israeli politics

“how old are you?”  the lady was asked, and she heard “how many wars have you been in?” and she began counting.  It’s not something that one gets used to – it’s one that seems to affect your life more and more.  This time I’m waiting for the next war.  And hoping I’ll be strong enough to get through it.  Each one leaves me less able to cope.  Each one leaves me less secure that the problems are solvable.  

Even though it seems we may have a chance to change the government, and to change the possibility of communication with our neighbors and within our society, even though it seems that all may be well, I am less able to actually participate in this change.

Most of my friends feel a similar helplessness. That even their vote doesn’t matter. My sister-in-law couldn’t get over the photographs of the children who were killed in Gaza this time around. “Why do they show us these pictures? Don’t we feel bad enough that we can’t do anything about it?” “Don’t we know that 1 in 4 of those children dreamt of being a Shahid?” someone else said, not to the point. “Didn’t we warn every family in every building we were going to bomb – didn’t we call them and give them an hour to get out? How could so many children have been killed?” We make accounts, try to figure out what happened, and wish we weren’t so hopeless. “What we have to worry about, ” someone else jumps in, “is keeping ourselves safe when their rockets target civilians, getting into shelters as soon as possible. That’s our only contribution possible in this war.”

Dם

may 29, 2021 – war’s end Read Post »

israeli politics

It’s a long story.  I know Shoshy from her connection to some research I was doing that is being continued with Shoshy’s help by my graduate student.  That’s a very intellectual connection.  

But she owns a gas station at Binyamina Junction, a gas station founded by her great-grandfather.  Ezi says there was a restaurant owned by her great- grandmother that his family used to visit on the way home from Naharia.  

Anyway one night last week her son called her up from the cash register he was managing and told her there was a violent mob looking for the Arab workers.  She got dressed and ran down to the station and got the 2 Arabs who worked there hidden.   Four hours.  With the police trying to keep the crowd from beating up the passers-by who looked Arab.  She sent her son inside and stood outside to protect them all.  You can read about it in Haaretz if you have a subscription.

If you don’t, just know this incident took place near Bibi’s home in Caesarea.  

 

 

may 27, 2011 – Read Post »

israeli politics

This poem, from one of my first books, Ignorant Armies, reminded me that in my many visits to Gaza in the seventies I knew no Arabic, but came to feel quite comfortable with the women there.

Ignorant Armies

 

ARABESQUE

 

Gaza ‑‑ 1974

 

I

 

After dinner I’m alone with the grandmother,

while the men talk business 

and wives feed the children 

bumping each other in the hidden kitchen.

 

I am a guest, an English teacher new

to the Middle East, without tongue,

and I cannot play in pantomine ‑‑ 

like my daughter ‑‑ with the children and the goats.

 

In this bare room

the old woman talks 

as if eventually I must understand

her language

 

since she speaks in the feminine.

 

II

 

When I cannot answer, even after her long 

probing looks, she shrugs,

takes her crochet hook from a pocket,

and points out the window 

to a girl dancing solemnly alone.

 

Her gnarled hands, wound with pink wool, move easily, 

and soon she is making lovely rosettes in the bodice.  

I take the hook and try to imitate, slip,

slip again, finally latch through the last eye

to pull the rose together.  She smiles, 

I show her a stitch of my own

which she examines, unravels, 

then duplicates with a flourish.

 

May 25, 2021 – Gaza 1974 Read Post »

israeli politics

Alexander Calder, the artist whose focus was always on movement, drove me mad three years ago in Denmark.  I danced in the rain with a mobile of his in the Lousiana museum, and realized for the first time in many years that I was free.  Today in the Tel Aviv Museum, newly reopened after the war, that sense of freedom was renewed.  The exhibit has been there for months, I think, but we kept delaying our plans to go there because of the crowds, or grandchildren, or because there was a war.   

Freedom, freedom of movement enables freedom of  thought, and freedom of thought enables the ability to transcend borders. 

It was one time I wasn’t embarassed at enjoying myself even though there was a restaurant full of frowning Danes watching me.  I think it helped to allow me to feel across borders.  But maybe not.  See my next post

may 25, 2021 – museum Read Post »

israeli politics

How do people KNOW things? Last night we saw my favorite opera, “The Medium,”  where the fake medium may have had a real communication from beyond.  And I could not help but compare the extreme opinions I heard about submitting to God’s plan  (like the holocaust happened because of the jewish ‘enlightenment’) and some of the crazy news about Israel as racist.  And I keep thinking that the whole idea of knowing, knowing truth, is so crazy.  You know what you can experience.  That’s it.   I don’t see racism here – i see the way Arabs and Jews in Israel are increasingly dependent upon each other and increasingly becoming friends and helping each other.  I see the people in Gaza suffering under Hamas – not getting any of the benefit of the billions of dollars funnelled through hamas, whose entire purpose is to destroy Israel. 

But I see only a corner of my reality.  How do I know?

I once asked my rebbe in the middle of a lesson what if we are spending all this time studying torah and there is no God.  He thought long and hard and finally answered, “Where there is a God or not, a Jew has to study Torah.”  The fact that he didn’t slap me over the face for that kind of question has only recently came to me as a shock.  But maybe whether you know or not, you have to act on the basis of some kind of knowledge….

 

 

may 24, 2021 – knowing Read Post »

israeli politics

A visit to Bnai Brak:  I’m still in shock over going anywhere outside of my neighborhood.  Perhaps that was part of my total surprise driving through the streets of Bnai Brak, the extreme religious neighborhood of Tel Aviv.  Its narrow streets are crowded with men in black kapotes amd fur hats and young girls pushing carriages, all of whom are certain that their purpose in this life is to prepare for the next one by studying torah (if male) or practicing modesty (if female).  This makes the world in which they live now pretty shabby and ugly.  

“I feel more comfortable in Harlem,” I whispered to my friend, as a woman passing by looked askance at me – even though i was wearing a long longsleeved dress and stockings.  She knew I was faking.  And my friend had jewelry and make-up to make things even worse.

may 23, 2021 – another world Read Post »

israeli politics

It was only when I started seeing the damage we incurred in Gaza that I began to understand why they stopping shooting rockets at us.  We not only imploded buildings, but in exploding the tunnels running through the city, we also caused the streets above to collapse.  But we notified citizens an hour in advance to get out of the way  if we were blowing up an hour in advance.  That was proven to me when they were interviewing a citizen (whose house collapsed on the tunnel) complained, “What? I wasn’t worth even a phone call?”  Those people in Gaza must know that we try to inform them.  Of course it doesn’t make them like us, but it keeps those people alive.  I, on the other hand, felt – like I have felt in previous wars – that there was a target on my head, that I was being aimed at.  (Part of my narcissism, of course, but true).

 

   

may 22, 2021 – david and goliath Read Post »

israeli politics

so many things still crazy. Israel tried to send medical supplies to Gaza but got shot at yesterday and had to turn back, but today seem to be succeeding.  I think this is one of the signs that we have great empathy for the Gazan people, but not for the present government there that spends fortunes on building weapons of destruction with no regard for an unprotected people.

Yes, I was in Gaza a few times many years ago, and felt very comfortable with the people – even though then I couldn’t speak a word.  But that was before Hamas.  We women sat together and crocheted, showing each other different tricks of flowers.   I have since forgotten the stitches, and barely remember how to crochet.  

But it would be wonderful to sit with those women again.  

Without the weapons. 

 

May 22, 2021 – almost normal Read Post »