israeli politics

The fact that I wasn’t feeling well enough to demonstrate tonight really depressed me to the point of sickness, but when Dalia sent a film of the hundreds of thousands standing at attention with their flags lowered and singing the anthem, I was suddenly well.    

Not that I love that anthem – I think it’s outdated and not inclusive.  But I love the idea that all these people are singing their love of country together – and that Miri Aloni was leading the singing. 

Miri Aloni, who sang with Yitzhak Rabin just before he was killed.  She sat with me at Dalia Ravikovitz’s funeral and comforted me then.  She comforted me tonight.

april 8, 2023 -demonstration Read Post »

israeli politics

All this was on Good Friday, Passover, and Ramadan.  But what happened last night?  At first, they said a terrorist fired and then ran over the tourists.  But there were no bullet wounds treated at the hospital to my knowledge.  Now the family of the terrorist says there’s no way he was a terrorist.  It is so hard to tell what is going on.  

It isn’t just this incident – it’s everything.

 

 

what happened? April 8, Read Post »

israeli politics

We come back from the supermarket and turn on the news and there’s another tragedy – 2 sisters killed and their mother critically wounded.  On all the tv stations people are blaming each other’s politicians for laxity, but I think back to the supermarket which was replete with people of all races.  In the housewares section, for example, five salesgirls were chatting in Arabic next to the knives.  All I could think of was that they were hiding from the store manager, but I imagine Ben Gvir would have seen it differently.  I didn’t hear the whole conversation but it had something to do with boys and planning for the evening.  Maybe that would help – learning to understand each other a bit.

   

supermarket – Read Post »

israeli politics

“We have to get going to open the shelter,” I tell Ezi, especially when we’re responsible for all the 18 units in our building, and most are old, infirm, or hysterical.  We have this shelter in our basement, but the floor was never finished and although the room is very big, the furniture is dusty and there are only chemical facilities. 

I was almost out the door and on my way down with a vacuum cleaner, toilet paper and water, but Ezi remained relaxed, assuring me with his indifference that we’re nowhere near that.   

Nevertheless, I  really want to finish that floor.

 

preparation – april 6, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

Rocket fire from Gaza.  We respond.  Rocket fire from Lebanon.  We’re responding.  The holidays have begun.  Especially in Shlomi.  Hamas and Hizballah have united, and we’re divided.

I really need something good to happen.  Suddenly I feel all the years of Covid, the internal division here, the personal losses – all at once.

 

 

seder 2023 – april 6 Read Post »

israeli politics

since we’ve done all our cooking and finished with the shiva today, we took the kids out to lunch in Beta Cafe.  To my surprise, everything was open until 2, and every store was crowded – even the second-hand book store.  That’s when I realized I still had a present to buy. 

The choices were few – housewares, an art book, a plant.  I stood outside the housewares shop where there was a table of unappetizing dishes and wondered what to do next.  A woman came up to me – old, bent over, a little crazy looking, and began to ask me what to get as a gift as if I was a salesperson.  “I’d go into the store,” I told her, “and see if there is something nicer.”  And then I listened to my own advice.  I walked in, poured through a lot of practical, not-pretty things, and chose some yellow pot that tickled my fancy but would probably not suit anyone else.  In the meantime, the woman had found her way to the shelves I was looking at and berated me.  “Why did you leave me?” she said.  I can’t buy anything without help!”  “Who are you buying for?”  “My brother’s ex-wife,” she responded, and rejected the cookie jar I chose for her.  “You can’t help me,” she said.  “You don’t understand.”  Since I had just left the kids for this mission sitting around next door, eating ice cream and talking about things I couldn’t quite hear because of the noise, I was feeling like I really don’t understand much.   

But I know that even though I don’t know most of the people in the seder tonight, we’ll all come together on one thing – that we’re a free people, and we’re celebrating that freedom.

 

 

before the seder – april 5, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

As we sit shiva, mourning for Dina with the family, all kinds of people come to visit and comfort us.  Some are our friends, some are friends of one of the dozen-odd family members.  And the subject of politics comes up. 

No one argues, because we are in mourning, and some people have the facts and have read all the documents, and some have their information from the specific channel they watch on tv.  And it is all becoming a mess in my head.  I know that the changes in the government are extremely destructive, but I don’t know the answer to the question I was asked today, “What is the worst that could happen?”  “Don’t ask me now,” I said, “All I can see are graves and weeping.”  “Oh, come on,” he said, “Isn’t there anything positive?”  I thought and thought and realized that since this government has been in power, and the religious parties have made petty demands, the price of the six-packs of diet 7-up I’m addicted to has gone down 25% even though prices of everything else have risen dramatically.  And I checked the price of disposable dishes so favored by the religious parties and they too are down at least that much.  The fact that Iranian drones are entering our airspace seems to pale in significance…. 

objectivity – april 3, 2023 Read Post »