israeli politics

Our informed discussion on Hedy Lamarr last night left me totally confused about identity.  Jewish identity, public identity, private identity, identity as a quantity, etc.

who gets to define Jewish identity, for example?   The Rabbi?  Hitler? The individual?  I may be certain about my Jewish identity but completely confused about my religion when I wander around Bnai Brak or Dubai.

and I still haven’t put away the last tureen, so the last word has not been said.  I shall return soon and update.

 

Did you Miss me? -august 22, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

sometimes I’m very sad that our only vacation this year was marred by Covid and we never had a real change of atmosphere.  But when we go out in Tel Aviv I feel we’re on vacation anyway.  Today, for instance, we had lunch at Manta Rei on the beach.  When I came home to a zoom with poet friends in Canada I felt we’d all been on vacation.  Everyone had great things planned for the weekend. But my vacation was the most fun.  There is nothing like the beach.  

Tomorrow my book club is going to be talking about one of the many contradictory books about Hedy Lamarr, so I’m making a dinner as much in the Austro-Hungarian empire mood as possible.  Cold cherry soup, gevetch, szekeley goulash, tshipetke, and Hungarian applesauce cake.  After years of catering primarily to shnitzel-driven grandchildren, I feel like I’m getting me cooking mojo back, and I’m even considering writing a cook book.  It begins with “wear good shoes” and ends with “get someone else to clean up.”

   

tel Aviv heaven – august 20, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

He’s another guy in my thoughts all day.  I keep looking for a site that updates his situation – is he getting better?  Will he be able to write again?  The Fatwa was on for so many years I thought it wouldn’t happen.  We took it as a joke.  It was just like with Rabin.  Extremists mean business.  

Salman Rushdie – August 19, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

I know I wrote something about his death a few days ago, but it keeps coming back to me – that he was so single-minded about singing that he didn’t seem to notice the time passing.  That he was a broken old man and still wanted to be a rock singer.  When I too was going that route, he was making a comeback with The High Hats, and everyone thought it was a joke.  But he did it, he did it straight and he did it well.   Maybe that’s why he stays in my mind.

 

zvika pik – august 19, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

Because Ezi had previously gone through the Mohs procedure – where they take out a skin growth, do a biopsy to make sure they got everything, and then go through the process again.  He has sailed through them in the past, resting up for a few hours and then going back to whatever he was doing before.  

But this time it’s on a place on his neck that makes it painful to move.  This means I’ve got to do the cooking 🙂 and last night we discovered the kids are coming back tomorrow (hungry I hope)  and my book club is coming for dinner on sunday. 

So as much as I want to follow Zahava Galron’s progress in the political carnival now, I am too involved in domesticity.  My vegan cold cherry soup needs a bit of spicing up, and the taste of my Gevetch reveals I didn’t remember all of the ingredients properly.  I’m not even satisfied with the Szekeley goulash yet.  Once I’ve gotten them right, however, I’ll be happy to share them with you.  Haven’t made the Hungarian applesauce cake yet, but I want everything to be in the taste of Hedy Lamarr, just so we can talk about her with some measure of experience.

 

digging deep – august 19, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

it must have been 10 years ago – the Knesset wanted to know about writers and their needs.  Someone posted the picture of Avihai speaking for Avihai Kimhai’s birthday and I remembered that the moment they snapped this picture, I was realizing that something could be done for the arts – but it was going to be because of Avihai, not weaklings like me.  My mood had been so positive entering the meeting – but now you can see in the picture how glum I am.

knesset – August 18, 2022 Read Post »

israeli politics

I 

people keep asking me why I’m doing this evening on the 25 in so many languages.  well one reason is simply that 3 of the books that came out during COVID have been dual language in other languages – french-english, yiddish-english, danish-english.  The other languages have given me perspectives on my own language, but they have also helped me become more aware of the multilingualism that seems to become more common in Israel.  The fear of Yiddish, for example, has disappeared.  Arabic appears more often in Hebrew, and there is much more interest in the language.  French too.  

Hebrew, Yiddish, and zionism – August 17, 2022 Read Post »