meant literally) “David, You’re never be a magician.”