Karen Alkalay-Gut
February 2, 2019
I somehow missed yesterday. With all that is going on in this city, and the new political conversations that are coming up all over the place, I should be talking about politics. As an old member of Labor, I get dozens of letters and emails from them every day as they get more and more desperate. The other parties haven't given up on me but much less. It's the phone calls that really get to me - they're recorded and disturbing.
So we went to a musical last night. i can't believe that Friday night would be dedicated to such talented nothing, but it was - Saturday Night Fever. Dancers were good, singing was good, acting was fair, plot stupid.
discovered an amazing site for you about Tel Aviv today
We tagged along with friends to a party in Tel Aviv today. some of the most amazing talents in the world performed there, and i'm still reeling from the most amazing collection of people and ideas i've come across in a year compressed into two hours. i had no idea what i was getting into, and now i'm trying to digest some of the tunes, the people, the poems, before i forget. the highlight for me was Shlomo Gronich, but maybe it was because he closed the show. Please, Lord, if you're listening, let me come back again!!! (It isn't THAT farfetched to think that at least God reads this site, right? sometimes things i hope for in these pages come true. A friend wrote me what i wrote 4 years ago about Benny Ganz "Not since Amnon Lifkin Shachak have I admired a commander of the defense forces like I admired Benny Ganz. As a human being. I even watched the changing of command today on television, and saw the way the soldiers surrounded him as if he were a rock star. i'm sure Eisencott will be fine, but I will miss Ganz." And he's back!
I began to learn something new today. About a new party called Yashar that promises to change the system of government, direct voting on line by which the party is obligated to follow the will of its constituents. it sounds good, but the first person i told about it to warned me that we have to be careful not to waste votes in case they don't make it to the minimum number needed to run. still, it is worth finding out more about.
February 3, 2019
I sometimes forget to mention reviews or mentions of my books in these pages, like the latest reference in 'in geveb'. just saying.
Accompanying Ezi to the opticians today, i suddenly developed the urge to recheck my eyes and get a new pair of glasses. Ezi just got new lenses, but the price, the price! With all the discounts we get for being with the same guy for 25 years, we paid more than $4000. A month's salary! Sometimes people don't realize how expensive it is to live here. And i'm a high-maintenance woman. Glasses, massages, doctors, dentists, etc. Now this is not including our wonderful socialized medicine. I mean, at the pharmacy today my subsidized medicines were cheap, but the vitamins i added, the hand cream, the little extras, all were a small fortune. Fortunately I remembered the Yiddish saying that always calms me - farzetzn a mashken und zein a gvir. Get a mortgage and be wealthy.
No, it doesn't come out as well in English. A gvir is a wealthy upstanding person in the community.
February 4, 2019
I spent all day yesterday getting myself in condition for the 8 kilometer walk tomorrow on the Israel Trail. i made sure i had shoes that could withstand the rocks and the inclines and took a long walk myself to make sure my feet held up. i familiarized myself with the crusader ruins where we would be eating lunch, and chilled the water and made shnitzel for lunch and banana bread for desert. i was feeling pretty confident because the tripper guide told me there would be a bus always nearby if i needed to cut out - because i had not been on these trips since i ruined my toenails. but this afternoon i got the message that there was three hours of steep downhill walking and no bus nearby. so i chickened out. not for my first time in months.
This left me for the first time in years with no plans except writing. devastating. i actually have to face the page.
What about politics? In recent weeks i've been accused of fiddling while Israel burns. but i'm not the one fiddling. the erasure of one of the tv channels has made news almost impossible to receive, and the rest is pretty much reality stuff that dumbs down the population even more than ever. of course i read haaretz and the times but there is nothing like good visual journalism, and it seems to be gone. we have erased our access to visual judgement. oh we need an intelligent government before it is too late.
Did you manage to see my recipe for chicken soup? It's not a recipe - it's an explanation for why people of the previous generation didn't know from recipes. they were busy getting ingredients. who cared what ingredients? You had a carrot? put it in. a celery root? good. you had potatoes? maybe eat them separate. they'll fill you up...
February 5, 2019
Ezi went on the Israel trail today. he came back thrilled. i spent the day in my office, writing an article, trying not to worry if he was all right. who enjoyed himself more?
meanwhile the primaries for Likud were held today. All the celebrations sickened me - the deals, the campaigns, the nation-state law. The papers say that Gantz is getting more and more popular but he'll never win Bibi, and it makes no sense to me. Not that he hasn't done some amazing things. But he's also done some really terrible things that I cannot believe any moral person would condone. Even to his best friends.
February 6, 2019
The Likkud made some changes today. But, as everyone says, it doesn't really matter, because Bibi will decide what he wants to decide about who should be in the government. There are some people who are out that one cannot be but relieved about. Take Oren Hazan, for example, who i remember as a wild night club owner in Tel Aviv, but managed to get into the government last time and didn't stop making a fool of himself and the institution throughout his time there.
i am in the hospital waiting for Ezi to go through his PET-CT. Most of the patients and many of the staff are Arab in traditional dress. The rest are Russian or French. What a strange country this is!
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