Ron huldai lights candles Read Post »
israeli politics
Even one ballistic missile a night aimed at my city is enough to make sleep a problem. Trying getting back to sleep after a suddening awakening, a run to safety, 10 minutes in shelter, and then to bed.
sleepless in tel Aviv – 26.12.24 Read Post »
israeli politics
Arbel - 25.12.24
It was here that a battle between the followers of the Maccabees and the Greeks took place. People took refuge in the caves and later in time, partisans of King Matityahu Antigonus fought against King Herod and the Romans.
The second time around the Romans dropped down from above and killed the people hiding in caves.
It’s a gorgeous place, but apparently it is not really wise to hide in caves
israeli politics
Happy Hannuka/Merry Christmas - 25.12.24
With this rare miracle of the confluence of dates, we have this amazing opportunity to celebrate both holidays together. But I don’t feel much like celebrating. I want to say humbug to both holidays and maybe bring back Festivus. The more we can find in common the better our lives can be.
hannuka, christmas Read Post »
israeli politics
Christmas Eve in Magdala - 24.2.24
We went to the birthplace of Mary Magdalane, Magdala, today but it turned out that the chapel of Duc in Altem was closed for Christmas. It is a magnificent chapel and is meant to be a place of contemplation, but since it was closed we concentrated on the ancient synagogue they unearthed, the houses of the high priests, the drainage system, and all kinds of archeology.
The stone, that perfectly imitates the original temple, was made, our guide Sara said, by someone who was actually in that temple, so it has to be somewhere before or during the time of Jesus.
It’s really worth seeing:
https://www.magdala.org/
Christmas eve in Magdala – 24.12.24 Read Post »
israeli politics
Living Together - 23.12.24
A friend of mine asked me today about moral complexity here, and I wound up writing a little incident about my afternoon:
Today the elevator in our building got stuck (it’s been stuck almost 20 times in the past month). One of the Arab girls who lives here rang our doorbell to tell us that a tenant, a Holocaust survivor, was inside. Ezi managed to pry open the door and get her out, but it took more than a quarter of an hour, and the woman was white we she emerged. The company did not want to come to repair it until the morning, but the new widow upstairs complained that there are mostly very old people in this house and they can’t always walk the five floors. What the underlying problem with the elevator company is that most of the repairmen have been in the reserves for the past year, so they are operating on an emergency basis.
Complexity is part of our lives.
Living Together – 23.12.24 Read Post »
israeli politics
kugel – 22.12.24
kugel - 22.12.24
I was ready to hate this series – it’s a prequel to Shtissel
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3069894/
And as soon as I turned it on, I was horrified by the terrible Yiddish of the Haredi Jews living in Antwerp. But soon I realized that the fractured yiddish was part of the plot. I also loved the petty evil of some of the characters, the smallness of their world. And many of my favorite Sephardi actors manage to create these Haredi Ashkenazi characters. https://www.kveller.com/kugel-the-shtisel-spinoff-will-stream-in-the-u-s-soon/
This is nothing to do with religion. Or the character of Jews. One might, however, see it as a denigration of Ashkenazi Jews by Sephardi Jews. And one might see it as antisemitic.
Not me. I see it as a Kugel – sweet, peppery, and very filling.