israeli politics

Tar and Feather - 5.11.24

We were on our way to the theater when we realized we were too sick to sit in an audience and went home to bed.  That was when Bibi announced his firing of Gallant.  

An amazing move – to take away the attention from the news this morning that Bibi hired people to steal military secrets to doctor and release to foreign presses.  It must have been a long time in the planning.  The wild card to pull out for when Gallant sent induction notices to Haredim.  The purpose – to keep the Haredim in the government so that his coalition doesn’t fall.       

The kids called while we were in bed to ask us to join the protest – we were already in bed and ready to sleep.  No way we could go out.  Trying to sleep all I could picture was a man tarred and feathered and driven out of town.  

Gallant has been the connection of Israel to the U.S., the only one that could tell the truth, and it can well cause Iran to rethink the milder form of revenge they had planned.

And now I’m going to try to go back to sleep. As soon as I erase that tar and feather image from my mind.

 

tar and feather – 5.11.24 Read Post »

israeli politics

election Day and Mendelson - 5.11.24

Are we getting bombed tonight? Orit and I discussed this as just another consideration about whether to go to the concert last night.  An amazing program, a wonderful escape, but then there are the threats.  

But we all went, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house.  

And to hear amazing antithetical music.  I hadn’t thought of the fact that Mendelson and Mahler were two Jewish composers – both of whom had to convert in order to be accepted in their profession. 

What a concert and what contrasts

https://www.ipo.co.il/en/program/lahav-shani-bouchkov/?event_id=51322

The Jewishness of it came to me at the beginning when we stood up with entrance of the conductor to sing HaTivka, an anthem I often regret.  So outdated, so exclusive against the Christian and Moslem population – about how long we have longed to return to Jerusalem to be a free nation.  I’m often embarassed  – but last night I wept – because we’re still fighting for it.  Maybe I’d change a few words and take out the Zionism and bring in freedom for all people in a jewish state…

Anyway I started the concert in tears.  Even though I remembered the question we always ask, “where are we going to draw the line?  What other country lets everyone in?” 

And then there was Mendelson and the conductor Lahav Shani and the violinist Marc Bouchkov played the violin concert without notes  – so beautifully I cried,  And I know Mendelson had to change his religion to get a career in music.   But I tried not to put Jewishness into the concert.  But then Marc Bouchkov came out for an encore and played a melody he remembered from his great grandmother Dina Weiss, and we all melted.  Even though I know that what he was playing couldn’t have been a Yiddish melody – Yiddish words wouldn’t fit into the melody…

At the break our friends told us they had come for the Mahler, and I was expectant – I didn’t remember the 6th symphony.  But as soon as it began I turned off.  It wasn’t a voluntary action – I couldn’t hear it.  

So I spent the time reading about Mahler  and his conversion and his antisemitic wife who almost always married Jews.  The music with its antithetical emotions and their lack of fusion seemed to me again – a sign of  his Jewishness.  

It was probably me and my fears.  We seemed to be all in the same basket in that concert hall and I kept remembering Mark Twain:

Behold the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket”–which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention;” but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and–WATCH THAT BASKET.”
– “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar”

 

election Day and Mendelson – 5.11.24 Read Post »

israeli politics

Stocking Up - 3.11.24

Any sign of a major war, and I’m stocking up.  Grocery shopping (all but the stuff I Should have bought), Cosmetics, and most of all, medications. 

I was losing control of the money that was accumulating on my credit card, and had piled up medications for the next three months.  It was getting inhuman.  So I looked at my pharmacist and thought I recognized him . “Mahmoud?”  “Yes.  That’s my name.” “I remember you from the last time I was hoarding medicines.  That was in February of 2021.  You said you were out of Caloril and I said, “What am I going to do? I”m leaving for Egypt in the morning!”  “You can get it much cheaper over the counter in Cairo,” he responded.  

“If course, I remember!”  he explained.  “That was right before the Covid! So was I right? Did you get it?”  “Oh, yes!” I lied.  I was so happy to talk with him, I had to keep it going.  

I left our conversation with my bag of drugs and a big smile, feeling very lucky that I now had everything I need for a long sojourn at home, and perfume for grandchildren as well.  But then I realized I had rushed so much to get to the pharmacy I didn’t bother to note exactly where I put my car.  A rare occurance but one that shook my confidence. 

And then out of nowhere a young man appeared, asking me for a handout.  So I startd asking him questions – where was he was from, why he was standing in a parking garage, why he was asking for money.  He story worked.  He was from a moshav up north and no longer could sustain his wife and child without work.  I left him to look for my car, and said I left my wallet there.  I refused his offer for help and retraced my steps to the corder behid a wall where I had hidden it.  Then I drove back to the young man, gave him the last of my money – a 100 shekel note, and asked for change so i could be sure to be able to pay for parking.    

How weird, I thought as I drove out. the entire range of experiences – the connection between Jews and Arabs in Israel, the refugees, the war hoarding, the confusion of situation and place – all in half an hour at the pharmacy.

 

stocking up – 3.11.24 Read Post »

israeli politics

My First Nightmare - 2.11.24

For the first time since the war began, I had a nightmare last night.  In the health clinic, I was attacked by a terrorist with a carving knife.  The details aren’t important but when I decided it was enough and I woke myself up, my heart was racing.  All I could think about was how I could lower my pulse so I could go back to sleep.  And I began to wonder why I didn’t think of revenge,  especially since the attacker was a specific person, although not one I knew.  Shouldn’t I have turned around and grabber the cleaver?  After all, I have learned to control my dreams to a certain extent – since as a child I had the usual Hitler dreams of refugee children.  I just wanted to get back to sleep and in a state of safety. 

 

My First Nightmare -2.11.24 Read Post »

israeli politics

Paralympics 1.11.24

Last night I was blessed to share an evening with the Paralympic team of 2024.  Not only did I get to hold a gold medal in my hand, hear the stories of how the stars this years come to overcome their limitations, but i got to meet the most amazing soulds I’ve met in a long time.  People who overcome the narrative that was clearly designated for them, but came to write their own narrative.  I’m hoping we will all learn from them and write our own narrative, create an enitre, whole nation from the broken people we have become.  And I really see that we can do it.

 

paraolympics – 1.11.24 Read Post »

israeli politics

Book Boycott 10.31.24

The letter in the Times is so important I’m linking it, sending it to you, and reprinting it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/31/opinion/israel-palestinians-cultural-boycott.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

The Jews are known as the people of the book. Not many people are aware that this expression originated in Islam and refers to those who received the divine word of Allah in the form of scripture. The phrase has become a proud and gentle chide among Jews, conjuring memories of a people with their noses in books as the world either passed them by or persecuted them.

That a group of authors — including Sally Rooney, Jhumpa Lahiri and Jonathan Lethem — have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications said to be “complicit in violating Palestinian rights,” strikes us as a counterproductive and misguided rebuff by the very people who have been our comrades in the sacred mission of making books.

This attack on culture divides the very people who should be in direct dialogue, reading one another’s books. It cannot be that the solution to the conflict is to read less, and not more. For authors who would in any other case denounce book bans and library purges, what do they hope to accomplish with this?

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We are Jerusalem-based literary agents, operating a small independent company built over 35 years, with partnerships in more than 50 countries. Our mission is to bring Israeli literature to the world. Among our clients, David Grossman was a recipient of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” was translated into more than 60 languages. Our writers have earned international reputations by inspiring readers and exploring the complex texture of Israeli life — writers like Meir Shalev, Yehuda Amichai, Tom Segev, Zeruya Shalev, Matti Friedman and Hila Blum, who more often than not challenge the powerful with the truth.

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Some readers may view this column as a gripe of the privileged Israeli creative class. But if they believe that we sit here in comfort and tacit approval of the war in Gaza, that means they don’t know that many Israelis are desperate for this war to end. We are traumatized, we are burying our dead, we are caught in the dread and anguish of what this war has wrought here and in Gaza and in Lebanon — if they don’t know those things, do the writers who signed that letter even read?

As urgent as this latest open letter purports to be, a chill descended over the world of Israeli literature over a decade ago. We would know. It was our books that were rejected at acquisitions meetings. It was our inboxes that were filled with letters from editors with an open disdain for anything Israeli. The gates have been closing well before this latest war.

What does this rejection achieve other than to serve as fodder for nationalist parties who exploited these boycotts for their own political gain? When Israel is isolated, the country’s extremists become only more entrenched.

In bookstores around the world, a table sits at the front. The Israel-Palestinian table. The war is at the front of everyone’s minds, so why shouldn’t shop owners capitalize on the interest? But the wares at these tables can reveal the dangerous myopia of booksellers who believe they are acting in the name of Palestinians.

Most tables we’ve seen favor the Palestinian narrative. These books should get published; in fact, we have represented some of their authors ourselves. But the few Israeli books that make it to these tables occupy only a paltry corner: history, politics and current affairs, novels and stories — a body of work that represents a people and its culture, their stories, their secrets and their testimonies, a body of work that is now shrinking as Jewish and Israeli writers struggle to find publishers.

Sally Rooney’s most recent blockbuster novel is titled “Intermezzo,” a word that describes a movement that comes between two sections of a piece of music. It is a deep reflection about the interplay between brothers who are separate but connected.

You cannot solve a problem by looking at only one part of the equation. You cannot understand the terrible tragedy of this place if you read only the literature of one side. You cannot advocate Palestinian rights by excluding and alienating the people who would fight for them from the only battleground where they might be won.

Targeting the Israeli publishing industry as if we have the power to negotiate a cease-fire deal or depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a gesture of foolish acrimony that contradicts the very thing literature is supposed to do. If you believe that books have the power to change hearts and minds, why wouldn’t you try to use that power constructively instead of engaging in a boycott, to take advantage of cultural institutions to argue your case on behalf of the Palestinians?

 

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