israeli politics

Here’s my take on the news:  since I’m too old to change things, and can only intervene through hard-earned cash, I’m going to wait and see what happens with this government and the rest of the world before I leave.

The only thing I can’t bear being silent about is the World Cup in Qatar. 

I don’t like it. 

Even though I find it impossible to keep from watching.

Still, it’s something like the 1939 Olympics.

When Israel decided to join the soccer match, and a whole bunch of fans came along for the excitement, I was frightened.  And now that these fans are getting harassed, I’m just hoping they get home soon.  Qatar isn’t going to protect them against the Iranians or the Palestinians.  Qatar isn’t going to protect them against Azmi Bishara.

 

 

reserving judgement – Nov 27, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

My grandson travels every day from his flat to the Hebrew university by bus.  He missed the last explosion by five minutes.  Should he move closer and not have to ride the bus?  I cannot make decisions for him – not only because he wouldn’t listen but also because his considerations are not mine.  Me, I would hide away in my room.

safety considerations – Nov 26, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

As you know – if you’ve been reading these posts long enough – I have been researching the amazing actor and director Kurt Gerron for years and was amazed to discover him in a cartoon in which he is used as the icon of the Jew who would have to be demoted and deflated.  It was the piece of the puzzle that was missing for me.  I knew that Gerron is almost unknown today despite his star status in stage and film before the Nazis came to power.  I also knew that the last film he directed before the propaganda film he was forced to make in Theresienstadt was the German language version of Disney’s Snow White, in which he also did some of the voices, such as the magic mirror.  After that, he was edged out of the film industry in Amsterdam.  And here he is, in a cartoon in an exhibit on the Netherlands where his name is unknown, a symbol of the proposed morification of the Jews.

I tried to tell the woman at the information counter who he was, but she just directed me away to another exhibit and sent me off to write to their archives.  I will.

kurt Gerron – Nov 24, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

The museum of Lochamei Haghettaot – Ghetto Fighters Museum –

I haven’t been there for ages and was surprised at its expansion.  Look at its site https://www.gfh.org.il/eng to see how it has widened and deepened our understanding of the partisans and the reasons for the resistance to Nazi mass murder.

I went there to find out why my aunt wasn’t in their archives since she was a fighting partisan.  In the end, I didn’t get any information about my aunt, but I promised to send them the information I had – for their archives, and then agreed to help translate information from Yiddish for them.  

a pretty common settlement for me.  I  give what I can and get nothing…

But the museum was full of teenagers listening – attentively – to elderly guides lecturing about statistics of torture, murder, resistance and compliance.  “Say you’re in a cattle car full of your neighbors,”  I heard an elderly woman tell the children, “and you can jump off.  But if you jump off, the rest of the people in the car will be killed.  What do you do?… And if you are a Jew or a German,  you’re put in a similar situation.  If you’re a German child and you don’t tell the Nazis that your father is in the underground, your entire family will be killed, what do you do?”

I’d never heard collective punishment explained like that.

lochamei HaGhettaot 1- Nov 24, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

The principle of tower and stockade settlements was first explained to me at Camp Seneca Lake when I was a counselor sometime between 1962-4.  A counselor who was a former resident of Hanita set up a day of games called tower and stockade that reflected his parents’ history.  

Because of the upcoming division between Israel and Palestine, Ben Gurion and other leaders wanted to set up some Jewish settlements that would be fait accompli, and if a tower and fence were present, the settlement would not be destroyed by the British.   Divided into British, Jewish, and Arab groups, we took our roles so seriously that I fell off a cliff while escaping the British soldiers.  

Hanita was the only place not already in existence when the program was initiated during the 1936-9 Arab riots against Jewish settlement.  Remote and unprotected, it was a particular challenge to set up.  The ruins of an old village, that was so old it was mentioned in the bible and appears on ancient maps, it was not easy to get to, much less defend.  

There is some of the history of the kibbutz on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanita

But there is a better film in Hanita itself.

It is on the border of Lebanon, and as I realized in striking up a conversation with a random villager who had a heavy Arabic accent, it shelters some of the Arab population escaping from the north.

 

 

 

 

kibbutz hanita – nov 23, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

After a week of meetings or medical tests every evening, we decided to escape from the perils of Tel Aviv to a kind of dream hotel on the Lebanese border.  Who knows when we’ll be able to do it again?  to escape I mean.  The truth is crashing in all around us – warnings from very reliable sources that something must be done to save democracy.   But what?  I keep praying that Yair Lapid will jump in at the last moment, join Bibi and chase the others away, but now Arieh Deri is going to be the replacement for the Prime Minister.  That means we will be not only living under a theocracy, but we will also be living in a  theocracy run by a group of certified criminals.

Will the magic of Maskit help to dispel the fear of the future years?  I doubt it.  But it will help.

maskit – Nov 22, 2022 Read Post »