blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv,

When i first started reading about the fact that we haven’t shared our vaccines with Palestinians, I thought it was understandable that we would take care of one population after another.  Now I’m beginning to wonder.  It would not only be legal but also the moral imperative to share with people for whom we have claimed responsibility, even though Abu Mazen has taken responsibility for getting the Sputnik vaccine to the west bank.   

There was also another reason that occurred to me this morning as we were walking around our neighborhood.  I watch the houses going up and realize that at least in one of them the builders are not from here.  I may not know Arabic well, but I seem to be able to distinguish different dialects and the one I heard today is not from any place I’ve been to in the past forty years.

  

january 25, 2021 – why we have to vaccinate palestinians Read Post »

blog, poetry

Now that we have reached the 1 million mark of the first stage of vaccinations, new questions can be raised. 1. Now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, people seem to have lost all patience with the tunnel, and can’t bear the lockdown.  How can they be brought to have the patience to endure the final round? 2. Now that many of the older people have been vaccinated, the younger people are hungering to get their chance at the jab.  Since many of the Arab towns have surpluses because the population has opposed the vaccine, should the Jews go there for their jab?  If you go to the centers in the city early in the morning and register for the leftovers, and then come back around nine at night, you may have a chance – even if you’re just 40, because of the reluctance to waste the doses.  Is this fair?  Is it necessary?  4.  What will be the final situation – so many people who have lost their shops, their jobs, businesses that cannot be recovered?  Can we begin to determine how to reconstitute our livelihoods, our culture, our friends?

   

january 1, 2021 – 1,000,000 vaccinations Read Post »

blog, poetry,

Here’s a poem for New Year’s. 

Use it on your zoom or wherever you’re celebrating – especially if you aren’t really celebrating.

We’re having a new years zoom poetry reading at IAWE.  I may even read the poem, but the point is to celebrate what we do have, not what we’ve lost, that maybe things are getting better.

Certainly it is understandable that maybe people here are uncertain and worried.  The musical chairs our politicians play before our repeated elections does not make it easier to feel secure.  Many of us feel better with knowing there may be changes, but none of us feel secure.

As for the vaccines, I’m still talking to people who feel uncertain about whether they will take it.  I tell them that they trusted Pfizer with their sex lives, why not with the rest of their lives.

 

december 29, 2020 – “we’re still here” Read Post »