israeli politics

Every city sees a different war. Just as each city in Gaza is different right now, depending on how much has been destroyed, how much danger the Israelis perceive there is in the placed, how organized their families and leaders have been, how much they focus on protection and survival, how much of a neighborhood feeling each area has. In Tel Aviv, for instance, when we’re not thinking of demonstrations (and the horses and the hoses), we concentrate on keeping our families and neighbors safe and protected and ready for the next war. Every where I went today I noted the signs for public shelters – more than ever, whereas in Jerusalem people are more worried about terrorists attacking individuals in the streets and on the roads.

Here and there Read Post »

israeli politics

We wait every minute for news from Paris.  Will a few hostages be let go in exchange for a cease-fire for 6 weeks and a few hundred Hamas prisoners?  

Every life matters.  Especially those of children and pregnant women.  

baby steps – feb 24, 2024 Read Post »

israeli politics

Today is little Purim – that is, because we add an extra month to our yearly lunar calendar every once in a while, and we celebrate the holiday on the second month, but the real holiday is on the first month, we call it little Purim.  Nothing like messing with reality.  

Anyway, even though I feel like shit I’ve got the family over to celebrate.  costumes and everything.  But they have no idea, because no body pays attention to this holiday.

And I’ve got the definite feeling that since Purim is about turning everything upside down, and we’re totally upside down anyway in our values, it’s appropriate.

After all, this is also the anniversary of Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of praying Arabs in the Maarat HaMachpela, when good became evil and the Oslo Agreements were demolished.  

Let’s try to make something good out of evil tonight.  

little purim – feb 23, 2024 Read Post »

israeli politics

We Israelis must have a record for traveling around the world.  Every time there are a few days off, we’re at the airport.  But since the war we’ve all seemed to have hunkered down.  The fear of antisemitism is part of it, but there’s also a feeling of patriotism that I can’t remember.  My students used to tell me they were too bored to vote, and now they have been given up their weekends demonstrating for over a year. 

And although ivy league students may shout about Apartheid, I swear I deal with more Arabs every day than Jews.

it’s a great country – feb 20, 2024 Read Post »

israeli politics

She has been keeping me awake at nights for months, that young mother enclosing her two tiny children in a blanket as she is carried away by Hamas.  And today we saw how she was marched through the streets and people saw her and no one said anything.

bibas family – feb 19, 2024 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry

When I first came to Israel, well over 50 years ago, I really believed that in the Jewish land we could now be international. We could transcend religion and culture and become a part of the world.  

But the present wave of antisemitism has put the last nail on the coffin of that theory.  We’re not part of the world – we’re just Jews who are one step away from annihilation. And, as they say in Yiddish, noch mit a nigun – and with a song yet – with great enthusiasm and joy.

So it makes sense that we’re turning inward and examining our own literature, rather than the culture of the world.  And tonight I joined the launch of Lyre

 

https://www.biupress.org/index.php/lyre/article/view/101/81

initially because one of the editors who is a close friend, Chanita Goodblatt, forced me to write an article for the initial issue.  But it’s good – and I’m proud to be a part of it.

 

jewish literature today – feb 18, 2024 Read Post »