October 31, 2010 What purpose does blowing up gay synagogues in Chicago serve? How does it further the Al Keida goal? That old distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism has totally broken down. All we have left is 'destroy anything that succeeds.' The expectation perhaps is that this danger will cause an even greater division between the World Jewish community and Israel. Of course there may not be any anticipated psychological impact in the act of blowing up synagogies on a Satuday morning when they are crowded. Maybe it's just about killing Jews. Whatever the reason for sending bombs to religious places, it is a terrible act. And it may be we are out of resources. When one terrorist mails a bomb, it has to activate thousands of people to find that terrorist. That is the advantage of being a terrorist. Remember Zyggy Frankel's poem?
THE TERRORISTS
We operate from airfields we did not build,
Thank you, civilisation, for your blessings.
It's an old poem. They've learned how to fly.
November 2, 2010 Did I forget to write yesterday? So sorry. I've got plenty of excuses, not the least being physical collapse, but I really wanted to encourage any students who might be out there to take up their obligation to alter the approach of the government towards their needs. It's not just of question of money, but the identity of the disenfranchised, who are in some part self-disenfranchised. "We had an identity," the woman my age said to me last night, "because we had borders. Now there are no defined borders, no defined goals." If you are American, I hope you've voted. There is no more important role in a democracy than voting.
For many there is an aprpropriateness in the fact that Ehud fell in the very place he finally succeeded to discover after many years of digging. a kind of fulfillment of the promise he'd set for himself - to discover Herod's tomb. there he stood, explaining to the group the many admirers and turns in his discovery, and then suddenly he was falling into the tomb himself. We sat around the table in his front garden shocked by this and other stories that Dvora began to speak of, as though it is had been an dark unknown secret. and it was as if the death of her husband had released her. As much as she loves him, his death releases her of secrets, and there are many.
November 4, 2010
There are days when there is no time to think, and that is a good thing. But sometimes there is something good in the news:
"Lithuania debates compensating Jews for property looted by Nazis for first time." As far as I have been able to discover, my brother and I remain the only survivors of a family of at least 28 on my mother's side, with the possibility that a cousin named Alexander Kaganovich and his four sons exist somewhere. Do I want compensation? I'd be happy with acknowledgment.
smuggling explosives we did not invent
onto planes we wouldn't know how to pilot.