israeli politics

the dying man - 8.18.25

The theater is a few steps away from the place where the families of the hostages stay.  And tonight we went to a play — about a  guy who is dying and miraculously recovers.  I guess the idea is that one should never give up hope.  

Maybe it even was a dialogue with the hostages.  Maybe I just saw it that way because I am obsessed with the pain of the hostages.  

But the interface of the world of culture with the world of torture and starvation is too much to bear.

the dying man – 8.18.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

300,000 people - 8.17.25

and i couldn’t find parking.  I went with a friend and we planned it perfectly.  We would go early and park in the hospital, and walk to the demonstration.  But we could barely get to the entrance, and when we finally did, we learned the entrance was closed.  So we drove around for over half an hour without being able to get near any place to put the car. and then we went home.  The streets had been crowded with people – every where we went – but the way home was empty.  We could see the cars coming from the other direction – all in a traffic jam.  

So if there were 300,000 people at the demonstration there were at least another bunch of people stuck in their cars, all asking for the release of the hostages.


300,000 people – 8.17.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

on hold - 8.15.25

no talks.

strike on sunday.

it won’t make a difference 

we’ll be on hold until the elections.

and there will be elections only if the government now believes it can win the election.

 

on hold – 8.15.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

heat - 8.14.25

I don’t know how anyone functions in this heat – and yet there’s a NOVA festival a few blocks away from us with 30 thousand people trying to memorialize those killed on Oct 7, those in the villages and those in the NOVA festival.  

Me I’m trying hard to stay home and keep cool,  and stay away from the news.  There are moments of hope and moments of great horror.   We need better weather.

 

 

hea Read Post »

israeli politics

off with their heads - 8.13.25

Something has happened to all of our brains – Lewis Carroll should be writing an antithetical script about us.  I mean all the people of the world.  When I heard that the films Hamas and Nukba took of their carnage cannot be seen in Toronto because they are the property of Hamas, I realized that it’s not just us that are upside down.  

We too are so upside down we can’t even tell any more what is right – but we can still see what is going on.  But we would have to be upside-down and blind to not see that the blatant disregard of the basic values that first created this country has ruined our sense of reality. 

We discussed today the possibility of an extended strike – not just this Sunday – but all week.  Of course it’s harmful to the entire population and probably won’t matter at all to the government, but we’re out of ammunition.

 

 

 

 

off with their heads – 8.13.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

changing locks - 8.12.25

When I hear the families of the kidnapped, tortured people try to speak in the knesset, and I hear the people who prevent them from speaking, I amazed at how all the locks of the doors to logic, freedom, and morality have been changed.  The locks on the doors of the offices of the high court were changed today – as if something is higher than the law. higher than justice. 

correction!  I should have said the offices of the legal advisor,  the attorney general,

Gali Baharav-Miara.

And let me add how much I admire her, her steadfastness and her patience, in this matter

changing locks – 8.12.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

self-compensation - 8.11.25

What do you do when half the people you know are in Gaza, you’re still recovering from falling down the stairs on the way to the shelter, and your kids are lost without a summer framework because the camp has no where safe to take care of the kids?  

You spend all your savings on pleasure of course.  Restaurants, cars, trips. clothes, jewelry.  it is very pathetic. 

Because we did what was expected of us,  we voted, and then we began to demonstrate, we write, we scream, and continue to demonstrate.  And  nothing we do gives us any way to make a difference.  All that has happened is that our country has become empty – empty of the million possibilities we always felt – the potential to create, to change, to embrace.  

and now we have to begin to define ourselves again.

 

 

self-compensation – 8.11.25 Read Post »