Retaliation.. is that when you hit someone back?
Retaliation.. is that when you hold their hands so they won’t hit you again and then they spit at you?
Or maybe when you spit at them because they’re holding your mother in front of them and you’re careful not to injure her?
Self protection isn’t revenge.
retaliation – oct 30, 2023 Read Post »
J
while I was trying to remember how to set up a zoom meeting with Adam Mansbach for the IAWE – and wasn’t succeeding – the phone rang – an unknown number. I usually don’t answer unknown numbers but I was a bundle of news and I just wanted the ringing to stop. But it turned out it was a guy from city hall, checking on seniors and their needs. I was truly overwhelmed. We always help each other out, but I’ve never thought of city hall as a source of assistance! We must really be in trouble.
a little help from our friends – oct 29, 2023 Read Post »
We’ve discovered today that there are 239 hostages – not because Hamas is letting anyone know even their names, but because we’re discovering the names of the foreign workers who weren’t beheaded or had their faces smashed in. The Thai farm workers weren’t identified until now because of the lack of DNA samples.
So far Hamas isn’t talking to anyone about who the hostages are, and I wonder who is taking care of the 10 month old baby, who is getting medications for the old ladies, whether the teenagers have managed to escape rape, who is getting tortured, who has been slaughtered.
no news about the hostages – oct 29, 2023 Read Post »
My parents were refugees, and so was I – and even though my situation was nowhere nearly as difficult as the situation facing the people in Gaza who remember their expulsion from Israel – I would urge them to do everything possible to move temporarily to the south. It isn’t going to go well.
Here I am giving advice and even though my own family is urging us to take a break and go abroad for a while, I barely leave the house. How we cling to our home, as if it would save us.
go south already – oct 29, 2023 Read Post »
After an evening of rockets in Tel Aviv, we slept exhausted and woke to the news that the bombing of Gaza City, preparing the ground for their house-to-house search for terrorists. All Gaza City is Booby-trapped and we’re going to suffer many losses. I look around the shabbat table at the men and boys who are or will be going there, and I pray we will be able to celebrate hannuka all together in joy.
And me, I’m talking about calming each other down and supporting each other, and all the while I’m thinking – why are they not eating my kugel, my moussaka, my chicken soup? I’m finding little was to make little battles within me that will displace my anger.
Aren’t I petty? I was much more mature in kindergarten.
big fight – oct 29, 2023 Read Post »
After a day of cooking and hosting lunch for the family, we weren’t ready for the steady stream of alarms in the evening. I had promised to do a whole bunch of things this evening, and now I can’t concentrate on anything.
not tonight josephine – oct 28, 2023 Read Post »
I feel like i have to keep writing so you will know we’re okay. There have been a number of bombardments on Tel Aviv today, and people have been injured. I’m waiting for another one tonight. but so far, all is well. Of course we sleep in our clothes and run for shelter when sirens go off in our neighborhood. (and my neighbors denied that I push – they agreed we’re all behaving with great care toward each other.)
so far, so good -oct 27, 2023 Read Post »
We have always known it – that Gaza hides their terrorists under hospitals. This time the terrorists who ran from Israel back to Gaza went straight to Shifa hospital because they knew they were safe there. And now they have to be captured, somehow. Actually, I can think of ways.
But since I know what it is like to be a patient in a hospital, the total dependency on the regular functioning of the staff, the medications, the quiet, I cannot imagine doing it.
Oh, yes, and we’re apparently being targeted for bombing in our area so I’m not planning on anything but a fast sandwich close to the door that takes me to the shelter. No long games of monopoly for us tonight.
hospitals and terrorists – oct 27, 2023 Read Post »
