blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

We have been so focussed on the children of Gaza, wringing our hands that they might be injured or killed or they might not have enough to eat or drink.  “How could they be exposed to such weapons hidden in their toys?” Friends have said to me.  We forgot that many times in the past years we saw videos of nursery school children learning how to kill Jews, of armed school children staging attacks on mock settlements, of puppet shows that teach children how to kill.  It only now hit me that the children themselves are dangerous, that the weapons we find hidden in teddy bears are theirs, that many of the deaths and injuries are caused by the fact that they are in fact the enemy, trained from infancy.  

It is terrible to endanger children, but perhaps it is more terrible to teach children to be dangerous.

children – Jan 7, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

 On Friday we went for a walk, and I had the feeling that Covid was walking along beside me.  Breathless on every incline, yet overwhelmed by the beauty of the greenery, the narcissus, the migrating birds.  Ezi took many pictures, but I had to concentrate on walking.  Today I took a covid test, but it looks like I’ve just got a bad cold.  Whatever it is, I spent most of sunny yesterday at home on zoom, staying away from others, trying to avoid harming others.  

And all the while I was thinking of the question of innocence and guilt.

Who is innocent and who is guilty and what is guilt – we are fighting on all our borders and in the sea, and we’re considered the agressors.  Nasrallah talks about nuking us, people are getting killed from the north to the south, east and west, and it’s our fault.  The hostages who have been freed tell that they were guarded by armed children, and we are blamed for children as collateral damage.  have a look:

This kind of preparation for war has been going on for decades and yet we constantly worry about harming children.   These children have been turned into Manchurian Candidates.  

 

children and innocence – jan 7, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Since October 7  I’ve been trying to be positive, to present a positive face to my fellow countrymen who are suffering so greatly.  I also try to preserve the privacy of my friends.  But today I broke down.  I looked into the eyes of my friend whose only son is in Gaza, and they were empty.  A similar emptiness I find in my friends who have had to leave their homes while the rockets destroy those very homes, and those whose families are hostages.  I try somehow to fill those eyes, but instead mine too are becoming blank.

empty eyes Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

As we drove up north today, through the same roads we’ve driven many times, I was amazed at how everything seems the same.  The Sea of Galilee is still as breathtaking as ever.  Tiberius looks as decrepit as it did to Mark Twain. p506.jpg (44K)

Nothing much ever happens there, it seems, and not much changes.  

It was only when I talked with the disheartened people displaced from their home for so long and left without a purpose, a framework, a hope, that I saw the change.  And it was so sad I haven’t been able to get over it all day.

 

 

the same country – jan 4, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

People talk about 200,000 refugees in Israel, but numbers never mean much to me.  Even when I see the tents of evacuees from the south covering the entire plaza between the courts, the library and the museum, it doesn’t mean as much to me as a single old friend caught in the dreadful situation.  

In this case it is a friend of almost 60 years who lives next to what was once called “the good fence” up north, but has been evacuated and has been living in hotels for the past three months because of rocketfire up north.  She is not only old – like me – but she has Parkinson’s and has undergone 2 cataract operations since her exile.  Her house in Metula is booklined but until now hasn’t been able to read, but now she has no books.  So we went up to Tiberias with 3 bags of books donated by a wonderful Tel Aviv friend and left her with no room to move in that small room with all that reading. 

What else is there to do?

  

refugees – Jan 4, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

This is one of those health days.  The morning was spent in the skin clinic in Ichilov where Ezi had some procedures done.  Afternoon at the Hygienists.  Amazing to me how well we are taken care of even in war time.  Even my friend who’s been evacuated from Metulla and is now in a hotel in Tiberius had cataract surgery in Jerusalem is now clamoring for some light reading.  I’m collecting books and will bring them to her from Tel Aviv in a day or two.  Yeah, we’re suffering, but we’re holding on.

 

 

skin deep – jan 2, 2024 Read Post »