israeli politics

At the same time that the scandal of religious schools being promised (by Bibi) to receive complete financial support even if they don’t teach a general curriculum, there was a scandal today about false gossip that the public schools were going to cut hours of Bible studies.  

It’s pretty well agreed that a Jewish state has to educate its people about their heritage, but it hasn’t become clear to the growing religious population that they need to acquire tools to earn a living.  If you’re reading this, you understand who to vote for.

bible studies – sept 12, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

It seems that random mass murders really became trendy after 2977 people were killed in the Twin Towers.  Maybe there were fewer means in the past, because there was always the image of anarchists with bombs in their pockets in crowded theaters.  Maybe it’s just that the means for mass killings are available to almost everybody.   Still, whether for political or personal reasons, there have been a lot of these tragedies imposed upon humankind in recent years.  Yesterday a guy was caught in Jaffa with lots of bombs – two policemen happened to notice that he was looking weird.  

 

 

 

september 11, sept 11, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

I can’t imagine what it is like living on the border of Lebanon.  A friend of mine skipped across yesterday for lunch in Ragar, while I ate lunch today at my friends in Metula cooked by a Druze Lebanese woman.  We look over the border and see all the Hizballah constructions, factories, and establishments with the naked eye.  How strange and how weird.  

The Border – Sept 10, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

The importance of further developing the revived language makes poetry important in this land.  And I learned a lot about Hebrew in the taste of the poetry festival in Metula.  Some of the critics – like Ariel Hirschfeld and Dan Miron – help to actually create literature.  But I really think the literature institutions have become more and more insular and need more dialogues with the world.  Ronny Somekh gave me an issue of a Polish journal today that has a poem of his translated into Polish from my English translation, and I flipped through it, wishing we could understand the poems and wondering what they could learn from Hebrew.  It is only chance that Ronny was translated by me, and chance that he has connections in Polish – but there is so much to learn from each other.  Unfortunately, poetry, like everything else, is determined by politics and the people I know who are in charge of the literary world, who determine publication and funding, can’t  handle it.  

hebrew – sept 10, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

Avot Yeshurun – I remember him as an old man with facial nerve paralysis who was always alone.  I had forgotten his poetry.  But when I heard Israel Bright sing a poem of his, I was transformed back to when I heard him read.  His speech was unclear, but I got the gist of it because there was something about how when he came to Jaffa as a refugee he was carried ashore by an Arab and fed eggplants.  What I never knew about the poet is that he changed his name in 1948 to Avot (Ancestors) Yeshurun (are watching) after the division he was in destroyed an Arab village.  Dan Miron spoke about him this evening and pointed out that menschlichkeit (being a human being) is the only characteristic that gives us a right to be here.     

Poetry-Politics-Sept 9, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

Somehow Ezi’s SIM card got knocked out as we were riding along the Lebanese border yesterday, so our efforts went more into getting a new card before the Shabbat and poetry got demoted on the urgency scale.  It was done, and all is now well, but my losing contact with him for a long time yesterday and the business of getting a new one took up more of my attention than I’d like to admit.  Still, we’ve been hearing a lot of lectures and some are really interesting.  The multitudes are what surprised me, and the complete lack of politics in the entire conference.  There is no place for foreign languages, no Arabic, no English – poetry is really big here and it’s all about Hebrew.  This is not what I’d experienced long ago when I first came to these festivals.  There were fewer people and a bit of multiculturalism.  

poetry on the border – sept 9, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

“The queen is dead and you’re listening to POETRY?” my friend from Metula writes as I text her to explain why I’m late to call her.  She really hit a nerve.  I was watching a few narcissists go way over their time slots and feeling that life is happening while these people are explaining their connection to Shlonsky.  And all that time, the queen who meant so much to me as a child, had passed.  One of the first books I read  when I finally learned to read was a biography of Elizabeth as a child.  How I admired her! I always admired her. 

But Shlonsky, himself, was great.  And Erez Biton showed his greatness by quoting long pieces of his work by heart.  Here’s a poem by him.

ABRAHAM SHLONSKY

 

 

THE VOW

 

By the eyes that witnessed bereavement

and burdened my bowed heart with cries,

By the compassion that taught me forgiveness

until days came that prohibited pardon,

I contracted the vow to remember all,

to remember — and forget nothing.

    

poetry in metula- sept 8, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

Israel bombed Aleppo airport again today, and we both were reminded of a little related discovery in my library.  Last year we were looking at how certain passages in the bible were translated into English and I went to look them up in the King James translation that Bandi, my father-in-law, gave me forty years ago.  Ezi, who always examines everything, noted that the book was stamped with the insignia of a shop in Aleppo and the frontispiece was stuck together with another page, and he went to work separating the pages.  What emerged was a dedication by his grandfather to his grandmother, who was studying English.  Arpad Gut sent his love to his wife and explained he was busy repairing the runways after a b0mbing, 1942.  He was working then for the British in WWII.  

aleppo airport – sept 7, 2022 Read Post »