we seem to have gone back in time with all the new rules and old dangers, but we’re coming from a much weaker place . We’re exhausted, we’re poor, and we’ve run out of movies to watch at home. Our government is in a less authoritative position to control the rules – I would have shut down the airport last week because that’s where the spread has been most prevalent. Instead, Bennett advised people not to travel and no one paid attention. Not that Bibi ever did a better job, but now we have to be much more strict.

Once – long ago – I told my boss in summer camp a secret a kid had told me, after a deep debate with myself about the issue. He immediately exploded and said, “you know what’s wrong with you ? You have a problem with authority!” Everyone who knows me knows this has been true for me all of my life – I never tell people what to do, never say that I know more than they do, never even tell people I’m a professor. And looking back, I’m sorry about that. Because I think the only way this plague can be overcome is with a strong leadership and strict rules. it should have been inculcated in us from the beginning of the corona when we were so scared. But we’re a people who need freedom, and trying to teach us something is like herding cats.

No, I don’t fast, but the story I found myself telling when we had some friends over for tea was as much of a tragedy as could be appropriate for this day of mourning. It was the story of my parents’ lives and their multiple escapes and survival, and the enumeration of all the relatives who didn’t make it through. I can’t imagine a more suitable introduction to a day of mourning.

I don’t know what made me tell it – I’ve told it in parts in some poems, and to Ezi here and there, but when my friend kept exclaiming that this should be a movie, I kept going. Maybe after I finish some of my more pressing projects…..

I have been doing almost all my grocery shopping online for over a decade. Then it was all about my back, but then my hips got replaced and I could stand up again – but I didn’t see the point. And then came corona and although I try here and there to get comfortable in a supermarket, I really don’t enjoy it. But my last order with Shufersal was a disaster. They changed the site to make the pictures bigger but I couldn’t find anything, it was so complicated, and a lot of things were missing. So with my fear of another lockdown soon, and going into the sabbath missing … something … I needed to go shopping. But Ezi isn’t safe yet, and Friday is a morning of frantic food shopping because everyone is hysterical about closed shops, so we decided to go late – and we went to where it is always open but at a time when most people are getting ready to nap for the evening – 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon. Tiv-Taam.

I had been there before – about 18 months ago – and I have spent so many years in groceries that I know blindfolded where everything is – so ultimately we spent less time there than I usually spend online – but it’s hard for me to compare prices and quality, and I wound up paying much more than usual. Tiv Taam is a Russian-oriented chain and they go for exotic imported stuff – some of which I really like – like Kfir and Russian smoked salmon. But I won’t be back there for a long time. As a food hoarder, this is a big problem.

Why am I a food hoarder? 1. I’m still used to having 13 people for lunch every Saturday or Friday night. 2. I grew up in the kind of weather where you could easily be stuck home for weeks because of the snow. 3. Holocaust mentality. We had cold cellars and extra freezers and a terrible fear of not enough. My mother worried for years that I was too thin – and didn’t enjoy eating. The fear was that I would splay my legs out and collapse like Sholom Aleichem’s horse. (The one he put on a diet getting used to eating less and less and he almost got it down to nothing, until the horse died.

There is so much to do in Tel Aviv. This site just tells you just about tonight. I would have loved to go to an evening with Maya Bejerano and her poetry tonight, but I’ve been working too hard on the proofs of my Yiddish book and I’m not sure whether I’ll finish in time. I can’t bear the thought of dragging it on much longer.

And I have good news – Ezi was vaccinated this morning. The hospital sent him a message last night to come, and he came. Now we have to see whether he’s immune or not. It’s like a new dawn.

In a way I’m relieved – if there are rules everyone has to follow we are all safer, even those with no antibodies. I don’t know how anyone will manage with masks in this intense heat.

And it looks like Ezi will be able to get a booster tomorrow. He was sent an appointment after weeks of chasing the medical institution, but the actual summons had nothing to do with his efforts. It was in the system. Pretty cool. He has been taken care of by the system for well over 13 years, and when I think of it, he has cost the ‘system’ well over half a million shekel. We should all be so lucky in the world.

But it has exhausted me – this staying on top of things. May we have a little easier time in the future.

when I was asked to translate a few poems by Shaul Tschernichovsky I knew it would be difficult. His language is so antique and he wrestles with words to fit them into rhymes. And the subjects are often archaic. I asked Ezi if he would work with me because I have so many other projects I would have to postpone. He agreed, but as soon as the new variant of corona appeared, he had to concentrate on refiguring his behavior in the face of his lack of immunity. So I wound up alone with Shaul.

And I found myself incredibly involved – especially in the poem, “I Believe.” I kept thinking I was talking with my father, who lived by the creed of the song. I kept remembering the summer courses my mother would drag me to when she was trying to get her certificate for teaching Hebrew. The students would sit around the dinner table and sing the song in Hebrew with tears in their eyes. Like never before I put my heart into translating, and every time I thought it was ready to submit I would reread it and change a few words. I’m not going to look over that poem anymore – I’m way behind on everything.

the heatwaves this year have confused all of us. These pomegranates next door are not due to ripen until the new year in September. Never mind – I’ll enjoy them anyway.