I’m so happy to announce the publication of my latest article on poetry and medicine. It was the beginning of my research on exploring how poem sequences trace the development of disease like a fever chart = in some cases with great success. Poetry can sometimes help you get better. In this case, Henley was lucky to be a patient of the man who initiated the use of antiseptic, who kept patients apart, who washed his hands – who used many procedures over 150 years ago that now save our lives. I’m still amazed at this confluence of new medical and poetic techniques. It’s called Chronicling medical progress: W. E. Henley, Joseph Lister, and recovery and it’s here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2021.1921476

I came here to rest, but this place is so exciting, I can’t help but look at every painting, every sculpture, every view from this amazing place.

iso I rested for a few minutes and then ran around, praising Yacov Richter, the original architect for his wisdom in suiting himself to this remarkable environment, and wishing I could run into Lili Elstein, who renovated this place and making it into an center for the arts as well as a hotel. A hotel that is whole. Yesterday I saw her eating dinner in the restaurant, and knew the food would be as wonderful as the place. And it was.

So sorry I will have to leave soon. Wish I could be here for at least a week.

Unfortunately we have a tv in our room, and that means we had to watch the reports given by Sara Netanyahu’s cleaners about her madness, but it also meant we could be happy with Herzog’s election as president, but it also meant we are mourning the disruption of the government. Oy, how much better we are than our politics.

I warned you. I need a vacation. And I’ve finally got it – a spa hotel in an art gallery. overlooking the sea. it’s a little piece of heaven – surrounded by a mess everywhere. We are not far from Binyamina, Jisr Al Zarcha – in other words, the place I told you about a few days where there was an attempted lynch on the Arab workers in the gas station. So it’s difficult to escape the world. We’re not far from Bibi’s home either. And tonight, we turned on the tv just as we were turning in – after a day of pool, massages, an amazing lamb dinner, a stroll through the corridors strewn with contemporary art – and there was an investigation of the workers in the prime minister’s house who had complained throughout the years about her psychotic behavior. Nothing that we hadn’t heard before. But it fits with the rumor that Gantz had been summoned to the US because Biden fears Bibi is going to nuke Iran so he won’t have to give up his position and go to jail. probably much crazier than the basic Sara stories that we’ve been hearing for years. There was also a story that Nasrallah tried to commit suicide.

anyway my concern today was more basic: Professor Galia Rahav has been a heroine for me for her numerous and tireless efforts to save the country from this plague. When I heard her speak in a memorial for the town, Zhedtl, I understood the deep sense of humanity that motivated this dedication. Recently, she was attacked for advising vaccinations for children from the age of 12. This is a woman who deserves many accolades and enormous support.

But I’m on vacation

o

i warned you – i needed a vacation /

 

I have no idea what awaits me – but i know that both of us are overbooked and need time off. two months ago we wanted to go to a place to rest but it was independence day and the hotel was full of virus-carrying children who filled every corner of the places we wanted to relax in. So we went on nature and archeology hikes. This time we hope to swim, relax, enjoy art, enjoy viewing nature…. and maybe gathering the fragments of my life into a comprehensible whole.

It isn’t a normal whole – i have to incorporate all the hate and anger and loss that has accumulated in our world. It includes the 65 children killed in Gaza, and double that number unsung in Afghanistan, and the uncounted in Africa. Those sacrificed and those forgotten. It includes all the politicians who have spread poisons throughout the world in their different ways. It includes the shameful way we’ve treated old people.

There are many ways of saying ‘oy’, including the gratuitous complaint and the expression of relief… i’m going through them all.

and i’ll try to explain it.

So everyone has a deadline, and I have to sign off on all of them. doctoral candidates have extended their extensions as far as they can, and now everything has to be approved. Then there’s a whole bunch of programs to arrange, birthday parties to celebrate, And we’re going to Zichron tomorrow to celebrate Ezi’s birthday. and then back home to continue the celebration for the weekend.

So I’m ignoring the politics. It’s messy and dirty, and there isn’t enough soap to help clean it up. It’s a pleasure to be ignorant.

I even had coffee with one of my students this afternoon in my favorite square. She grew up there in the old days, when Peres and Rabin lived, and Naomi Shemer down the street and felt very wistful of the good old days – and I pointed out that Efraim Kishon’s son and Aharoni now have shops here next to each other, and there were local celebrities all around us. That’s because it is simple in this country to stand out, to become famous, to become influential. And I suddenly felt terrible that I was trying to be uninvolved. We all have a responsibbility to be active here, to be involved.

that’s the problem with staying close to home for so long.  once you get out you want to do everything at once.  And you forget half of it because you’re no longer capable of remembering scheduling like this.   At 5 today I’m talking about Israel Emiot, although whether in Hebrew or Yiddish I don’t yet know.  Then i meet with Oren, then rush back to run a little workshop at 8.  i can’t skip any of it and my jaw is still aching from today at the dentist.  and all i want to do is sleep.

that’s the problem with staying close to home for so long.  once you get out you want to do everything at once.  And you forget half of it because you’re no longer capable of remembering scheduling like this.   At 5 today I’m talking about Israel Emiot, although whether in Hebrew or Yiddish I don’t yet know.  Then i meet with Oren, then rush back to run a little workshop at 8.  i can’t skip any of it and my jaw is still aching from today at the dentist.  and all i want to do is sleep

The Land  of Israel Museum – we used to call it, until we began to realize to what extent we were imposing a political half-truth on the landscape.   

as if all the history of civilization was incorporated into the existence of the state of Israel.  

When Tamar learns something about how olive oil was made in the old days, she is learning about Philistine, Canaanite, and other cultures as well as Jewish.  And when she sees contemporary art, it can be contextualized into the Islamic culture as well.  None of this takes away from the fact that the State of Israel is investing a great deal of money and effort into discovering this history, this heritage.  

Anyway, it’s a great museum, and although I have written about it before I want to emphasize its enormous improvement in recent years.  With only one reservation.  Our snack at the cafe was reviewed by Tamar as follows:  “It’s clear they don’t invest in desserts.”

 

 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

“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.”

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