israeli politics

A lot of people with self-inflicted wounds running around the government today.  Can they be healed?  Minister of the Interior and of Health Deri was stripped of the right to hold the title of Minister and the government is tottering.  It would seem to me that he was operating under the assumption that the devious wording of his promise to the courts that he wouldn’t return last time around exempted him from keeping the promise.  

So the courts were more careful this time to close all doors to a convicted criminal.  I know he’s a really good administrator and greatly beloved, but he’s been getting away with his version of ‘correcting’ the injustice to Sephardim for too long at the expense of honesty.  

I understand that mentality – My father had a barber shop and when I was very small his clients included Jewish gangsters.  Their idea was that the system is screwing them so they have to screw the system.  

My mother used to do their nails – I remember those perfect nails and the cauliflower ears.

 

 

 

 

 

foot shooting – jan 19, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

I always write down the date before I sum up the day because the date is so critical.  Tomorrow the world will be different …

Like the butcher.  I stopped going to this butcher shortly after he opened his store here because although some others said he was nice, I always found him to be cold and bitter, and once I bought a roast from him that turned out to be half fat – but hidden.  Today, I happened to need something suddenly and he was so helpful I changed my mind about him entirely – feeling I wasted all these years going to a butcher far away from my home.  

And I began to think about politics that way too – maybe I just wasted my time thinking we could overcome the ignorance all around us,  Maybe we should just make peace with the fact that no matter how we try, we’re never going to win, and maybe we’re wrong.  Maybe we should get used to the way it was in 72 when I first came here – when there was no transportation on the sabbath and no shops were opened and cars were stoned for driving in certain neighborhoods.  It’s just a question of mindset, right?

No.  I’m just grasping at straws.

And that butcher is just desperate for clients now that the neighborhood is changing.

 

making minds up – jan 18, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

I really didn’t want to wake up today, and when I did, I was sorry.  Not only did I have an exercise session, and a visit to the cardiology clinic lined up for the morning, but the news came on announcing that Deri didn’t care what the high court decided but it was up to Bibi to determine his fate.  

So since authority itself has been determined to be a relative and changeable thing, I don’t need to listen to the Cardiologist at the hospital – I can choose who I want to give my heart to.  

And I went off to Ichilov after a rather exhausting workout with a light heart.  

Not really.  I still wasn’t feeling like waking up, so I asked Ezi to take me to the hospital.  But here’s where the story gets interesting.  There was no room in the parking garage, and after a long fruitless search, I was running late for my appointment.  So I jumped out of the car and ran the length of the hospital to the cardiac unit.  This was no easy task – the hospital is more than a long block long and the garage is at one end while the cardiac unit is at the other end.  

You may recall that the last time I was there, I entered by the nearest gate, and discovered the unit to be 2 flights up and the elevator to be broken.  This means that any out-patient with a heart problem must overcome certain obstacles before he can be treated.

The worst part is that I didn’t really have to go there.  I knew we would be parting ways – I really don’t need the operation that was thought to be imperative two years ago.  And I apologized for taking his time just to show him the tests that show I’m fine.  The doctor leafed through my tests and agreed.  “So this means we won’t be meeting anymore,” I said, tragically, and then remembered that Ezi has warned me that not everyone appreciates my sense of humor.  “Only at weddings and bar mitzvahs,” he replied.  And I left satisfied.

What will happen with Deri?  Sadly, we will see him again and again and again.

 

 

 

 

 

cardiology – Jan 17, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

All our troubles seemed so far away.  

But we were fooling ourselves.  WWIII seems to have begun last year and we’re just dealing with the details  All we don’t know is “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, is slouching toward Bethlehem to be born?”  

That’s why Yeats was drawn to fascism for a period, to control  that “rough beast.”

We just have to make sure that the controls are not self-destructive.

 

yesterday – jan 16, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

After more than 80,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv last night, and tens of thousands more demonstrated elsewhere, including the President’s home, the gloves are off.

Amos Schocken wrote an editorial this morning about the Finance Minister’s prevarications

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-01-15/ty-article/.premium/israels-new-justice-minister-a-liar/000

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But this isn’t the only one.  The attacks on the government right now are coming from all directions, and the feeling is that the restraint that we have been exercising is finally breaking.

Tsipi Livni, who really wanted to retire from public life, also spoke at the demonstration, and I would not be surprised if she doesn’t take over the divided left and succeed.

I’ll know more tonight when I meet the ‘in’ people, but I know we have to keep it moving.

 

 

 

 

now what? Jan 15, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

In the end, I chickened out.  The kids not interested in the demonstration didn’t try to convince me, but it worked.  I’m scared of the effort, the danger, the possibility that things will get out of control.

So Ezi invited kids over and has been cooking all day.  Me, I’m immobile.

 

 

demonstration – jan 14, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

We were supposed to go to the theater tomorrow evening, but since there is going to be a big demonstration tomorrow against the domination of the high courts by the government in Tel Aviv, we changed the date to late this morning.   And it was an amazing experience.  Amos Tamam surprised me as a profound Oedipus and Keren Mor played a very flirtatious Jocasta.  The play was well worth seeing, and the music (by my old partner Roy Yarkoni) was powerful.  I even spotted tears on my guest’s cheeks.  

But what about the demonstration tomorrow?  Ezi objects to endangering us in crowds of people but is for the cause of separation of the legal system from the government.  Some of my kids are very much involved in objecting to any aspect of the government taking over more and more of citizen’s rights, some of my kids don’t really know what’s going on, and some say that the government was determined by a majority and what they do is now their business.  Democracy demands, they claim, that we voice our opinion within the law.  So even though I’m going to go, I’m a divided family.  

Oedipus, Shmedipus – as they say – as long as you love your mother.

oedipus rex – jan 13, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

 Evusheld for Ezi

Because Ezi lacks antibodies and the Evusheld was advised for him again, he made an appointment for the nearest clinic.  It turned out to be Holon, which, it turns out, is very busy and very efficient.  Moreover, he got a double dose, which means it might work this time.  Last time we had so much faith in it, we went straight to Manhattan, where he contracted Covid almost immediately.  

It was a murderous vacation – sitting in a hotel room in New York for two weeks, trying to find a flight that would accept the fact that he was well because he had been given paxlovid.    

But I digress.  Immediately after the injection, with Ezi feeling now he could conquer the world, I began to feel vulnerable, and began to wear a mask.  Painfully aware that I was the only person in the shopping mall wearing a mask, I was also aware that I was attracting attention.   Even the clerk at the self-check-out counter came over to examine my purchases.  

But I also noticed that he too, like many of the others around me, was coughing.  And I remembered that one of my best friends was in the hospital with pneumonia, and even my young accomplice in Arabic translation, Maizun, begged off our meeting claiming illness.

I came home feeling sick.

will I make it to the opening of “Oedipus Rex” tomorrow?  I fear Ezi’s Evusheld has not protected me enough.

evusheld – jan 12, 2023 Read Post »