blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

After more than 24 hours without internet, and much work on the part of Ezi throughout, we went online and received our green passports.  Theoretically this will allow us to go to concerts, museums, and who knows what – once they open.  But in actuality we have no idea if the vaccine works on Ezi, who is full of ritoximab that lowers resistance, and if it works on the new mutations.   So, theoretically, we are in a better place.  But, practically, nothing has changed.

At this moment, I’m actually much happier that Ezi managed to get new equipment and reconnect our internet.  I might have had to start to clean and cook had not my distraction returned.

january 26, 2021 – green passport Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv,

When i first started reading about the fact that we haven’t shared our vaccines with Palestinians, I thought it was understandable that we would take care of one population after another.  Now I’m beginning to wonder.  It would not only be legal but also the moral imperative to share with people for whom we have claimed responsibility, even though Abu Mazen has taken responsibility for getting the Sputnik vaccine to the west bank.   

There was also another reason that occurred to me this morning as we were walking around our neighborhood.  I watch the houses going up and realize that at least in one of them the builders are not from here.  I may not know Arabic well, but I seem to be able to distinguish different dialects and the one I heard today is not from any place I’ve been to in the past forty years.

  

january 25, 2021 – why we have to vaccinate palestinians Read Post »

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

The New York Times inspired me to finally write about this

when I saw the inauguration last week I kept myself from crying – the way poetry was part of the message of models of faith for the future.  Models FOR faith, not in faith.  HOW to believe in the future and how to be the kind of people that could make it happen.  

The poetry itself seemed more spoken word than poetry to me, but Amanda Gorman did an amazing job in fulfilling the hope that we can change our lives, the direction of our politics.  And Biden’s reinforcement of that kind of belief in his quotation from Heaney’s poetry, something that was characteristic of empathic presidents before him – from Kennedy to Clinton to Biden, made me believe. 

And it made me see the contrasts between our leadership in Israel and the hope for the future in the U.S. government.   When Shimon Peres would quote a line from poetry, you knew he read the poem and chose it himself.  When Bibi – or any of the other politicians in the country – quote a poem, you know they’ve had some speechwriter who had combed the web for famous sayings…  

Thanks to Linda Streit for pointing out this op-ed to me

Please let us hear more encouraging words that shape and enable a better society in the future.

january 24, 2021 – politics and poetry Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

we’re still in lockdown and it is pretty clear we’ve all gone over the edge.  Even if we plan to meet on zoom, one of us forgets.  

but i have discovered that my birthday this year is the same day for the Hebrew and the Roman calendar.  After the second seder, my mother went into labor.  My father recommended that my mother wait until morning, because there was a particularly nasty rocket attack on London going on at the time, but my mother insisted, and they went to the Salvation Army Hospital in Hackney, which had been recently bombed.  My mother complained that she was forced off the table as soon as I was born and made to run for shelter, but the delivery room was also a shelter.  Anyway, it was the last night of those nasty V2 rockets.  That’s why I remember my birthday dates.  

Since nothing happens except the continuing discovery of continuing corruption in our government, I have gone to my past for a bit of optimism.  And although I told Ezi the story over and over again when we met, it never really meant anything to him until one day we were visiting the science museum in Munich and there was a display of weapons.  Suddenly Ezi stopped in from of a rocket and said, this is your partner.  It was a V2 rocket, and the sign in front of it said only, ‘last flight march 29, 1945.’

january 22, 2021 – birthday plans Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

Was I the only person not- totally celebrating at the inauguration? was it only me who was just a little worried about the sermons and the religious songs?  I mentioned something about the separation of church and state on my Facebook and got no response as if I had tried to ruin the party.  But it couldn’t be the only one wondering at the second-hand bible quotes slipping in and out of the ceremony, from “Halleluja” to the excluded stanzas of “This Land is Your Land”now I read Mira Fox in the Forward and she points out the religious nature of the ceremony.  I’m waiting for someone to now say that there were too many catchwords without substance, that the cliches were taken out of context.   I believe in Biden, but I’m troubled by the overused phrases.

january 21, 2021 – Faith in the inauguration Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

Although we’ve had dogs for many years, my only experience in recent months is with street cats.  We never trained dogs – they always trained us – and now we’re experiencing the same thing with cats.  One particularly wild street cat comes by a few times a day for meals.  She tells us what she wants by pointing to the relevant cupboard or fridge, and if I am working in my study, goes to sleep on my couch.  If I am doing housework, she leaves in a huff.  But I also meet other cats wherever I go.  Yesterday, when a severe sciatica attack made me go to the orthopedist, I found a street cat in the waiting room.  She waited with the receptionist and I asked to whom she belonged.  The receptionist said she was taken care of by the other storefront offices, but she always joined her during reception hours because orthopedists – unlike pediatricians and gynecologists – have patients who might call her over to be petted. 

 

 

january 21, 2021 – Corona and cats Read Post »

blog, poetry

i read Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes” last night, since today is the saint’s day, and the last verse made me cry. Being able to transcend life through love – especially in these difficult times – is such a romantic concept.  precisely because it is impossible in real life.  that’s why we have cellphones…

january 21, 2021 – St. Agnes eve Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

No one could hope for a more fun vaccination than we had.  At the entrance to the site we got asked – very quickly – if we had fever, have been abroad, had a sense of taste, and as we were getting used to saying no, switched to positive questions like “do you have an appointment?  are you here for the vaccine? …Ha! fooled you! Just checking to see if you were paying attention…”   Then they brought us together to a very cheery nurse – a heavy-set, braided, black man, who picked up on my strange sense of humor and realized that humor relaxes the muscles.  We joked about our respective ages, our health, our reactions… and …we were out… cut our waiting time short and off to bed.  To watch the departure of Trump from the white house.

what a delight – to keep switching channels and hearing the antithetical takes of CNN and FOX on the political games people play….  

 

january 20, 2021 – vaccine and inauguration Read Post »