“What do you think?” She asked me. “Will we have rockets tonight?” I hadn’t thought of that possibility but with the explosive balloons flying over Israel creating havoc in the south we just might have a response from Israel and a counter response from Hamas. The Flag Parade today through Jerusalem may well have violent responses, and I wonder to what extent this was planned by the outgoing government – a chaos to make sure the new coalition government will fail. Perishing with the Philistines.

Still my hopes are so great. I have been translating Tschernichovsky’s poem “My Creed” and weeping with it. The first draft of the first verse goes:

Yes you may laugh at all my dreams

I even laugh at them too.

Laugh that I have faith in humanity

And I still believe in you.

if only this poem could replace our national anthem….

I never realized how much I believe in the Evil Eye. But now, I’m terrified at my delight in the new government. I listen to all the new ministers, and hear a new approach – a positive desire to do the best for our country. The amount of ego in the previous government is made so salient in the approaches of the new ministers to their offices, their approach to the people who work with them, the sense of common goals and collaborative organization. It seems almost too good to be possible. And with all the unrest in today’s society here, there are terrible problems to deal with. One example: Sheikh Jerrakh is one example of a long-term festering situation made to explode now on the occasion of the election. It didn’t have to be aggravated now. There was no need to evict families – it was just aggravating a problem that could have been solved. But the scorched earth policy can be restored. Let’s hold our breath and see what happens.

with the new government, I thought the left should be celebrating, but when I looked out the window, it was the extremely religious who were celebrating on the street.

they must know why they are celebrating. But I hope their demonstration in our neighborhood doesn’t mean they all live here, or are expecting us to celebrate. And I want to be sure they don’t celebrate on my street again.

i kept thinking of the times when the street was not paved, and we would run to the window when we heard the sheep bells and the shepherds were leading their flocks to the pasture at the end of the street, and how much we celebrated those herds passing by.

This celebration, it emerges, was for a new torah – and had nothing to do with politics. But the real celebrations were in Tel Aviv – dancing in the streets for the possibility that our values could now be changing. We have to get up at 5:30 or so to do a birthday party up north so we’re going no where – but i will probably spend a sleepless night worried about how much Bibi could have contributed to the new government were he not such a narcissist.

Something broke in me today. I knew I should stay home and get ready for a really hectic week. But I couldn’t concentrate on anything after finishing a long difficult article on writing in English in Israel. And even though Ezi begged to stay in bed I ran out to the Seven Star Mall. There I visited every dress shop and found nothing interesting and unusual. Everything is more of the same. It certainly was worth the traffic jam I got into, So many people in the mall, so many cars on the roads. Of course, I should have known this. Of course, there are no interesting new fashions. Of course, the people who come to visit are far more interesting than the people in the mall. But it is interesting to note that all the salespeople are Arab and all the cleaners are African – illegal refugees who before the Corona would have had to hide from the authorities. But now the authorities are changing. And one can always manage a warm conversation with salespeople.

me: do you have this in my size?

saleswoman: 40?

me: before corona.

saleswoman: 42?

me: we’ll see.

saleswoman: let’s try.

me: (from dressing room) one leg goes in

saleswoman: shall i get you another pair…. for the other leg?

me: (from dressing room) no chance

saleswoman: there’s always a chance. we may even have a new government tomorrow. You just have to hold in your stomach.

me: or maybe hold your nose.

f

sorry to disappear – we spent yesterday preparing dinner for the family and then this morning resting up. tonight we’ll have a different family over for leftovers and then the week begins.

And there is no one who doesn’t speak of the anticipations and fears for the new government. No one is worried about bringing Abbas in. And no one I know is sad that Bibi is leaving. But me, I keep wishing that there was some way we could use his talents – without letting him get out of hand. I’m more and more impressed with Meirav Michaeli, and the intelligent ways she manages and integrates the situation, and I believe Yair Lapid will enable her.

And as I say the name Lapid I suddenly have flashbacks to evenings we spent together with Tomy Lapid and Schulamit at Sally Groom’s place – parties where we seemed to connect deeply – with at least two brief, profound conversations interspersed by comments from our spouses. As though we were entranced. Ezi has no memory of them, and as I recall Tomy didn’t remember the first one either, but the image of his intense face often returns to me. What were our conversations about? something to do with the arts, surprising to me because he looked like a dock worker dressed up.

when i first decided to change the site to a simple wordpress, I had a guy who was helping me. He moved things around and I thought he’d be around to help me forever. But he suddenly went back to being extremely religious and he stopped talking to me – after all, I am a woman. that’s when I found out that he hadn’t really moved my domain and kind of messed up some more things. and since then I’ve been trying to figure out what he did and how I can fix it. It terrifies me, but I will be taking some major steps forward and may screw up the whole site altogether. Maybe I’ll find someone to help me.

After over a year we finally met at a cafe, the ‘cheerleaders’ who had been meeting monthly for dozens of years. We were enjoying each others’ company so much the ladies at the next table told us they envied us, and we asked them to join us, and one did. The hunger for others seems so great, for sharing our traumas and beginning to plan our futures. What do we know about what our lives will be like next week? So much has changed, and it is so hard to base our plans for the future on our past.

So it’s imperative to hang on to each other to keep some sort of balance.