I cannot express in words my pride in the people in Israel who are willing to fight for democracy and insist on doing it in peaceful ways. My estimate is around 150,000 people – without taking into account people like me who are too ill, too old, too weak, too sick, or too busy to be there. Our dedication in politics is to me extremely admirable, and I pray that when things calm down we’ll pay attention to the other injustices in our system.
protests tonight – March 11, 2023 Read Post »
Although I’m still not going anywhere not medical, we made exceptions for our grandchildren who are all doing projects on ‘roots’, and allowed ourselves to answer the lists of questions prepared for us by their teachers. We have done this before a few times but maybe because I’m measuring my heart every few minutes everything hits me more deeply. Yesterday and today I’ve been forgetting the demonstrations I’ve had to miss, even trying to make the idea of the enormous conflict a sign that Israel is an involved country, that something good is involved in the connection between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
I mean what would you do if your kids asked you about your conflicts between you and your parents? How would you feel if you took a photograph of your grandchild standing before a tower that your grandfather-in-law built? What would you feel if you had to admit to your grandson that you have never succeeded in finding survivors in your family? There are few things that can beat the kinds of emotions raised from those simple questions.
roots – march 11, 2023 Read Post »
what saved what’s left of my sanity is the stupid comedy Rivka Michaeli mastered last night in the Cameri, called “Im your grandmother.” Turning many of our tragedies into comedies, she (and the playwright and the cast) made us forget to check our phones and it was only after the play that we learned there had been a terrorist attack nearby – with 3 wounded. One will probably not make it, either.
And we were laughing our heads off about the joys of grandparenting, the trials of housing renewal plans, the tragedies of losing sons in the war. So it goes….
rivka Michaeli – march 10, 2023 Read Post »
Why SHOULD I not feel like I can make any decision more significant than whether I want milk in my tea? My doctors hint at first that my fast heart is due to the political situation. But what would really make my heart race is a return to democracy, a sense of values, and a national hunger for democracy and peace..
At the moment my mind feels like it’s turned into a compost heap from the garbage the government is swilling out and combines with all these heart pills, I need an assistant to shovel a path for me in the pigpen.
compost mentis – March 10, 2023 Read Post »
Here’s a little intimate peek at my heart. You know I’ve been watching my heart for a few years – the doctor promising an ablation but managing with pills. But in Barcelona, I started feeling that old tight chest and breathlessness that warns me my pulse is racing, and tonight it got to the point where we called the emergency center. But of course, by the time three guys showed up in a flashing ambulance I was feeling better. They all agreed, promised to come to my birthday party, and left me with a recommendation to the emergency ward and an EKG and all the buttons on my body. This time, as well as the last time, when Ezi was feeling weird, the team consisted of Arab paramedics, guys who take their profession seriously, and I – who always laugh when I feel I am in danger – must have unnerved them. I even invited them to my birthday party.
Anyway, I’m still home and hoping to manage this cardiac dysfunction. A good cardiologist would be a comfort, but appointments are hard to get.
heart – march 8, 2023 Read Post »
Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting this mess. Don’t tell you didn’t see the visible racism, the hunger for censorship, the desire to enforce laws on minorities, and the stirring up of internal animosity since the death of Rabin. I saw it – and I shut up. I saw the girls surrounding Rabin’s house and shouting their hatred on the street – and I laughed. I heard Smotrich and his racial sentiments and I dismissed him. I know I’m as much to blame as those who abandoned their values. And now, I’ve got what they tell me is corona and palpitations, and who knows what it means for me, but it certainly means I can’t demonstrate tomorrow, and every lost voice is an additional danger, Everyone has to be involved. We should have been there from the beginning!
surprise – march 8, 2023 Read Post »
Because we don’t seem to have improved with our flu or whatever it is, and my heart has been exhibiting extreme symptoms, I spent the day looking for some form of medical attention. I have an emergency button, but after I saw the team that came a few months ago to treat Ezi, I don’t want to go near them. Instead, I was looking for someone to look at me. My cardiologists are booked for mid-may, my GP was unavailable, and my apple watch was going crazy. finally, Orit sent me to her friend in the profession who suggested I have corona and stay home and take some of her magic medicine. that’s it. i’m calm and collected. i even believe the political situation can be saved. thank goodness for overdoses.
cardiokvetch – march 23, 2023 Read Post »
It has been a long time since I celebrated Purim properly – with a megilla, a costume, a drink or two. This year, though, is probably the worst. Not only am I almost too sick to move, but even most of my grandchildren are too sick to celebrate.
Anyway, I only like Purim for the celebrations, and wish I could have gone to Mendy Kahan’s Purim Shpiel yesterday when he does it in Yiddish and everything turns out to be a parody – a parody of the whole idea of Purim. That double vision of Yiddish always works for me.
But today I kept thinking of a song in Yiddish. A song with no irony or parody. It’s for Passover and here’s a rough English translation:
Tell me, Marrano, my brother,
Where will your seder be prepared?
In a deep cave, in a grotto,
There’s where I’ve prepared my seder.
Tell me, Marrano, where
Will you get white matzos?
In the cave, on God’s earth,
My wife kneaded the dough.
Tell me, Marrano, how will you
Acquire a Haggadah?
In the cave, deep in the fissures,
I hid it long ago.
Tell me, how will you defend yourself
When they hear you singing?
When the enemy finds me,
I will die singing.
I kept thinking of Maranos all the time we were in Barcelona. If so many Jews were forced to become Christians, and then were called “Marranos” or pigs in Spanish, there must be traces of Jewish DNA all over Spain. I kept looking in their faces for signs.
Silly of me. It’s that hunger to connect that distorts every pleasure.
Purim – march 6, 2023 Read Post »
