israeli politics

Today is little Purim – that is, because we add an extra month to our yearly lunar calendar every once in a while, and we celebrate the holiday on the second month, but the real holiday is on the first month, we call it little Purim.  Nothing like messing with reality.  

Anyway, even though I feel like shit I’ve got the family over to celebrate.  costumes and everything.  But they have no idea, because no body pays attention to this holiday.

And I’ve got the definite feeling that since Purim is about turning everything upside down, and we’re totally upside down anyway in our values, it’s appropriate.

After all, this is also the anniversary of Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of praying Arabs in the Maarat HaMachpela, when good became evil and the Oslo Agreements were demolished.  

Let’s try to make something good out of evil tonight.  

little purim – feb 23, 2024 Read Post »

israeli politics

We Israelis must have a record for traveling around the world.  Every time there are a few days off, we’re at the airport.  But since the war we’ve all seemed to have hunkered down.  The fear of antisemitism is part of it, but there’s also a feeling of patriotism that I can’t remember.  My students used to tell me they were too bored to vote, and now they have been given up their weekends demonstrating for over a year. 

And although ivy league students may shout about Apartheid, I swear I deal with more Arabs every day than Jews.

it’s a great country – feb 20, 2024 Read Post »

israeli politics

She has been keeping me awake at nights for months, that young mother enclosing her two tiny children in a blanket as she is carried away by Hamas.  And today we saw how she was marched through the streets and people saw her and no one said anything.

bibas family – feb 19, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry

When I first came to Israel, well over 50 years ago, I really believed that in the Jewish land we could now be international. We could transcend religion and culture and become a part of the world.  

But the present wave of antisemitism has put the last nail on the coffin of that theory.  We’re not part of the world – we’re just Jews who are one step away from annihilation. And, as they say in Yiddish, noch mit a nigun – and with a song yet – with great enthusiasm and joy.

So it makes sense that we’re turning inward and examining our own literature, rather than the culture of the world.  And tonight I joined the launch of Lyre

 

https://www.biupress.org/index.php/lyre/article/view/101/81

initially because one of the editors who is a close friend, Chanita Goodblatt, forced me to write an article for the initial issue.  But it’s good – and I’m proud to be a part of it.

 

jewish literature today – feb 18, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

I’m breathless.  Not the way I was a few years ago when the symptom sent me to a cardiologist, but because we seem to be dancing at a number of weddings.  First, the demonstrations and the visits with displaced people and relatives of hostages continue, and at the same time the concerts and plays have begun again full scale.  And what of all those friends and families we haven’t seen since the war began?  

breathless – Feb 17, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Az men lebt, derlebt men.  If you’re alive, you’ve lived through, they say in Yiddish.  And we live through terrible things every day.  Today was a shooting at a bus stop that killed 2 people – maybe more will emerge.  And of course the fighting in the north is intensifying, and the fighting the south continues.  I anticipate much more lethal rockets from the north and intensification from the east.

But for tonight we’re having a dinner party. 

living through – feb 16, 2024 Read Post »