israeli politics

the holidays here seems endless this year.  I, for one, have no patience for them.  Even though we had a wonderful holiday dinner with the family, there were no stars in the sky, and no sense of celebration. I guess seeing Netanyahu speak at the UN was the final downer.  i mean i agreed with every point he made, knowing he left out the points about his enormous errors in judgement which caused great suffering to his own people.  But our reasons for despising him are not related to what he did to the Gazan people.  They are more about how his mistakes allowed the Gazans to carry out the worst massacre since the Holocaust.  That massacre, and the massacre that promised to come, to destroy every one of the residents of Israel, was ameliorated only because of the people of Israel.  


hag sameach – again – 25.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

anything but the news – while i’m doing research on the Weimar period and the holocaust that ensued, I like to have the tv on in the background.  It used to be for news, to brighten up the atmosphere, or at least for some distraction.  

But now the news scares me much too much, and whatever I watch brings me back to the same subject I’m working on, so I’m trying out the most popular distraction in Israel – turkish soap operas.  if anything works, I’ll let you know.

what do i really watch?  the program where a bunch of autistic kids interview well-known personalities.  They do an amazing job of eliciting intimate details that the kids relate to and the intervieweees discover in themselves.  Connecting with others who are different and learning to empathize is incredibly comforting to me.

In the meantime we’re going out for drinks with the editors of my selected poems that’s coming out in a month or two (translated in Hebrew).  it still doesn’t have a cover, so if you have ideas I’d be happy to consider them.


    

Anything but the n Read Post »

israeli politics

excuses, excuses - 23.9.26

I may not be around much for a while – got to take care of a health situation and the details will bore you as much as they bore me.  i’ll be around soon.

excuses, e Read Post »

israeli politics

an old yom kippur poem -21.9.26

Yom kippur of non-believers

 

Next door my neighbor is preparing lunch

I hear each dish as it is placed on the table,

Each item removed from the refrigerator,

Each chair moved towards the food.

 

There are no other sounds except the crows

cawing their usual complaints,

So each human sin is clear, each washing machine,

Each peak at foreign news programs.

 

Where would we be without the believers,

Those who scurry back and forth from prayer,

Paler and paler as the day goes on,

Those for whom we try to keep a semblance

Of the silence of faith?

 

Last night in the streets

The children were running wild on their bicycles

As if there was no other day to show their skills

To their parents, their friends. 

 

But it was more subdued than usual

With less bravado than the years before

As if the last war had finally broken

All pretense of freedom from identity.

Elementor #25377 Read Post »

israeli politics

yom kippur - 20.9.26

1973.  the perfect quiet. shattered. forever. we stood in the street. where to go.  men disappear. women and children crowd into a tiny shelter i didn’t know existed.    It’s over, I thought.  today i suddenly had the same feeling for a moment.  so hatima tova means much more this year than ever.  

yom kippur – 20.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

shabbat tshuva - 19.9.26

Shabbat tshuva – the sabbath of repentance – and i celebrated it by taking a friend to a craft exhibit in the Muza Museum.  She was delighted and Ezi was clearly bored.    It wasn’t the art he was expecting – it was conceptual, ironic, and craft-oriented.  A crocheted decoupage medieval tapestry depicting knights in battle, a roman-like mosaic of a woman snapping a selfie, a pile of walls of tiny houses entitled “displacement.”  The humor was all over, as well as the tragedies.  

Tomorrow I’m going to try to make another widow laugh. 

Shabbat tshuva – 19.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

elections - 17.09.26

Today my role in the elections of october 27 was decided – when and how I can help out to ensure the voting is democratic.  It’s a very very small role, but I love the idea of responsibility.  And you?



elections – 17.09.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

celebrations and anger - 17.9.26

first thing i heard in the morning was the discussion of today’s anniversary of the explosion of the beepers.  The celebration in the voices of the little panel on the tv was apparent.  “This operation will go down in history!” cheered the military historians. But after that there was no mention of beepers on tv.  It was all about Netanyahu’s trial and the fact that the former attorney general, Mandelblit, had been called by the defence to testify.  It is assumed that he’ll say that the police acted beyond his orders.  So there was a celebration on the right.  Then it was the turn of the left (and everyone I know) to vent savage indignation at the ‘settlements’  next to Arab villages in the north.  

celebrations and anger – Read Post »