back home - 7.27.26
Everything changed. My computer erased my short cuts and now I have to rediscover them. So this is short. i’ll be back with my story about coming home tomorrow.
israeli politics
israeli politics
lost in berlin airport - 7.27.26
We should have been more careful. After the extended experience of entering Berlin through the new airport, where the failure of the automatic pastport control wresulted in hour-long lines, we should have realized that the apparent simplicity of border control had to be a mistake. We went through, checked a bag and carried our trollies and backpacks to the silent lounge for breakfast. Then we wandered to the gate, only to find ourselves locked out.
Ah, it slowly emerged, we would have to speed to the other corner of the airport to go through passport check and security again – a place almost impossible to find for lack of directions. But once we arrived, we found hundreds of people impatiently in line. The new automatic check-in was not working and dozens of passport clerks had been called in to ease the situation. “We’ll miss our flights,” we pleased, but everyone else was saying the same things.
Eventually we made it to baggage inspection. And a few people actually let us in first because of our advanced age
But that’s when our troubles began. There was something in our bags that aroused enormous suspicion, and the officer in charge alerted that inspection officers who eventually alerted the entire bomb squad not to allow our bags out of the x-ray machine.
What could it be? Ezi was at a loss to explain. Perhaps it was the minifan he brought, or the many chords and wires to connect the computer? There a lipstick i bought. … We stood there answering innumerable questions as the bomb squad got organized. It did no good to offer to blow up with our suitcases so that the hundreds of passengers waiting in line could at least pass through.
And of course we became the object of great anger because the plane was being held up.
The young officers who were only following orders brought us chairs, explained again and again that they had to follow the protocol, and after a few hours, were allowed to give up and let us through.
Ezi finally figured out that the source of the alarm must have been his mini pocket flashlight.
But the source was never identified.
And then we were allowed onto the plane, which of course had to wait until a new time was made available for take off. All in all we took off after 3-4 hours, arrived at night, and have been asleep since.
I await an apology.
israeli politics
german coming back - 7.25.26
Despite repeated jeers from my partner, I am remembering German. When I was little a German-speaking family lived with us and at first we laughed at their language, and then began to speak it – probably with a Yiddish accent. But we made ourselves understood. And although I spent days looking at his chopped-off fingers (explained to me as the punishment for refusing to make weapons in forced labor) I grew to love him.
last night, for instance, the taxi driver asked me as I was leaving – how I enjoyed the concert. Like a child I answered “I didn’t.” He answered me as to a child, “Why my dear? It is a very famous cathedral.” “It wasn’t clear, ” I said, and stumbled over what I would have said as a music critic. Then I apologized that I spoke childishly and he smiled like my old friend Ignaz. It was my moment of love.
german coming back – 7.25.26 Read Post »
israeli politics
personal paranoia in Berlin - 7.25.26
it happens that I like people, and I like joining in. When I was in college I used to go with friends to an old, traditional Hofbrau house where we spent at least part of the evening introducing each mug of beer with a song, refrains and all. The owner had a big easel with pages of the words. “Ist das nit ein Shnitzelbanl? “Yah das is ein Shniztelbank….”
I made no connections between these sentimental German-Americans and the people who destroyed my family, and we bumped glasses together with each song. I feel that way about most of the people I meet in Berlin. Once in a while something reminds me of another Germany, or racial paranoia in general. Like sometimes someone will remind me that Israelis get beaten up for speaking Hebrew in front of the wrong people.
And sometimes it’s a driver. Almost all of our meanderings around town have been with Arab drivers – and we usually shut up for the ride, while the driver checks us out in the rear view mirror. The other day, however, I got fed up with silent rides, and I decided to sit up front and talk to …Jamal.
Yes, I disguised my identity – because the first thing he asked me was ‘where you guiys from?’ and I came out with NY. And then we began to talk about his medical school studies – just beginning = and his desire to return to Syria.
I’ve been a teacher for over 50 years. I know how to talk to students, and I love it. Even though his story had holes in it – big holes – I went on with great delight asking him about Syria, about languages, study habits, etc. And we left him with a big tip.
Then I began thinking about the holes. And what if my partly deaf friend in the back had leaned over to ask me a question in Hebrew. She was not beyond that, and = like most hard-of-hearing people – assumes that everyone is as well.
Where would this ride have gone?
personal paranoia in Berlin – 7.25.26 Read Post »
israeli politics
Gerron Stolperstein - 7.23.26
i’ve been thinking about this stone in memory of Kurt and Olga Gerron since we went to visit it the other day. to be reduced to a stone. an entire identity to be reduced to a single thing – the dead jew who lived here until he ran away.
Gerron stolperstein -7.23.26 Read Post »
israeli politics
reflections on antisemitism - 7.23.26
Yudit tells me that Greta Stunberg showed up in Berlin a few weeks ago with a tshirt that said “yalla, yalla, intifada” and I’m sure she wasn’t aware of the implications. I’m sure she doesn’t know that she was calling for mass murder, rape, disfigurement. I’m sure she didn’t know that Jews today are mourning the loss of their holy temple thousands of years ago. Yudit says it is akin to the mourning of Stalin at his death years ago when the west didn’t know about his genocide and torture in the years preceding his death.
I’m sure also that the distorted news that is broadcast here on tv contributes to her limited vision. one tiny example: Barghouti the other day noted that 99% of the housing in Gaza has been destroyed, and I am sure that the numbers are great. But there is definitely 25% that hasn’t been touched. Since I’ve been here I’ve encountered a number of people from Gaza and I wonder how many people are living there. If 2.2 million lived there 3 years ago and 2.1 live there now, and Europe seems full of Gazans who have built relatively prosperous lives in Europe – shops,restaurants, etc. So how many Gazans lost their lives? I don’t know. I just don’t trust any of the statistics. And I know that we’re responsible for finding out and fixing it. But I’m sure that the statistics available to Greta are tentative and that she would do well to learn what happens in an intifada. We would all do well to work with the Egyptian plan for cleaning up and rebuilding rather than calling for war and further destruction.
Today is Tisha B’Av. I never fast and never mourn, but I am warned to invest as much as I can ensuring that the homeland for the Jews remains, and that Arabs are equal citizens.
reflections on antiSemitism – 7 Read Post »
israeli politics
Neue Gallery - no Escape - 7.21.26
Burdened by the sight of the Nurenberg laws yesterday, I was looking forward to the Brancusi exhibit in the Neue Gallery, and the exhibit was truly interesting. Brashncusi’s development say from the human head to the egg shape of pure form. But then my old thoughts of the dehumanization of modernism in art came back to me, of how – say – my beloved Picasso was also a disector of women, pulling them apart and putting them together in his own abstract way to mean something other than their individuality.
Then we saw two other exhibits – one on the same subject of art between the wars, and one more modern of Gerard Richter. Oh goodness, i thought, I can’t escape the Nazis and how they came into power – the poverty of post-WW1, the mechanization, the machines taking the responsibility of humans. So I was relieved to see the bright abstractions of Richter, only to discover his art work concerning Auschwitz, in which real photos of the camp were painted over to the point where they become a cloudy grey and are placed perpendicular to a mirror, so that it is you who are part of the attempt to erase the holocaust.
How can a German citizen feel, burdened by the blame? How long before they become indifferent to it in order to survive?
Neue Gallery – No Escape -7.21 Read Post »
israeli politics
Bayerischer Platz - 7.20.26
Yes, I’m in Berlin today, and the first thing we did – after meeting our friends – was to walk to Bayerischer Platz where the signs depicting Nurenberg Laws are posted all over. Jews are not allowed to sit on any benches,Any postal official married to a Jew must be dismissed, etc. The neighbors did not welcome us into the neighborhood. I’m sure they not like their area to be used as a reminder of what was done during the war, but we could not stop looking around.. who could have created a law that made it compulsory to fire any jewish employee over 65 without pension or compensation?
We are exhausted from the flight and must sleep, but who can sleep after reading a sign that says Jews are only allowed to by buy between 5-6 in the afternoon?
Bayerischer Platz – 7.20.26 Read Post »