israeli politics

Partisans -8.5.25

I took a break from translations of poems of the holocaust, and the book I’m trying to finish on Kurt Gerron to try to figure out how my new mini-tablet works.  I uploaded my kindle and lo and behold a book I had never read appeared – The Jewish Partisans of Belarus by Zeev Barmatz – that was published in 2012.  I must have downloaded it years ago but my book club reads only novels, and a lot of them, so this little document got lost in all the trash we talk about and appeared just as I was trying to escape the issue. 

And there were all the stories I’d heard about my aunt.   

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israeli politics

social contract - 8.4.25

Watching the knesset today, busy with getting rid of amazing leaders of our country while the hostages starve, I couldn’t help thinking of the first time I learned academically about Democracy.  My teacher for two years was a Quaker named Phillip Schuyler Benjamin.  I forgot which numerals followed his name, but I remember every philosopher and historian we read, and I clung to every concept.  The meaning of democracy was brought to us gradually, from Hobbes to Locke to deToqueville to Thoreau, and I distilled the idea that government exists to improve our lives, all of our lives.  I learned that the majority gets to choose who are in office, but their function is to follow a system by which all citizens are protected to live their lives as they wish as long as they do not impose their will on others.  

As I watched the knesset fanatics I kept thinking about the gentle Mr. Benjamin and one story he told about a Quaker meeting he attended where no one spoke – for hours.  Suddenly one man got up and said,  “Two skeletons were in the closet for centuries.  Suddenly, one turned to the other and said, ‘You know, if we had any guts we’d get out of here.'”

 

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israeli politics

By the rivers of babylon - 8.3.25

I’d forgotten that Boney M pointed out our history – 

Bombarded by fake news, we tend to forget basic truths.

Still, I wish that tomorrow our parliament would not be discussing tightening the security of the prime minister instead of getting the hostages out.  The reason the prime minister needs tighter security ….

 

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israeli politics

writing about war - 8.1.25

The other night I chaired a small group session of writers who spoke about the effect of the war on their writing.  As small as it was, almost every political opinion was voiced.  Only one of us lost their home, but all of us seem to have lost direction.   Who are we? Do we recognize ourselves?  What has happened to our lives?  Of course the people who came from abroad are a little less disoriented, but not much.  

Years ago a wrote an article about how people reacted in poetry to September 11 (https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article-abstract/26/2/257/20856/The-Poetry-of-September-11-The-Testimonial?redirectedFrom=PDF)

, and suddenly I remembered it, and how different the grief and mourning was then from the crippling depth of mourning in our writers.  I’m sure this little group represents the way most Israelis feel about this war – helpless to the point of wordlessness.

The worst part of this is that even though we know theoretically about how people feel and live in Gaza, we have no communication.  All we hear are  threats, terrifying threats from Hamas. Hostage who were released tell of families who caged them, starved them, and demeaned them, and hostages still there are kept alive only to torture us with videos of their terrifying suffering.  Articles like that from the New Yorker this week that concentrate on the suffering of the Gazan population would be something with which we would identify with completely except for the fact that we can only think first of the terrible tortures, rapes, murders this population inflicted on our people.     

(https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/treating-gazas-collective-trauma)

It is almost impossible to form any kind of empathy with people who murdered your children and yet I am becoming convinced that the only way we can ease our pain is to talk. As much as we are repelled by one another, we suffer together.


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israeli politics

food - 7.30.25

As we left the beach long past 9 at night, we passed two men who were cooking on the sidewalk for their family sitting on the grass.   I said, “bon appetit” in Hebrew because I couldn’t remember how to say it in Arabic, and they absolutely shouted thanks with great enthusiasm.  

Of course this moment will be burnt into my memory forever.  Because I had been watching CNN all afternoon and heard again and again about the famine in Gaza and how it is our fault.  I hear it all the time but because I was feeling ill today I couldn’t move and kept hearing the same thing.  The problem is, I know the food is going in there and is getting hijacked by Hamas.  I know so much food is getting destroyed on the way to the hungry people.  And I know that feeding people who are firing rockets at us is a problem.

May all who are hungry be fed.

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israeli politics

all day long - 29.7.25

we were supposed to have a lovely day at the museum, lunch, the optomologist, and then maybe a movie. 

But it went the other way.  It began when I went to the health clinic to return the holter (results next week).  Ezi wasn’t feeling well and asked for an EKG.  This led to cancelling the morning  and going home to consider what to do.  That led to a consultation with the doctor that led to the emergency room. 

And then, since Ezi was actually feeling better,  for the rest of the day I got to admire the brand new triage center while he went through a series of tests.  It was quite amazing because in the many times I have been to the emergency ward, it was always chaotic and a bit frightening.  With the new triage center, it was fast, efficient, and not at all unpleasant.  

To tell the truth the ‘pleasant’ part was due in part to the fact that the section we were in dealt only with ambulatory patients, which made speed much more possible.  

So the only real wait was the waiting for blood test results.  The exam, tests, etc went speedily along like a conveyor belt, and he came through exactly as he had entered.  with no changes, no medication, no instructions.  

At least it kept us off the streets and away from the news.

 

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