Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

Sometimes all I want to do when I look around in this country is complain. There are so many things wrong – in the society, in the government, in education, in the health system. But because I have Ezi around to remind me of the way things were, even before the State of Israel, I very often wonder at the amazing achievements. The other day (which seems given what has happened in between like a lifetime) my cousin was recalling my aunt’s life in Israel after the work camps in Poland – her back broken by hard work. I remember her 2 room shack, the trees, the simple and beautiful life they created out of so little. I am also certain that she would not have been a cripple had she lived today.

Every experience I’ve had with hospitals here were amazing – efficient, innovative, upbeat. Except in maternity wards. There it is like Faulty Towers. Figure it out for yourselves. For example, if you are pregnant with your first child and you go to a maternity ward, and they ask you how bad is the pain on a scale from one to ten, how are you going to orient yourself? How will you know what pain is?

So should we be mourning the destruction of the second temple and the exile of the Jewish People, or should we be celebrating the renewal of the Jewish homeland? Should we re-integrate our history every year, incorporating the tragedy of the past in present mourning, or rejoicing in the re-creation?

Me, I’m rejoicing. A new baby in our family came into our lives today. A lovely, shlob of a boy. And he promises new beginnings for all. It isn’t the first time I’ve been involved in a birth, but this one was the most unconventional in terms of standard procedure, with all kinds of surprises that promise an innovative personality.

Where has the time gone? The summer, my dehydration, the waiting for a call to action from Orit, the errands, the endless errands, etc.etc.

Here’s a video that makes me feel that every moment not spent in R and D is a national betrayal

It’s true what they say there about asking questions – we’re always questioning everything, especially about our own actions. But the feeling that we may always ask questions sometimes make us ignore whole areas that should be questioned.

I’m not sure what made me collapse yesterday – i think it was the biking in hot weather, the surfeit of caffeine (1 1/2 liters of diet coke) and the exhaustion of a day without rest. But anyway the ride along the beach was magnificent, the sunset fiery, and this is my man and the pier he helped his father build when he was a child.

A wonderful review of Danza del Ventre For those of you who don’t read Italian, I’ll translate — eventually.

July 16, 2010

This just came out on Leadel and I thought you might want to know what I’ve been up to.

If its too heavy just follow the Leadel link above, until I figure out how to lighten it up. If you’re wondering why my name only appears on the film and not as a credit, it’s a good question. Ask them.

Cleaning my desk I found two old poems published in Hebrew in Iton 77 in 1981 “The Second Time” and “I Knock”. I kind of remember writing them but they didn’t go into the book published a year later, “Pislei Chema,” and they would have been lost to posterity and my memory. Surprise! Actually, the first one is in the book, but the second one isn’t.

Here’s a more cultural experience you wouldn’t want to miss:

t. Heat. It seems to confuse every one’s judgement. Everything is mixed up: good guys turn out to be killers (like religious saints), boats going where their log says but not where they say their going, bad guys turn out to be not so bad (like ex prime ministers), etc. etc. Me I| don’t want to step out of my house because I may make a similar mistake.

Maybe because we spend all our time fighting battles, maybe because we have to improvise all the time to make up for lack of funds, but even the way we fight cancer here seems so different and so unique. As “graduate” of the lymphoma ward, Ezi was invited to a concert tonight (with me) at Ichilov hospital of poetry and music written by patients and former patients. It was a crowd of patients, staff, and admirers, and excitement and energy filled the air.

The voluntary cooperation of everyone, the overwhelming desire to heal, the openness and the variety of the poems – all combined to make this an amazingly effective experience.