over forty years ago Benzion Tomer came to me to ask me to form an Association of Writers in English in Israel. I had absolutely no interested in this idea because I believed, as a relatively new Israeli citizen, that I would prefer somehow to integrate into the local culture and remain an individual. and besides, all those acquainted with me know that my organizational skills leave much to be desired. But he approached me a few times, promised help, funding, and swore to me i would be helping all the writers of the country. There were organizations forming in numerous language communities, Arabic, Russian, French, Spanish,… and so on. We would all join together in a Federation of Writers Associations – together with the Hebrew writers’ Assocation, and would work together for writers’ rights, social security, etc. It was a kind of socialist ideal, and all we had to do was get seven writers together, write a constitution, send it to the government applying to be a not for profit organization, and send in an annual chit stating we didn’t earn an enormous amount of money. Too much money was no problem – because we would only pay dues, and any expenses would be covered directly by the Federation.

it was a little dream. We were brought into annual weekend conferences in beautiful resorts in which we learned about each other, with lectures, readings, parties, and even funding for individual journals. But gradually the government funding disappeared, the cooperation became more secretive and the Federation evaporated. Most of the other writers’ organizations did as well. The Yiddish writers, who had been organized around their home, Beit Leyvik, had begun long before the Federation, and has continued, but, as the paperwork became more and more complicated, the other groups evaporated.

Today, for the fourth morning in the past few months, Ezi sat down with me to fill in the annual government forms. They don’t fool around. i have to get two signatures witnessed by a lawyer first, stamped at the post office, then get the receipts for the past year together with bank statements, to an accountant, who creates an annual report. Then I call the reviewers who have to approve the report officially on the website. then comes the annual meeting, in which our annual activities are recounted and approved, then translated to hebrew, copied to the online forms, signed, and then everything has to be uploaded at once to a complex and unforgiving government site.

Ezi and I never argue. But when he helps me with these forms, both of us tear out our hair. We go on, spend a few hours, and then discover that something hasn’t been signed by someone in the proper place and everything is invalid. Start over.

Anyway, because four and five years ago someone didn’t fill in the forms, we’re still not pure to apply for government funding.

All right, I’ve bored you enough. i’ll make another entry today about something more interesting.