After long discussions with a few Jewish shopkeepers whose trade depends on tourism, my heart goes out to them. The world economic crisis is much less felt in Tel Aviv, but Jerusalem, where industries are low tech and there is little cooperation among communities, is very hard hit. Much building is still going on but much seems to be no longer possible – the light rail for one. Thank goodness for the alternative communal communities!
My reading was small but intensive. The atmosphere in TMol Shilshom is usually intense, but there was a little less of the hunger for literature that i have experienced in the past – and i too felt the slight economic depression that keeps people home. Let’s home the atmosphere in the Machane Market tomorrow the atmosphere w
ill be more positive.
where do i begin to talk about Jerusalem? I’m in such a dither. Here we are doing the tourist thing and i’m walking along the path through the old city to the wailing wall kvetching that the mood of the shopowners has changed since 1967 and we get to the tiny ‘women’s section’ of the wall , and i’m kvetching some more that there shouldn’t be a women’s section at all, and I sit down and pick up the book of psalms and begin to read and i’m overwhelmed by the place i’m in. What should i pray for, I think, thinking my light shockling is nothing like the enormous rocking of the women surrounding me. I just want things to stay the way they are – for me. Okay, maybe my knee – okay, some people around me need some help – but in my life i’m okay so far. The prayer overwhelming me was for the peoples in this place to find peace, to make peace. Then, as the women with me backed away from the wall, I kvetched again that the necessity to make more and more rules and customs every year is madness. Our next station was a tour of the wall from underneath, in the diggings, and there we finished a very bracing and inspiring lecture and walk along the wall by exiting through the Arab quarter. We were on the via Dolorosa and I myself felt like I too was wearing a crown of thorns, preceeded and followed by careful security men. Some shopkeepers threw out some hopeless welcomes to us, but most knew in advance we had been warned not to stop. As we passed through i pointed out to Ezi a shop where I had bought own of my favorite dresses in 1980. I didn’t have time to look into it to see if the same shopowner was there. I would have recognized him immediately because we had coffee and talked for almost an hour. Then.
I’m going to be reporting for a couple days from Jerusalem. If the computer works. Yoel Michael Solomon Street – that quaint little walkway that is like a tourist’s dream. Nothing big. I hope always to be in a different part of the city if something is goin on. Today today we heard on the radio about the riots between the haredim and police, but there was almost no one on the street. Everything was peaceful. Which means I don’t understand what’s going on where.
Oh dear, I fear my opposition to the proposed laws is not universally appreciated. Bill Freedman, who began the petition, sent this to me on june 9 and i saw it as my duty to sign. I did not think then that there was a possibility that the law would pass, and was sure that drawing attention to it was a way of disgracing it, and ensuring that the members of Parliament would be alert to public opinion. But no response ensued. Until the little piece in haaretz.
How can I say i will break the law? A student asked, when I have never even paid much attention to Nakba Day before it was suggested that it should be outlawed? Well, I believe that encouraging the Arab population to place less emphasis on Nakba can only be done with positive measures to incorporate them into the society.
‘You’re talking civil disobedience,’ my American friend warns me, ‘and that’s all well and good, but then how do you perceive the settlers’ breaking of the law? How is that different?’ It is very different because I’m trying to have an effect on ethics, not political. But I admit, it is not legal, and I am hate the idea of breaking laws.
Yes, it is too hot and muggy for me to think about writing. I’m going to go to Jerusalem to cool down for a few days – watch the fights on Shabbat between the Haradim and police. Even though this evening is cool and breezy and an incredible relief.
Haaretz today notes that 230 professors vow not to obey the law banning Nakba commemoration should it pass. Only 230? Of course I’m one of them – and I’m hoping I will not have to become a lawbreaker. I’m hoping it won’t pass. But if it does, it will force me to act.
Here I was going back and forth from one errand to another – thinking about how i have to get to this place on time, and that place on time, my mind totally into what i was doing. As I left the green-grocer (absent mindedly taking someone else’s bag as well as mine and having to return) I was still irritated by the very nervous and loud woman at the hairdresser’s just before. Her curses and insults were I suppose meant to be funny, but they made me incredibly nervous. Even as she was leaving, and looking for the shampoo girl to give her a tip, she said “where is she? probably ran off – don’t blame her, considering the level of this place.” And this continued to grate on me as i turned on the car radio. And suddenly i heard there was a rumor of Gilad Shalit being transferred to Egypt and eventually home, and everything in the day changed.
It was a baseless rumor, i discovered when I came home and turned on the tv, but for the rest of my life I will not forget that car ride.
June 22, 2009
One day body odor will go back into style. I mean with global warming and a water shortage around here we’ve got no choice, have we. And today with another heat wave i was moving from institution to institution, meeting all kinds of people, and it wasn’t pleasant. The air conditioner in the hemotology ward was on the blink and everyone was very nervous. Very nervous. And of course at the university the semester is officially over so whoever showed up for the extra make-up classes was not in the best of moods what with all this heat.
Actually it was probably only me, suddenly very sensitive to the weather. And there were places at the university where i found myself in paradise today, under a gorgeous jacaranda tree that shaded and cooled and comforted all at once. There was a physiology student sitting under the tree with her sandwich, wearing a veil, a long skirt, long sleeves blouse and a jacket, and I said to her – at least you’ve found the best place in the neighborhood to cool off, and she said to me – You’re just not drinking enough.
She was right – by the time i got home I was nauseous and weak, and although i wasn’t thirsty i forced a quart of water into me. Then I took a shower.
And then I turned on the AC and life began to look bearable. Maybe I was just suffocating in my own sweat.
“Use tomorrow for all your errands,” the weatherman says. “I know it will be hot. But the day after will be even hotter.”
First day of summer and you can’t tell the difference. The sweating has, if anything, diminished a bit since yesterday. I spent the day on usual maintenance, and when i got back there was an email from Robert Whitehill responding to my questioning response to his congratulations of a poem on ynet
it’s a hebrew translation of an english poem about yom kippur: Ynet
and reminded me of some others in English that have been appearing:
The Belt
Why I don’t write formal verse
there are some others but i don’t remember…
This is a good day to begin a vacation, but i’m still teaching and will really only start in a few weeks. Let’s think about the whole idea of vacation
Last night we had dinner at Pappa’s. As usual I thought i must be prejudiced because I have a special relationship with the place, but the food was amazing. I had the fish which is never my favorite food, and I loved it. Tonight we had dinner at Dubnov 8, a really lovely environment, and the hamburger was okay. The hot roast beef sandwich Ezi had, on the other hand, was shameful. Two slices of fatty roast beef, with no sauce, on bread. And twice as much money as the fish at Pappa’s. I will never understand how people bear bad food in restaurants.
Karen Alkalay-Gut and Dina Elenbogen
will be reading their poetry
at
Tmol Shilshom
Monday June 29th at 7 pm –
5 Solomon St. Jerusalem (see map) Tel: 02-6232758
Email : info@tmol-shilshom.co.il
on June 30 at 10 pm
…..
