The overall reason for depression is the government. With no connection to reality, they make laws, budgets, policies – everything that counters basic reason. Whatever their motivation – greed, fanaticism, or simple madness – they are what got us into this situation and are keeping us there.
and what about the elephant in the room? – Jan 11, 2024 Read Post »
Everybody is depressed. Everybody. All about different things. 1. Hizballah – the war in the north is terrifying because they have the big guns and the nuclear devices. 2. Hamas – if they aren’t contained they will not only destroy Israel but was ignite the world. 3. the hostages – the conditions in which they are kept are impossible. Starved, raped, beaten, they are kept in the dark, cold, and damp with no medicines and are not allowed to communicate with each other. No one can survive for long and we haven’t found them. 4. The economy: This is divided into many parts -a) reserve soldiers have left their businesses for three months and their wives have to stay home and watch the kids – so for every reserve soldier there are 2 unemployed people. b) planes are just beginning to fly here this week so maybe the prices of imports will not rise too much in the light of the attacks on ships by the Huttis. c) Israelis, even if they have money, has no desire to go shopping – I’m the only one d) tourism is an additional complexity. Although numerous people have come from abroad to help out, they are not the big spenders, and the hotels are filled with displaced residents so it isn’t a great vacation to visit now. Come in the spring and buy stuff.
And now that I got an amazing review for the last book of poetry in Hebrew, I’m going to see about setting up the evening we cancelled on the 9th of October. Maybe we can begin to go back to living.
depression – jan 11, 2024 Read Post »
Today is the birthday of Kfir Bibas, who was captured in his mother’s arms and has been held hostage since October 7. I kept smelling the scent of a baby all day, wondering whether he was bathed, fed, and changed, whether he could see the light of day, whether he will ever emerge from the tunnels.
The question of freeing hostages was the subject of much discussion among the Rabbis of old – since many Jews were ransomed for higher prices than market value. My mother always told about how she was captured by Gypsies and ransomed by her father that night. She used to tell about how her face had been blackened and her ears pierced so she wouldn’t be discovered. She remembered the story in detail seventy years after it happened.
What will Kfir Bibas remember – if he is ever returned home?
kfir bibas’ first birthday – jan 9, 2024 Read Post »
While Sderot gets rockets every day, we in Tel Aviv have been free all week – until tonight. But we were ready. Today I was talking with friends who just refreshed the food they keep in the hall closet so they can grab the cooler on the way to the shelter.
We met at the beach, after the years of Covid and the war had separated us, and the first thing they asked was whether we had a bomb-safe room. We don’t. Then we learned about their medicine kit, their food cooler, their coffee maker, the overnight case. “It’s over,” I said. “We have to concentrate on helping the reconstruction of the concept of Israel.” “Not yet,” he said, “We should first concentrate on finding a country that will take us in.”
I laughed.
A few hours later the rockets were shot down over the south of the city as I was news-channel hopping and I saw how much we are hated around the world. And I had nothing to laugh about.
yet more rockets – jan 8, 2024 Read Post »
The IAWE is happy to invite you to join our Zoom event with the remarkable Joy Ladin in conversation with Karen Alkalay-Gut.
Sunday January 14,
19:45 Israel Time / 12:45 p.m. EST
To register, please click here.
Ladin is a poet and scholar, known for her work exploring Judaism and gender identity. The author of ten books of poetry, including 2022’s Shekhinah Speaks, National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna, and Lambda Literary Award finalists Impersonation and Transmigration, Joy Ladin’s forthcoming books are a poetry collection entitled Family and a collection of selected essays on gender called Once Out of Nature. She has also published a memoir of gender transition, Through the Door of Life, and a groundbreaking work of trans theology, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective. Her work is available at www.wordpress.joyladin.com.
Israel Association of Writers in English (IAWE)
P.O. Box 39385
6139301 Tel Aviv
Email | Website | Facebook | YouTube
Karen Alkalay-Gut
https://karenalkalay-gut.com/tel-aviv-blog/
invitation for Zoom Read Post »
We have been so focussed on the children of Gaza, wringing our hands that they might be injured or killed or they might not have enough to eat or drink. “How could they be exposed to such weapons hidden in their toys?” Friends have said to me. We forgot that many times in the past years we saw videos of nursery school children learning how to kill Jews, of armed school children staging attacks on mock settlements, of puppet shows that teach children how to kill. It only now hit me that the children themselves are dangerous, that the weapons we find hidden in teddy bears are theirs, that many of the deaths and injuries are caused by the fact that they are in fact the enemy, trained from infancy.
It is terrible to endanger children, but perhaps it is more terrible to teach children to be dangerous.
children – Jan 7, 2024 Read Post »
On Friday we went for a walk, and I had the feeling that Covid was walking along beside me. Breathless on every incline, yet overwhelmed by the beauty of the greenery, the narcissus, the migrating birds. Ezi took many pictures, but I had to concentrate on walking. Today I took a covid test, but it looks like I’ve just got a bad cold. Whatever it is, I spent most of sunny yesterday at home on zoom, staying away from others, trying to avoid harming others.
And all the while I was thinking of the question of innocence and guilt.
Who is innocent and who is guilty and what is guilt – we are fighting on all our borders and in the sea, and we’re considered the agressors. Nasrallah talks about nuking us, people are getting killed from the north to the south, east and west, and it’s our fault. The hostages who have been freed tell that they were guarded by armed children, and we are blamed for children as collateral damage. have a look:
This kind of preparation for war has been going on for decades and yet we constantly worry about harming children. These children have been turned into Manchurian Candidates.
children and innocence – jan 7, 2024 Read Post »
Since October 7 I’ve been trying to be positive, to present a positive face to my fellow countrymen who are suffering so greatly. I also try to preserve the privacy of my friends. But today I broke down. I looked into the eyes of my friend whose only son is in Gaza, and they were empty. A similar emptiness I find in my friends who have had to leave their homes while the rockets destroy those very homes, and those whose families are hostages. I try somehow to fill those eyes, but instead mine too are becoming blank.
