I had a catscan today. I thought it might be a big deal, so i decided to go ‘small’ and chose the little clinic in Rishon Lezion. I was right – it took me less than a week to get an appointment, and as soon as i walked in I was called in to fill out the papers. Within 20 minutes we were on the way home with the disk in hand. How was the experience? There was a man and a woman in the room – i didn’t have time to see much about them. The man held my hand and the woman told me to clench my fist. Then he said to release, and I released his hand. “Don’t let go of Me!” he said, “You have the magic touch!” The little touch of gratuitous humor was so relaxing that the five minutes or so i spent inside the machine seemed like nothing.
You can’t tell me that the medical system here is primitive. And the humanity of the staff always improves everything.
Does it sound like I eat out all the time? I don’t tell you about half of it. It is impossible for me to think about cooking in this weather, and I’ve got a big backlog on seeing old friends, so I’m visiting restaurants like crazy. Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised by the cafe Einstein at the Ramat Aviv mall. I’ve been there before but wouldn’t think of eating anything besides coffee, partly because I think I’ve been had a few upset stomachs at their neighbor, Art Cafe. Maybe that projected fear is the reason I can’t eat at the cafe at the entrance to the university either, but I have sat down there more than once and decided to pass up lunch and just have coffee.
We didn’t go dancing last night – we had some stuffed vegetables and Kubbe at Suzanna’s, but i was still sweating all over. It is humid. And we’re making all kinds of mistakes in our daily life because of it. Ezi erased all the corrected papers i was about to return by mistake and maybe a bunch of poems, but we’ve got them back after a morning of little heart attacks.
And now I’m off to a meeting – we changed the location at the last minute and decided to meet in an airconditioned mall instead of the open port. There is just no way to function in this heat – the only right thing to do is sit under a tree near the beach with a beer and catch an occasional fly.
With the taste of the incredible kubbe from Suzanna’s still on my lips.
So there was no traditional nap. Some nasty guy kept ringing our bell until we gave up trying to sleep. Why would someone try to get us to do something (especially something that relates to his money) by waking up us on a Friday afternoon? No call – no invititation – just a leaning on the bell. Grrrr.
But we went to the party anyway, and I tranced for a while in the steam room that is Tel Aviv nowadays. Despite the complaints from my contemporaries about the volume and the monotony, I find the idea of trance so much in tune with the philistine nature of this city, that it is impossible to stop. Afterward I was, of course, dripping wet, but very much at home.
It has been a while since we’ve gone to Pappa’s for Friday Afternoon. The heat doesn’t make me want to leave the home airconditioner. But today we longed for really good food and a good time so we took a drive out to the center of the city. And to our surprise there were a few tables free. The ceiling fans, the cool air, the windows looking out onto the white street, the fabulous peroni, fish, pizza, coffee, profiteroles. Couldn’t drag myself away, even though i really should take a nap before the big party tonight.
July 9, 2009
You may notice that I can’t seem to let go of that peacock and the rooster. It’s becoming a symbol to me of all our narcissism. When I read the other day that Russians were not terribly impressed with Obama’s charisma, I thought of that photograph. When I heard today on the radio that Shula Zaken (Olmert’s secretary) and her brother were accused basically of rampantly using the Income Tax Offices for their own gain, I thought of the photograph. The scam of the “life keeper,” the patch to warn of heart attacks in advance. The kind of blind narcissism of the clipped wing contemporary individual is the norm, and oh my goodness I can’t seem to stop talking socialism.
So for a diversion we watched the 1937 film, “The Dybbuk.” It is slow-moving and only partially subtitled from the Yiddish, but it is just as fascinating as I remembered it from the age of 16 or so when i first saw it in the “Yiddish Culture Club” in Rochester New York.
Three years since the Lebanon War. Then we felt that the lack of leadership couldn’t get worse. But it has. Maybe that’s why I wrote this poem about the Golem yesterday:
THE GOLEM
Because I do not move
The dust here
In the attic of prayer
Falls evenly on my face,
On the wooden chair,
My arms, the floor, all
My clay flesh.
And I have not moved
Since the parchment
Was taken
From beneath my tongue.
I never saw
What was written there
But I know it gave me
Life, the power to obey
The Mahalal, to save
The Jews of Prague,
I knew not how pray –
And wasn’t told to think,
Just act in accordance
With righteous commands.
My earth, the water of life,
The fire of war,
And the spirit of a word
From the four corners of being
Gave me strength
To undo libels of blood
Of Thaddeus and those
Who made men into monsters.
Now a golem,
Returned to pure form
I await
Only the Divine,
The breath
To return
Order
To the world
Some people didn’t quite believe the picture of the peacock and rooster. So here it is from the opposite direction. The peacock is a little clipped, and these pictures were taken with my cellphone so they’re not totally clear, but the perversion is obvious….
With no trouble at all I could fill these pages with complaints about laws being made in Israel. The one about illegal immigrants. The crazy taxes. The lack of government developed industry bothers me the most today. I ran into some students who are unemployed and some old friends who are unemployable (and being treated for depression) and all i could think about was a new deal. The number of teachers, tutors, teacher’s aides, nurse’s aides, administrative assistants needed in government institutions is phenomenal. The amount of funds required to ‘employ’ people in these positions certainly is less than the amount of damage to the social structure of society which wastes its human resources and
demoralizes the population. I’d get some of the incredibly young writers I’ve met this year involved in a guidebook for all the villages and cities in this country, like they had in the ’30′s in the U.S., and art projects to take some of the ugliness out of the little development towns (although there I think we’re not doing all that badly.) More music teachers. More cleaners. More interior designers. More shesh-besh teachers.
I have long suspected that one of the reasons for the increase of autism in children is the lack of human contact in our society – not just Israel but everywhere. So the idea of more regular ‘people’ becoming involved in the educational process is one of my big dreams. My own life was significantly altered by adult attention at crucial periods in my children – the kindness of strangers – people talking to me, asking me questions, taking a bloody interest. This was my mother’s major success – she could get blood out of a stone by paying attention to children. I will never forget the way she trained a seriously mentally challenged child for his bar mitzvah. Some people said it was just rote learning but I knew his whole life would be affected by the success he managed to achieve that day before the entire congregation. In other words, making people involved in a society by giving them employment benefits the individual and benefits the society.
http://ga3.org/campaign/weve_got_your_back_pledge?qp_source=gb_1
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Dear President Obama,
Please know that I share your sense of urgency to bring peace to the Middle East.
Therefore, I pledge:
to back your committed and persistent leadership in support of a negotiated two-state solution
to work within my communities to build the political will that will enable you to take decisive and bold steps — and to urge Congress to support you in this endeavor
to make it known that an American President who dedicates himself to establishing a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace acts in the best interests of Israelis, Palestinians, the United States and our allies
to support you in staying the course through difficult times and to celebrate your successes
In Hebrew, the words for wind and for spirit are one and the same — ruach. As you work for peace, I promise that the ruach of the American Jewish people and our friends in the pro-Israel community will be at your back.
Full Petition Text:
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]
