October 24, 2015 after the kids leave tonight we absolutely must study our arabic so we can be ready for class tomorrow. I am still having trouble identifying letters where they are graphics and what I still call "fleigendreck", the diacritical marks. sometimes i stop before a street sign and wonder how it could possibly be parallel to the hebrew. At the same time I am longing for my Arab friends who have left me this month. Both great mensch
I kept looking at the front page of the New York Times and couldn't absorb it - the New York Times has nothing to write about but the fact that the Palestinians are singing hate songs about killing Israelis. Funny thing about it, because last night I sang a song about killing, but it was about the book of Judith and how Judith kills Holofernes
The idea of a hate song is so foreign to us that we're all laughing. My part is in Yiddish which makes it even more comical. But it isn't only Panic Ensemble. There are NO Hate Songs in Hebrew. No songs against Arabs. Even the most right wing of the Israelis would not perform a song - in public - against anyone.
October 25, 2015 The rain that came today didn't seem too extreme from inside my window. But in some places up north the hail looked like tennis balls, and some of my friends had no electricity or phones all day. Since we changed the clocks it is now dark well before 6 in the evening and the rain doesn't help the sense of winter gloom. We have no autumn here - it goes from summer to winter. October 26, 2015 As the stabbings continue it is clear that all the individuals have been trained in the same way. they all go for the jugular, and often get very close. I don't know why I am not scared in public places. October 27, 2015 It was a day of doctors. I don't think i felt the rain storm at all, but when I spoke to Sabrine in Teybeh she noted that she had no electricity for 2 days and was expecting another failure tonight. There were people from much more elegant neighborhoods who lost their electricity, but only for a day or so. One of my friends complained she not only had no electricity and no phone but she couldn't get her car out of the garage because of the electric doors. People were throwing out spoiled food in both of these neighborhoods. And no one is going anywhere unless they have to. Global warming has hit us. big.
October 28, 2015 Before the rains began Viva Sarah Press managed to get a photograph of the giant pink bra in Habima Square to help breast cancer awareness. Here. One in eight women get it around here. I wish I'd seen it then - it's probably disintegrated in this weather. My umbrella even leaked today. And worse, some of my friends who didn't have electricity for 3 days - don't have it again. Just as we turned back the clock and it gets dark just after 5.
