blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

For the past few years I have enjoyed the mingling of Arabs and Jews in Israel.  I love the proliferation of students, the constant encounters with a kind of people I had never really known before.  But in the past few days the tension has grown.   People worn out by the stress of terrorist rockets and the violence we’ve experienced have begun to fear every person who appears possibly to be an enemy.  We haven’t taken any responsibility for sheltering the Bedouin in the desert from the rockets – they have no sirens and no place to hide.  

That famous poem by Mahmoud Darwish works both ways.  We have to learn to “think of others” and so do they:

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
(do not forget the pigeon’s food).
As you conduct your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: “If only I were a candle in the dark”).

The parenthesis aren’t in the original, and I’m not sure about the accuracy of some of the words, but it really suits us all today.

racial tension – Oct 20, 2023 Read Post »

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 »