israeli politics

An Amichai Reminiscence - 5.30.24

Sometimes memories come back to a person when they are least expected.  In preparation for one of the skits being prepared for my poetry evening next week, my mind keeps going back to the first time I met Yehuda Amichai, and I couldn’t understand why.  The first time we met we were supposed to read at the Nassau County Museum, and the host took us out for Chinese.  When we got to the fortune cookie, Yehuda opened his and pretended to read, “In an hour you will be hungry again.”

The poem:

THERE IS NOTHING TO EAT
What is missing
is far more present
than what is here
as if there exists somewhere
an ideal fridge
in some ideal kitchen
that contains
all food
for all hunger

That hunger is what binds me to him forever.

 

 

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israeli politics

Foot-Shooting - 5.30.24

We don’t need enemies.  With all the rockets and shooting going on over all our borders we are doing our best to shoot ourselves in the foot.  The petty quarrels continue while by my estimation 1/3 of the population is homeless.  We have spent far too much money bribing one another and now have nothing left for defence.  It doesn’t look good for our feet…

 

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israeli politics

i am not a professional poet - 29.5.24

I am not a professional poet

I’m not a reporter of today’s news

I see what I see,

and before I finish the telling

something else happens to me.

Today for example I was standing in line

praying that my turn would lead me

to the gentle pharmacist I know

would give me the right advice

about how to find the pills I need.

Instead I got the manager,

a tired blond who insisted there was none to be found

and I know that the Arab pharmacist

would lead me around the rules

to a solution.

I don’t know what to make

of that moment 

but I know it means a lot

and I had to tell you

before I fell asleep.

 

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israeli politics

rehearsals - 5.28.24

  • the actors who are participating in my little show on June 6 had a rehearsal todaythe building will be torn down in a week or two and replaced with an office building with a few floors for literature.  
  • The thing is that when I used to perform there, the entire concept of literature was extremely important because we were building a language and a culture.  And today when I looked at it, I couldn’t get over my memories of the events we had, the cafeteria where so many ideas were exchanged and so much hope was created and developed.  Someday I will tell the stories of the great writers and poets.  Today I have to start getting ready, building a new generation of writers.  
  • We’re in a bit of a slump right now as far as literature is concerned, even though I know we’ll creep out of it.  There’s so much fantasy in the government it’s hard to keep up.  But the rehearsals with the three young actors made me feel like this country is really worth saving.

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israeli politics

mount meron - 5.27.24

I probably don’t need to say it but the army closed down the entire area around mount meron because we are being fired upon all the time and Meron is dangerous.  The custom of going to Mount Meron every year to celebrate the many customs associated with it therefore is against religious law.  Life-threatening situations must be avoided according to religious law.  So I don’t understand at all what these guys are doing there and why they are fighting for the right to do it.  We have lost control not only of civilian order, but of the hierarchy of values.

I am not sure what happened in Rafiah yesterday – but at least 35 innocent people were killed.  Our army, which has been claiming that it is very careful to avoid citizen, is mortified.  And justifiably.  This is where all our moral attention should be focussed, and not on irrelevant values that have nothing to do with religion.

 

 

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israeli politics

ambulance - 5.27.24

My friend from Metula once described an ambulance ride to the hospital .  The bumps were unbelievable and she arrived in much worse shape than she left her sickbed.  

And I laughed.  In Tel Aviv, I said, it wasn’t possible.  We have good ambulances and good roads,  But at 5 a.m. when I woke Ezi up to call the emergency doctors, and they stuck me in an ambulance, I felt every bump in the road as if I was being beat up.  I kept looking at the back door that had the pictures of two kidnapped ambulance drivers and I kept saying – their situation, if they are alive, is much worse.  I have nothing to complain about.  

By the time we got to the hospital, nothing hurt me.

So – I got diagnosed with a UTI, got some intravenous antibiotics, and went home.

It was my first time in an ambulance, and I would have believed that it was only Israel that has bumpy rides like that had not a friend in Boston told me of his heart attack rush the week before.  

 

ambulance – 5.27.24 Read Post »