Tel Aviv Diary - July 16, 2012 Karen Alkalay-Gut
July 16,2012 Sometimes I'm left without words, without thoughts, with only sadness. The self-immolation of Moshe Silman is beyond description. But the situation of the individual in relation to the system is the general problem that incorporates this terrible tragedy. For any person to get to a position in which he thinks that he is nothing, mere trash to be burned, demands an unresponsive society. But I know the individuals in the society are not unresponsive. They can be brought to acts of greatness when it comes down to it. That part is only a matter of education. The unwieldy bureaucracy and inhuman system of economics, however, is a much more difficult matter.
July 17, 2012 Rock music in Israel is hard. I wrote once that the children of Holocaust survivors have a hard time writing with the kind of anger that characterized rock of the sixties and seventies. (you can find the article here). Last night at Sharon Moldavi's performance in Bialik Cafe, I remembered this
The sound is rock, the energies are strong, powerful, but there is an element of softness, of love and warmth, that characterizes so much of Israeli music, music that may be untranslatable. Listen to a bit of his latest disk on youtube and see what you think. July 18, 2012 My disk? you can buy it HERE July 19, 2012 Everyone is going away - the heat, the small space, the political quagmire - who would not want to go away. And then a busload of tourists get blown up in Bulgaria. Most of these people have experienced explosions before. One survivor tells of all the rockets over her house in Ashkelon, another man explains that he was in a terrorist attack before in Jerusalem - July 20, 2012 The heat broke sometime last night - suddenly this was a beautiful city, and perfect weather for walking, beach, etc. unfortunately my back literally went out and i have to remain prone for the duration. I'd watch television if there was anything to watch, but this has been the worst season for television i can remember. I work at enjoying Israeli television,but the picking are really slim. Same is true for the newspaper. It's what we call 'cucumber season,' where there's no variety of vegetables, and if i didn't have work piled up to my eyebrows I'd be bored.
