blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, ,

How can we take pleasure in the lessening of the rockets when we see the footage of mass graves in Gaza?  It doesn’t ease our pain to know that every house there is filled with weapons of war.  Who knows whether they were put there by the families, the kindergarten teacher or the doctors or whether they were part of the ideology of the household?  Who knows if the body bags going into the ground are filled with people or rubble?  who knows what the truth is?  All I can know is that there are rockets that can kill us and can fall on us at any moment.  So a moment free of that fear must be cherished.

And believe me, it is.  Not out of self-induced ignorance  but out of great appreciation of each moment of grace.  So here today we sat at Manta Ray and ate fish from Jaffa and watched the waves and rejoiced.  

 

 

pleasure – dec 27, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

looks like we’re getting ready to wind down in Gaza and wind up in Lebanon.  Up to now we’ve been absorbing the many many rockets fired at us in the north, but it looks like we’re going to have to do more than just defend ourselves if we want to get the hundred thousand or so people back in their homes any time soon.  

And me I’m getting ready to solve another technical problem on this site – Slow and forgetful though I am I will figure this out.  One of these days I will become an expert at solving the problems that a 10 year old could do in his sleep.  

But right now there’s a solidarity demonstration in Tel Aviv – pretty much in the same place we’ve been demonstrating against the government for the past year – and we have to be counted among those who support the movement to keep the hostages in our negotiations.  It’s wet and cold so there probably aren’t many people.. 

I’ll let you know what happens.

moving right along – dec 23, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry

Seven artists, actors ,singers, musicians and dancers invite you to a one-time performance of voices from the October 7 war. Through poems, songs, music movement and prose we will share our bewilderment in an evening of compassion which we hope will be ultimately uplifting. Directed by Gabriella Lev, with Tamar Amar, Ran Cohen, Shira Natan, Hila Cohen, Geula Atlas, Batya Daniel Writers: Agi Mishol, Sarai Shavit, Karen Alkalay -Gut, Avital Liman, Salit Lazar, Zelda, Yosef Haim Brenner and others Monday Dec 25, 8pm at Bet Mazie Theatre ,18 Mesilat Yesharim

 

save christmas for me – Dec 21, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Today I got interviewed for some podcast – it was supposed to be about my book, the one about ‘home poems’ but the real subject turned out to be about what advice I can give to the hundreds of thousands of Israelis about rebuilding their homes.  And I found myself saying that it takes an entire society to build a home, that we all have a responsibility to help re build their homes.  And our own.  Until we come together and put everything we have into settling homes for everyone, we have not fulfilled our responsibility as citizens.

 

responsibility – Dec 20, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

The lecturer at the opening of the Tel Aviv Museum pointed out that we are not the same people that we were when we planned this exhibit four years ago.  Our needs are different, our goals are different.  The sense of reconsidering and rebuilding the identity of the country underlies many considerations about exhibits now.  Not that the artists have changed, but their relationships to society have been re-examined and re-emphasized. 

I admit I like it.  The self-satisfaction and superciliousness of the art world in the past has really bothered me in the past years.  

museums – dec 17, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

The exhibit at the Muza museum was crowded.  Everyone I could see was fascinated by most of the photographs of the events of the past year.  So much has happened and it is terrible to see it recorded all together in one room.  

here is the linkhttps://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/en/exhibitions/local-testimony-2023/

There was little relief from the tragedies we have gone through recently – but the fact that so many could see this exhibit shows that we are becoming just a bit innured.  Not because we don’t care, but we are learning to live with horror. 

That fact alone is terrifying.  

local testimony – Dec 16, 2023 Read Post »