For those of you who just joined us, this is a totally spontaneous journal started over 22 years ago about Tel Aviv and me.  Sometimes I write nonsense, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t read it.  It’s too scary.  I mean I began it because there were suicide bombers all over Tel Aviv and I would sit in my son’s cafe as if I could protect him.  I thought my friends abroad would want to know I’m okay so I began to check in every day.

But only tonight I realized that even though we’ve been demonstrating for 39 weeks, I may never have explained why and how we demonstrate.  Let’s begin with the elections.  We didn’t know what hit us when Bibi managed to form a coalition by cobbling together the extreme right and extreme religious parties, some of whom don’t even believe in the existence of a Jewish State and have managed to live off our tax money for ages. And while our children are drafted into the army at the age of 18, theirs are already married with children and not working… 

See, I ramble.  I’ve got a grandson in the army and it grabs my attention sometimes.

So the first thing the government did once it got in was to start changing the laws, limiting the courts, making themselves invincible.  So within a week there were hundreds of thousands of people on the streets.  

I blame us for being passive in the past – for accepting shamefacedly that law that was passed making Hebrew the national language when up to now it had been Hebrew/Arabic.  We let bad things happen in the past. Things that went against our declaration of independence. No longer.

We let the whole idea of a constitution go too – we knew it was necessary to confirm a democracy, and were supposed to do it in 1949.  Unfortunately, there was a war and we let it go.  

Oh, so much has gone wrong.  I was just so happy I had a country I just wanted to enjoy it.  Now I realize how much work it takes to create and maintain a democracy.

Oh dear, I’ve been rambling again…

Anyw