Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

A poem surprised me this morning – it wanted to come out whole and hasn’t been touched up or even edited yet. It’s one of those poems that are entirely true but still – I hope – a poem:

Pigs

My parents escaped from Nazi Danzig to a pig farm in Gloucestershire–
One month cowering in bed preparing to be found and beaten to death
And the next month being called by the pigs under the window to breakfast.

They didn’t stay there for long – my mother preferred the urban life,
Even if it meant living under bombs. But my father always remembered those pigs
Who identified him early on as the carrier of slops, and woke him every morning
Reminding him that he was not only human, but had chores to complete.

Any thoughts?

Maybe it was connected to the fact that we’re reading a book by Pierre Van Paasen, whose many documentary books about the Jews from World War I to the fifties are absolutely remarkable, but seem to have disappeared from the world along with the facts he collected then. I’ll probably have more to say about Van Paasen but for the moment his information about European nationalism and how it went hand-in-hand with post WWI anti-Semitism made me understand the persecution of my father and the terror in which he’d lived much better.

It’s important to remember that Hitler was preaching around the world to the converted.

Did you do the whole seder? We did and it sounded to me lie the same white noise I hear in the politics in Israel today. First off, the attempt to give credit only to the Lord is always problematic to me, because it makes certain that freedom is linked to divine desire. Second, the narrative is always subordinated to the analysis. Nothing you actually do will mean anything, but the Rabbis who review what is actually done are the ones who make a difference in the world. Third, the sense of paranoia is kept strong. Yes, it was a terrible persecution and yes we’ve always got enemies out there even if we open the door just for a minute for a prophet (So make sure you scream your curses out there and then slam the door shut). Third, there is one place to ask questions and one only. And they don’t all get answered.

Nevertheless we read the entire shtik with great gusto, and I throw the plagues at the children (styrofoam balls for hail, sunglasses for darkness, individual servings of ketchup for blood, etc. etc. and interpret the hagadah with pleasure that increases with each cup of wine.

With the rockets falling on Sderot all week, with the deaths on the border, with the politics at an all-time low for me, I suddenly can’t remember a seder in Israel without some danger. I’m sure it will come back to me – since seders are always a great place to remember the self in relation to society, and are the basis for a reintegration, an ordering of life. But right now I can only think of a recurring dream in my childhood in which Hitler breaks into our house on Remington Street on the night of the seder and murders us all. Of course I hide under the table, but eventually he finds me.

Having said that, today was full of profound personal relations – revelations and connections enough to fill a lifetime. Babies, romantic loves, a hospice – All was experienced with equanimity. But when I came home, and found that “Waltz With Bashir” was on tv and there was only a half hour left, I sat down immediately. I came in at the point in the film where the reality of Sabrah and Shattilah was becoming clear, and I anticipated the move from animation to reality with bated breath. And when the old woman appeared at the end, indicating the absolute destruction around her and screaming in Arabic, “film this, film this, film this” I sobbed. It was not a displacement or a sublimation of the emotions I had experienced: The more intense my own life becomes, the more I feel for every single life. And I’m glad of it.

Amazing how much energy I’m getting from the News. Yesterday I scrubbed the floor while Barak and Bibi exhibited the etiquette of diplomacy (How do you say “zubo” in English). In the morning the possibility of a coalition between Bibi and Tsipi eased my need to clean house and I let myself drift over to Ikea. I’d just read some article in the Tribune about “sharing” in various types of communities and some idea that in a Wallmart line in Missouri there would be a greater degree of sharing behavior then in a small community which hunts or farms for their existence. It was something I skimmed between cleaning up the feathers from the pillow I opened in a reckless moment and swallowing a skimpy breakfast, but it didn’t enter my consciousness until I started maneuvering my way through the crowds. I kept imagining making a short like Guy Ben Ner in which the family is filmed as if they were living in one of the settings in Ikea, and Ezi and I had a parodic discussion about capitalism, using the line from Ben Ner “Someday, my son, all this will be yours.” But reality occasionally breaks into imaginary situations, and in the middle of choosing wine glasses I got a call from Dynamica, a company that roped me into getting a superfluous insurance package on my cellphone a few years ago when I wasn’t paying attention and I haven’t been able to figure out how to contact ever since. The money comes out of my visa every month, but only last week did I get a phone number to cancel. The cancellation didn’t take, and they were now calling to convince me that it was essential for me to continue. After a quarter of an hour of empathic denial, I passed the phone to my mild-mannered husband, who began on the same level, but gradually broke into full-fledged screaming. As we passed through housewares, he began to literally spell out “c-a-n-c-e-l” at maximum volume, and although I knew it was not proper public behavior I followed behind cheering him on. What about the others, you ask? How did they react to this invasion of their privacy? Conscious of the article I skimmed in the morning, conscious of Munro Leaf’s wonderful book “How to Behave and Why,” I watched the shoppers passing by. Very few paid any attention. Of the few Hebrew speakers, the men smiled and made sympathetic comments. One man even said, “Tell them off for all of us.”

What have I forgotten? Oh, my birthday.

Getting ready for a seder is really hard work – polishing the furniture, getting the stuff together for the cooking, getting Afikoman gifts… I can handle the food and the floors, but absolutely can’t face the crowds. Everyone is on vacation or takes vacation, from every sector of this society, and everybody behaves badly. So I was very pleased to pass by the junk offered for sale on the lawn of the university, and to visit the little gift shop in the Diaspora museum. No one there knows about the chaos outside – it’s a museum so – good or bad – it concerns itself with more permanent things. I got lots of gifts for lots of people, and at the same prices as anywhere else. And now I can rest.

Once again the British prove their mettle to me. Since the days of Lawrence of Arabia when they promised this country to both the Arabs and the Jews they have been messing up the Middle East. Not that we don’t deserve a good talking-to, but that involves MORE diplomats, not less.

Who has time to breathe before Passover? Even the dermatologist (who once again cauterized the nail of my poor toe) had a madhouse in his otherwise cultured and artistic waiting room. I watched the news there over the heads of four little blond girls, learning about the crazy decisions to cut the building of the underground emergency units in Ashkelon Hosptial. While the news was all about breaking boundaries and lobbies twisting logical government decisions to fit the will of minorites, I watched one little girl purposely drop her paper cup of water on the parquet floor and step away, as her sister destroyed the candlabra and the tablecloth. I sat speechless as Ezi commented on the news – “What should we expect? If only 50% of the non-religious vote in elections, we don’t have a right to complain that the extreme parties take over.” Yes, I’m always speechless when I should be working towards having a voice. As Ezi’s mother used to say, “we won’t let them s— on our heads. We’ll open our mouths!”

For a petition against the madness in Barzalei Hospital in Ashkelon, and the responsibile assistant Minister of Health, press here . It’s in Hebrew though.

Another word about spring. An eternal optimist I’m going to do whatever I can to help the latest peace talks get off the ground after the holidays. It’s true we have to stop seeing ourselves as of necessity absolutely strong, and have to learn more about dialogue. Of course the other side has to learn that we are not monsters and our blood is not different from theirs.

Because Rachel’s birthday is on the first day of spring, it was particularly appropriate that she celebrated it in nature. But women of our age touring the Safari?

Ah, it is always an amazing place. The large herds of zebras, the rhino girlfriends who go everywhere together, the huge numbers of migrating birds who spend a night or two in the ponds, the lions playing on their ‘omegas’ (meat-filled tires on a rope tied between two trees), the cubs, foals, and chicks – all of this was perfect for grandmothers like us. To talk with an orang-otang like Moshon

to feed a giraffe

I couldn’t see to snap pictures with my cell phone – didn’t even think to take a camera – and certainly didn’t aim – but here and there some things came out:

All in all the most invigorating birthday I can remember

here’s a clip of panic ensemble doing parts of my poem ‘duration and expanse’on
youtube.
The whole poem is here:

DURATION
AND EXPANSE

I

The clock stopped when she went to sleep,
began its ticking again when she woke:
she was sure of it, thought
to catch it with a sneak awakening
while feigning deep
breathing—
to capture its
dependence on her consciousness

just as when a child
she strained to arrest
the moment of drifting
into dream

II

It’s all
a matter of breathing—
inhale and all events
go slowly—exhale
and feel a rush

because you just want

to get through them
so you can breathe
in
again

III

What about those rooms that disappear
when you leave them, the bus
that vanishes once you step off,
the city created
just for the scene of your visit,
not on the map—
that doesn’t exist
in the real
world? What
do you do
with those places

once
you’re through?

IV

Let’s say those loins
release a child,
with that slippery thrill
every mother recalls,
and the child grows, changes

every year, then goes off,
renounces you, disappears
into a jungle you’ve never been near—

do you still remain a mother

V

I never loved him
you know—there is no proof
those feelings
existed

no witnesses,
no documentation I can’t say
was fantasy

VI

Never believed
in lies
unless they countered

someone else’s
testimony

Never believed in time
that did not synchronize
with another’s watch

VII

Ah, but those tales
that have nothing to do
with the real world,

only the ticking
of some universal clock

So much better
than feigned facts,
accuracy

VIII

Every night
a different story

every story
a different night

IX

I tell you I will
beat those systems
—all of them

Like Sheherazade,
keep
my head