Aviya Kushner wrote in her substack today about two poets who write about the holocaust. I’m one of them. Check it out. Here’s a page
I’ll be talking a bit about it on the 9th of October at Writers House on 6 Kaplan St…
About inheritance – august 24, 2023 Read Post »
I don’t mean children orphaned from their parents. I mean grandparents orphaned from their children. Children who are leaving the country because the opportunities are better somewhere else. Too many of my friends have said goodbye to the grandkids they helped raise knowing they will do well far away. They raised their children in a wonderful nurturing environment – but the next generation will grow up in a different education and culture. Unless…..
Orphaned – August 22, 2023 Read Post »
End of year celebrations continue – Not only did I blow all my recent earnings from lectures and appearances on Lancome today, but I think I’ve already blown my entire monthly pension this month on restaurants. Tonight was particularly celebratory – with birthdays and grandchildren and graduations – at a restaurant where nothing familiar was on the menu and everyone had to figure out what to order from scratch. For example, I usually like to order familiar foods – say – kebab – and then I know what I’m getting. But at Pastel, everything is local but put together in a new and strange way – sweet and bitter and sour and sharp. And the kids actually liked it!
So even though I’ve been depressed all day that I can’t get things together at the English Writers’ Association, and I had to cancel the event I’d planned on the 27th, I began to think that mixing things up might be a good idea – that things may work out even better that way.
The idea that ‘this too shall pass’ made me think that the depression of an old friend and the complete discombobulation of some of my ex-students and younger friends are not the same thing. My old friend may or may not be over the hill, but those younger people will continue on to have much better lives than what we’re having now.
pastel – July 7, 2022 Read Post »
We were sitting in Mantra Ray on the beach, talking about politics, high finance, operations and their success rate, and even the vague hamsin weather, when I spotted the sailboat seeming to float between sky and sea. Ezi took the above shot. Me, I took a less ‘artistic’ view.
you can barely see the boat from my perspective – but it is precisely the small size of the boat that I identified with. The helplessness we all feel in the world of massive forces which are determining every aspect of our lives. I can’t even answer my friends who are all nervous and deserve to be calmed down with friendship. I hope they will excuse me – I’ll be back when the skies are just a little more clear.
march 6, 2022 – manta ray Read Post »
this is the local highline, built on the old turkish rail line that went to Mecca….
and here’s the mosque the Turks built with the tax money they extricated from the locals. Hassan Bek = surrounded by cranes. not a good sign.
february 3, 2022 – Local Highline Read Post »
I usually find myself turning the page or changing the channel when the topic is sexual harassment. Not because I’m not interested, but because it makes me remember. Not one incident, but innumerable incidents I really don’t want to recall. Most were involved with bosses or people with power over my situation, doctors, editors, drivers, etc. Most were not overwhelming in their use of physical force. All of them were refused, but all of them creep into my nightmares.
But although I do not find it possible to join demonstrations and only once signed a declaration disapproving the rights of arts to total sexual freedom (which got me cut off my column in Ha’aretz ) I sympathize wherever possible with victims of sexual pressure, and I’ve interviewed about it in the past, but I’ve never been totally active against it. And in those days you did not complain.
january 5, 2022 – Harassment Read Post »
What a terrible day. Two funerals of people we loved, people who had nothing to do with each other – we were the only mutual connection. One funeral was at 1 and the other at 3. Ezi was still recovering from the vaccine, so when the first funeral finished, we decided to stay and have lunch at the new schnitzel stand at the entrance to the cemetery.
Yes, it is strange to have a cafe next to a cemetery. But as we sat there I began to realize the enormous number of people and cars on the roads before us. A new parking lot did little to contain the cars coming and going and the new cafe, albeit small, was also buzzing.
But the time between the two was very brief, and although we ate quickly, as we sat there with our mouths full of schnitzel, friends began to arrive for the funeral to come. That hunger for sustenance in the face of the death of our loved ones was so inappropriate and yet overwhelming.
We put our masks back on and went into the cemetery, and there was a crowd even bigger than the crowd in the morning.
But it was rushed. Hardly had the speakers finished their elegy before the noise of another funeral began. To speed us up, the hevre kadisha began to wheel out the cart with the body from the cemetery entrance towards the grave. That is when we collapsed.
Ezi said ‘enough’ and we started to head home. But it was turtles all the way. We crawled through traffic jams that made me almost miss my five o’clock zoom. I’m not sure how we will get through all the shiva calls this week – but, as Philip Roth said, at our age shivas are the continuation of cocktail parties.
Now none of these people died of Covid – but a friend has a theory that our situation hastens death – covid-related or not.
January 3, 2022 – Traffic Jam at the cemetery Read Post »
Have I told you already? Ezi received his fourth vaccine today. He had to drive into Tel Aviv and battle the traffic, but once there, there was almost no waiting and he was back home and drinking coffee within an hour and a half.
The rest of the country, it seems, was waiting in line for PCR tests. Not me, I was enjoying myself with a root canal – part 2. And for some reason, it left me totally wasted. Part 1 was the hard part, but as soon as it was over we went to visit a sick friend, but this time was murder. Two more to go.
My friend in Germany suggests that I was taking Ezi’s reaction on myself so that he would not feel the effects of his vaccine. I protest – I have enough troubles of my own.
It will take time before we know if this vaccine works on him, but there is a sense of relief.
And when I finish this teeth thing there will be a sense of relief – You’ll find me eating real food and carrying a much lighter wallet.
january 2, 2021 – 4th vaccine Read Post »
