may 4, 2022 – remembrance Read Post »
No matter how far I am from Israel, I am very near on Memorial Day. It is as if they are within me, the soldiers who have died defending our country all these years. Even when I am critical of the policies – and it is rare that I am not critical – I believe in those people who believed in defence. Not to be victims.
Here’s a poem by Yehuda Amichai “And Who Will Remember Those Who Remember”.
AND WHO WILL REMEMBER THOSE WHO REMEMBER
1.
Verses for Memorial Day—A hymn of remembrance
for those who died in war. Even the remembering generation dwindles and dies,
half in ripe old age and half in unripe old age,
and who will remember those who remember?
2.
How does a tombstone begin? A car burns in red flame
in Sha’ar Ha’Gai. A car burnt black. The skeleton oa car.
The frame of another car burnt in an accident somewhere else.
The frame was painted in anti—rust color, red
as that flame. Next to the frame a wreathe of dried flowers.
Dried flowers compose a Wreath of Remembrance,
Dried bones compose a Vision of the revival of dried bones.
And somewhere, far from here, hiding between the bushes,
is a cracked marble slate and on it names. A branch of oleander
hides most of them like a shock of hair on the face of a beloved.
But once a year the branch is moved aside and the names are called,
and in the firmament a flag flying half mast furled gaily
like a flag flying full mast—easy, easy, happy in its colors and in the wind.
And who will remember those who remember?
3.
And how does one stand in a Memorial Ceremony? Erect or bent,
rigid like a tent or limp as in mourning,
head humbled like the guilty or raised in defiance against death,
eyes wild or frozen like the eyes of the dead,
or shut, to view the stars within?
And what is the best time to remember? Noon
when the shadows are hidden beneath our feet, or dusk
when the shadows grow long like longings
with no beginning and no end, like God?
4.
And what shall we sing in the service? Once we sang the song of the valley,
“Who opened fire and who there fell,/ between Beit Alfa and Nahalal.”
Now I know who it was that opened fire
and I know the name of the one who fell.
He was my friend.
5.
And how shall we mourn? In the dirge of David for Jonathan and Saul,
“Lighter than eagles, braver than lions,” shall we lament.
Had they really been lighter than eagles,
they would have flown up, above the war
and not been injured. We would have seen them from below
and said, “Here are the eagles, here is my son, here my man, here my brother.”
And had they really been braver than lions
they would have stayed lions and not died like humans.
We would have fed them from our hands
and stroked their golden manes.
We would have tamed them in our homes, with love:
my son, my man, my brother, my brother, my man, my son.
6.
I went to the funeral of Ehud who was torn apart in a bombing,
far from here, newly dead in a new war.
And they told me to go to the new funeral home:
“It’s over there right next to the big dairy.
If you follow the scent of milk
you can’t go wrong.”
7.
Once I was walking together with my small daughter,
and we met a man who asked how I was and I asked
how he was—as in the Bible. And she asked, how
do you know him? And I said, “He was with me in the war.”
And she answered and asked, “If he was with you
in the war, how is it that he is not dead but still lives?”
8.
No one has heard of the fruit of the jasmine.
No poet has sung a hymn in its praise.
All sang drunken to the jasmine flower,
its strong aroma, the whiteness of its pale leaves,
the power of its flowers and the strength of their lives,
short like the life of a butterfly and the life of the stars.
No one has heard of the jasmine fruit.
And who will remember those who remember?
May 3, 2022 – Memorial Day Read Post »
it just doesn’t leave my mind, the way we believed in it, the possibility of peace, the idea that we were part of the generation that was making this happen, that our minds were being opened into new possibilities. And then he was assasinated.
And then we, who were so committed to the changes he worked to create, had to sit through Richard Nixon’s commencement speech. And in a way we understood, then, that all the promises of a new world that were instilled in us during those four years of university, were all lies – that even the greatest minds who led us forward could not protect us from the corruption and evil that was inevitably coming.
may 2, 2022 – kennedy again Read Post »
So I’ve been getting the sense here that I am personally responsible for Israel’s reticence to condemn Russia. Do you think it might have to do with the millions of Jews now in Russia? Perhaps the close relationship between Syria and Russia might be a factor? Does the field hospital we set up and are running in the Ukraine count for nothing? And the refugees we’re taking in? I fear I’m going to be cross-examined in every conversation this week.
may 2, 2022 – israel/Ukraine Read Post »
Even in Boston, the sun is out, the trees are flowering and the weather is bit better. It is hard to believe in this kind of weather, that there are so many threats to the world, to our peoples, to our lives. It is hard to believe in covid, in danger, in evil. And yet just from the pervasiveness of the protection we’re creating around ourselves, it’s all around us.
I don’t want protection, I want peace. Standing between the pillars of the John F. Kennedy way, I remembered his commencement speech and wept. He talked of peace, but very specifically:
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I can never forget that hope that he instilled in me.
May 1, 2022 – Flowering Read Post »
It isn’t pleasant to read the news about Israel from far away. I know so much about what I read isn’t true, but some of the things Are true and I can’t defend it.
When they say that Tel Aviv is not picking up as well as other cities are, for example, I don’t have the statistics, but I know that the whole city has holes in it for the subway and it’s made the traffic impossible. With all the wonders of the city, no one wants to drive in.
This should all change in the course of a year when the city will blossom again. I will probably avoid the trains but I’ll enjoy driving through the city. I can’t wait to walk through Allenby, wander down Rothchild, etc. I’m sitting in a gorgeous neighborhood in Boston at the moment, and all that I can think of are the painted peeling walls of Tel Aviv and how the people have all built up their lives from nothing – pretty much nothing. And they’ll keep picking up their lives no matter what.
May 1, 2022 – remote news Read Post »