israeli politics

We Really Need a Good Year - 13.9.26

Every since I’ve been in this country, the autumn has been full of surprises, most of them tragic.  This year I am particularly on edge because I am aware of the past and terrified of the future.  Yes, at any moment Iran could attack – and while I don’t like our behavior much either, I think of the clock that has long been in the center of Tehran that counts down the end of Israel.  

And the holidays are particularly vulnerable.

At the same time the opportunity to see those we love and to have deep discoveries and discussions is amazing.  Not the discoveries are always positive.  Another friend has fallen into dementia and described to me what her life is now like, a friend who died in the past year left me her medications and through them I now understand what controlled her behavior. 

I know I sound depressed, but I’m not – I’ve lived through another year in which I managed to survive a lot, and I know I can cope with a lot more.

But I really think we all deserve some good news, some happier friendships, some more love.


we really need a good year – 13.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

11.9

  Did I forget to show you this poem of mine that is on the construction guard wall of the Weitzman Institute?

A birthday cake

Is a blessing

And a prayer

And a kind of poem;

 

Sweet words

Melting into

Each one of

those who share

In the joy.

 

Here. 
Take.  Eat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A birthday cake

Is a blessing

And a prayer

And a kind of poem;

 

Sweet words

Melting into

Each one of

those who share

In the joy.

 

Here.  Take.  Eat.

 

 

אַ לעקעך צום געבורסטאָג

איז אַ ברכה

און אַ תּפֿילה

און אַ טעם פון א ליד;

 

זיסע ווערטער

מישן זיך אריין

מיט  איעדן איינעם

וואס טיילט עוך

מיט פרייד.

נא. נעם. אס.

 

 I wrote this in Yiddish first because a lekach in yiddish is a cake is also a lesson.  The idea that the food you eat is also a means of communication is an important one for me.  When today, for instance, we dip apples in honey, we are reminded of the necessity of actively making our lives sweeter through behavior.  

This day of 9/11 is one too of the imperative of understanding our limitations and admitting to them.  The fact that only now have we been given the truth about the ongoing damage to the air of the asbestos and other poisonous substances. We need to demand the truth for ourselves as well as for our government.


   

another chance – 11.9 Read Post »

israeli politics

It's Relative - 10.9.26

So many friends have been expressing something close to despair at the state of the world and especially at the state of our country, and sometimes I agree.  But then I think of the history of my immediate family, of how my parents escaped from Danzig by the skin of their teeth on the night before the invasion of the Nazis, of how my father probably had no hope or energy to escape after being beaten and left to die on the street.  I’m sure my mother had to convince him that escape was possible, that another kind of life was possible.  And they found themselves in England and were sent to a farm to raise pigs.  The wonder and comfort he must have felt when the pigs learned to come to his window in the morning asking to be fed.   

That moment of renewal – that is what I wish for all the world in this new year.  

 

it’s relative – 10.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

remember who you are - 9.9.26

Sometimes I think of who I was before Corona and what followed warped my concept of self, my values, my freedom to think for myself.  My freedom to think independently of the situation around me.  

But then that was the principle of this diary in the first place – that my individual identity is connected to my environment.

I don’t know if I felt like this in the past.  But it is the case – my life has been determined by my family, my schooling, my rebellion, my acquiescence, etc.  

But the situation in recent times is one of enforced identity. Because I spend so much time reading about a Jew whose existence was determined by his Jewishness, his desire to identify with his German self, and ended because of his success as well as his failure, I keep thinking about that idea of socially enforced identity.

Today my examples center around Arabs who live here and have both identified with Israel and have not been understood by the society in general as suffering from the same situation, suffering from both directions.  How could I not identify with them?  

 

remember who you are – Read Post »

israeli politics

They Didn't Wake Me - 8.9.26

We were all asking the question on the morning of October 7, 2023.  We were awake, where was our prime minister?   Why wasn’t someone doing something?  

When he finally explained his absence, it was that he hadn’t been wakened.

And now we are being told that he had been warned 10 days before the event.

Can you use that excuse in your life?  

 

 

what a g

They didn’t wake me – Read Post »

israeli politics

Holiday preparations - 7.9.26

We keep seeing clips of people of Iran showing their meager grocery purchases, and I see the clips again and again in my dreams.  

Me, I usually order online  and have been ignoring the fact that many of my favorite products have disappeared from the shelves.  And the prices have risen way beyond reason.  Even the cheapest coffee is one third more than it was last year.   I am paying twice as much for groceries than before the war.  

But on this holiday, under the immediate threat of an Iranian attack, we need to celebrate even more.  

And please remember – this war started on October 7, 2023.  remember.

 

 

holiday preparations – 7.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

The interview - 4.9.26

I just wanted to add that the interviewer, Ben Caspit, affirmed on tv that the timing of this interview with Ruth Bar has nothing to do with the election.  He said that the book she was just publishing now is one she had been working on for six years and she had been in touch with him years ago about it.  I am sure someone will contest that affirmation.  

I am also sure that there are a lot of challengable snippets that will be coming out in the next month, and that this very damaging interview will be undercut.  

But I believe every word she said.


The interview – 4.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

You have to read this - 4.9.26

this interview in the jerusalem post with the ex-lover of Bibi kept me reading:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-907577?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September42026

Even though I usually despise terminology and scientific models for human behavior, this discussion of Bibi’s behavior is something even I have been tracing for years.  It is an election- determining piece.

you have to read this – 4.9.26 Read Post »