israeli politics

Israel bombed Aleppo airport again today, and we both were reminded of a little related discovery in my library.  Last year we were looking at how certain passages in the bible were translated into English and I went to look them up in the King James translation that Bandi, my father-in-law, gave me forty years ago.  Ezi, who always examines everything, noted that the book was stamped with the insignia of a shop in Aleppo and the frontispiece was stuck together with another page, and he went to work separating the pages.  What emerged was a dedication by his grandfather to his grandmother, who was studying English.  Arpad Gut sent his love to his wife and explained he was busy repairing the runways after a b0mbing, 1942.  He was working then for the British in WWII.  

aleppo airport – sept 7, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

In the summer, there was a lot of talk condemning violence against women.  One Example:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-violence-against-women-is-stain-on-the-country-that-cannot-continue/

But it continues, and we women don’t know how to defend against it.  Women are not only killed by their jealous ex-spouses and honor-preserving brothers but, being more vulnerable, by people who can’t get to their husbands or fathers or brothers.  I don’t know if it’s connected to the virus or what, but it scares me.

And I wish I lived in a society that protects endangered women.  When I first moved into an apartment in Israel, in 1972, my mother-in-law then assured me that I could not survive without a cleaner, and my Iraqi neighbor found me a Tunisian woman who had lived near her before.  She was, my neighbor affirmed, known to have killed her husband by spraying his food with DDT for a long time.  She told me she had been married at 14 and had her first of five children before she was 15.  And she never had a good day (or night) with her husband.  Why was she never convicted of murder?  Because the neighbors who knew about it didn’t think the law could understand the situation and wasn’t fit to judge.  This was the case in the play “trifles” and the story “jury of her peers” that I wrote about in a few articles a few years later.  The fact that women cannot be given protection under the law when their situation cannot be understood.

Here, now, women are provided with shelters that don’t offer them normal lives or are ignored when their husbands break injunctions preventing them from coming close to their exes… It’s as if there should be a separate legal system protecting women. 

She worked for me for at least 4 years, maybe 6, and we spoke of many things, but not this.  

And yes, this entry was triggered by the murders of a woman and her daughter to punish the husband who was out of the country.  Here’s one take on the story

 

violence against women – sept 6, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

So after the cop came to the door this morning looking for our neighbor who’s disappeared, I went looking and finally got to the grocery which is the center of all information.  There I learned that she’s been hospitalized again and her daughter was just there.

She’s very dear to me and I hope she’s all right, but another thought from a completely different direction occurred to me.  The housing crisis in Tel Aviv.

This means that Tel Aviv is encouraging residents of older buildings to tear down their houses and build safer and bigger units.  The plans for our buildings are grand and lots of money to be earned by the contractor and the middlemen.  For us, it would mean finding a place to live for 2 years and then moving back to a renewed apartment with an addition of a safe room.  66% of the residents have to agree on this.  At the moment there is a margin that don’t agree, because they are too old and can’t really benefit from this deal.   But they are old and are slowly dying out, so the balance will soon tip.  

b Read Post »

israeli politics

Sometimes I forget to update these posts because so much is happening that I can’t keep up with the news.  These last weeks have been bubbling with an undercurrent of violence – stabbings, shootings, threats, hatred everywhere.  Just now a journalist was shot to death in Um El Fahm, and although no more news is available, I have been so absorbed in watching for updates I didn’t remember to write here.  The anger, the uncertainty, is everywhere, and alongside it an exaggerated hunger for society and community.  Like the last fire of Rome.

 

bubbling up – sept 4, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

Because I’m writing for some encyclopedia, something I haven’t done for years, I am surprised to learn that so many people are listed as “of Jewish Descent.”  A friend of mine told me a few months ago that this was a new trend, to integrate Jews into the Anglo-Saxon world, or to eradicate the idea of Jewishness.  So I want to use this opportunity to say I am Jewish and I demand to be listed as a Jewish woman.  I don’t want my gender to be erased and I don’t want my religion to be ignored.  Tell me your thoughts on this.

of jewish descent – sept 3, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

,

The  photograph of Herzl against the backdrop bridge in Basel and conceiving of the idea of a Jewish State, was duplicated by our president Isaac Herzog.  I copped this one from the Times of Israel in honor of the World Zionist conference there this week. 

We really haven’t discussed the definition of Zionism in years, so I want to make sure I’ve updated my personal definition. 

hmmm

I’m here.  

Primarily because I loved it so much when I first came and I never felt like leaving

 

 

zionism – sept 2, 2022 Read Post »