blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

People are angry, frightened, lost, but highly motivated to help relieve the suffering of many many victims, neighbors, friends, and those in need.  With some people I even feel a kind of blankness that is helping them get through the challenges of  sudden rocket fire.  We have lost a lot and we cannot imagine life after this war, but there is one thing we must not lose – our compassion for the people who are considered our enemies.  Even though some of them have slaughtered, and they have families who supported their battle cry, we have to remember their humanity.  I am suddenly reminded of a poem I published in a book, Ignorant Armies, by ccc press:

ARABESQUE

 

Gaza – 1974

 

I

 

After dinner I’m alone with the grandmother,

while the men talk business 

and wives feed the children 

bumping each other in the hidden kitchen.

 

I am a guest, an English teacher new

to the Middle East, without tongue,

and I cannot play in pantomime –  

like my daughter – with the children and the goats.

 

In this bare room

the old woman talks 

as if eventually I must understand

her language

 

since she speaks in the feminine.

 

II

 

When I cannot answer, even after her long 

probing looks, she shrugs,

takes her crochet hook from a pocket,

and points out the window 

to a girl 

dancing solemnly alone.

 

Her gnarled hands, wound with pink wool, move easily, 

and soon she is making lovely rosettes in the bodice.  

I take the hook and try to imitate, slip,

slip again, finally latch through the last eye

to pull the rose together.  She smiles, 

I show her a stitch of my own

which she examines, unravels, 

then duplicates with a flourish.

 

 

compassion – oct 19, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv,

And here we are in another bright shiny morning. “The best country to dry laundry,” my mother used to say.  And I wonder if they are looking down from above – my mother who was a fervent Zionist and my father who believed in universality and Yiddish.  Actually, they held down both forts – because they learned Esperanto as the universal language, and prayed.  Neither solution worked.

What worked was flexibility, luck, alertness, and the ability to fit in.  And health.  My father who had been beaten very severely in Danzig, contracted perontinitis only later in England, but stayed healthy afterward for a number of years.  Until her lymphoma my mother was a picture of health  – or rather – the usual complaining woman.  (I”m like that – a thousand illnesses)  

So they survived.  But when they got to know the daily life of Israel, they were not happy about it.  My father – who had spent years in prison – did not like the way they pushed in line.

I wonder what they would think of this massacre.

 

morning – oct 19, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

We didn’t blow up the hospital in Gaza.  Even before we started bombing last week news reporters were asking provocative questions about whether we would blow up a hospital, and we did not deny the posibility. 

BUT WE DIDN’T DO IT.

We’ve been photographing every move we make in this war and we say that Hamas fired a rocket from the hospital that exploded upon firing.  I’m sure the footage will be released in a few hours.

in the meantime Barzillai Hospital here in Ashkelon has been bombed three times.

Why would hospitals be a goal?  In our case because Hamas fires rockets from that site.  In their case because as many civilian sites as possible are the goal.  

hospital explosion – Oct 17, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

My two friends and I dared to drive together to the shiva of a third friend’s mother, but it really felt like a daring deed – As trivial as this trip was, we were in such a state that we could barely keep from fighting about the directions.  We never know when the rocket will hit us or where, and everything is much more stressful than normal.  As I write now, I know I’m going to be interrupted to run down to the shelter.  We haven’t had a siren all day.  This time I’ve got to bring down some scissors to separate the water 6 pack so people can drink to calm down.  After all, Ezi is the only one functioning on the apartment board and it makes me feel just a bit responsible for all the old widows in our building (and they are the majority).  

This is the way Hammas is playing with us nowadays.  Rarely does someone get hurt, but everyone is shell-shocked, and we run around like headless chickens (and not even spring chickens).  ….

So there’s no rocket in our neighborhood yet, so I will continue.  It seems that most of the public underground parking garages are open and free, so when we arrived, there was no room, and after we waited for more than a quarter of an hour in the long line outside the closed gate, I went to speak to the guard and asked him to open the gate so in case there was an attack, we can at least be undergound.  He let us in, and we continued to argue about where to go, where to park, how to walk to the apartment building.  I was the worst of them because I just walked ahead through the park very fast (fast because rockets are not shot down if they’re going to fall in open areas and my friend’s apartment, next door to a park, was badly hit by the shrapnel of a rocket that fell into the park).  Anyway we go there all together and said the right things.  Only when I returned home did I see how dissheveled and demented I looked.

There was no rocket but the damage was done, and now I heard a boom right next to us (probably a kilometer away) that must have fallen in an open area.  That iron dome is really expensive and can’t be wasted.

Now that Israel has eliminated a few of the major players in Gaza, Iran will enter the fray and the warfare won’t be only psychological.

 

a day in the life – oct 17, 2023 Read Post »