three cheers for President Rivlin. He’s shown he’s got a conscience even though he has to operate within legal restraints. May his moral conscience spread….
april 7, 2021 – President Read Post »
israeli politics
israeli politics
For the past four years we’ve been walking on the Israel Trail, or rather, my group has been walking and I’ve been shlepping behind – breathless, pale, aching. Our guide emphasizes archeology and we learn about the specific sites – many thousands of years of history. The walking is never easy – yesterday was almost impossible for me – but when we got to Megiddo I almost forgot that my toes were bleeding.
The site has been closed for over a year, and is still really not open yet, because they are still rebuilding the site which has been ravaged and plundered by archeologists over the past hundred years. Not because of some hunger for wealth, but because there are over 20 layers of civilization there and I imagine that each time a different layer interested the diggers so they threw away the later layers..
but these are original constructions – the altar that is one of many generations of altars
and the Canaanite granary.
april 7, 2021 – megiddo Read Post »
israeli politics
I get the idea – it’s all about walking through the entire entire – touching the ground. For us, the emphasis is on the archeology of this land. And the archeology is very confusing. Because it’s clear we find what we are looking for. But I’ve been walking over rocks and stones for 14 kilometers all day. And I will have to add to this tomorrow….
april 6, 2021 the israel trail Read Post »
israeli politics
When you study Shakespeare you learn about “The Great Chain of Being” that begins with the highest being and works down to stones. Without order – especially at the top – we’re lost. In Troilus and Cressida, Ulysses says:
O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows!
maybe that’s why our lives are so disrupted now. Even though we seem to be getting past Covid, we’ve got a criminal trial going on for our Crime Minister at the same time the new government hasn’t been formed. And perhaps can’t be formed. And we’ll have to try again.
april 5, 2021 holding our breath Read Post »
israeli politics
Two things I had to do today, buy shoes and get an ultrasound. The shoes are for the hike to Armageddon on Tuesday, because the hiking shoes I have been using seem to make me lose my toenails. The ultrasound is for my usual multinodal goiter check. The things that bring them together were the men who served them.
I chose the shoestore because online the recommendations were for the amazing service and I really need help. But I couldn’t even get the salesman to look at me. And when he did he said he didn’t have my size. I wasn’t about to let it go and finally got him to take out a bigger size that he did have in stock – he spent the time I was trying them on – texting. I don’t know if the shoes are good but I bought them out of spite. He disappeared before I paid for them.
But the ultrasound guy was terrible. I’ve had many, many of them – and a number of ‘fine needle analyses’ where they stick needles into my throat. But none of them freaked me out more than this cold, uninterested technician.
Both guys were tired and distracted. It wasn’t about me.
That made it worse for me – the fact that people are so sick of their jobs that they can’t even look at me, or any of their clients, was incredibly sad. I want to live in a world where people enjoy their lives.
april 4, 2021 shoeultrasound Read Post »
israeli politics
Catching up with friends, and feeling incredibly grateful that we are not in France and not in Brazil. We went up Bat Shlomo today and it was as if a year hadn’t passed. Sometimes old friends stay old friends no matter how much time has passed.
We also managed to hit the beach for a sunset that didn’t seem like it was going to be spectacular, went down behind the clouds, and then came out again underneath, very much like my days recently – they seem to be simple, but turn out to simple and fabulous.
israeli politics
I have officially gone stir-crazy. I can’t bear spending any more time planning zoom meetings, cooking, buying online, watching our super-dumbed down tv anymore. The lack of a result of the elections has just increased my sense of helplessness.
Maybe something good will come out of the elections – maybe we’ll learn to come together as a people.
it would be amazing if our new star, Monsour Abbas, could help us bring each other together. And it’s possible. After all, he’s from Mughrar and in all the years I was invited to Mughrar for the poetry festival I always came home with the feeling that anything was possible with these people. (Even though every time I said that people responded that the Moslem and Druze communities fight all the time and get nothing done.)
Still there really may be a chance to go outside soon. I mean, we’ve been trying real restaurants, we’re hiking again, we’re seeing children, and maybe we’ll begin living normal lives soon. maybe we’ll even miss zoom.
I’d like that a lot. missing zoom.
And I’d like to go to Mughrar again.
april 2, 2021 – let’s go outside Read Post »
israeli politics
“Fearlessly Flying – A Journey into Freedom,” will be devoted to the poetry of Erica Jong, and The World Began with Yes! presented by the Israel Association of Writers in English, with Hebrew translations by Rafi Weichert and Daffi Kudish Weichert with an interview and discussion with Erica Jong and Karen Alkalay-Gut.
Years ago I interviewed Erica – Today I uploaded the conversation and it was wonderful to read: here it is.