just understand. What Noa Tishbi said is something I knew 4 months ago. Nobody listened. And even my own husband can’t listen to the stories.
That’s not surprising. That was part of the torture: making people watch their loved ones undergo the torture of watching. Palestinians raping Israeli victims made loved ones watch – Virtual Jerusalem
that video – feb 21, 2024 Read Post »
Noa Tishbi’s talk is not exaggerated. Please listen to her if you dare.
rape – Feb 21, 2024 Read Post »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
When the families of the hostages first set up their camp in front of the museum I went there to speak with them, to comfort them. And I found myself speechless. I bought necklaces for everyone and was silent. Then I met friends who had kids in the army and hadn’t slept for weeks. i could barely comfort, but at least made an effort. Then I met Arab friends who hastened to move away from any conversation about the war. I felt that way too.
Today I heard a woman on the radio who lost 4 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren and a few other relatives when their house was bombed in Gaza. She lives in Israel and can barely communicate with her son-in-law because the connections are bad so she knows her daughter is okay but she can’t reach her. “What do you think of those people who say that everyone in Gaza is Hamas?” the reporter asks her. Like all of us, she answers, she just wants this nightmare to be over. She lived in Gaza for many years – before there was Hamas – and she never found the people to be more violent than others. May everyone go home and live in peace, she concludes….
sympathy – feb 15, 2024 Read Post »
