So I’ve been getting the sense here that I am personally responsible for Israel’s reticence to condemn Russia. Do you think it might have to do with the millions of Jews now in Russia? Perhaps the close relationship between Syria and Russia might be a factor? Does the field hospital we set up and are running in the Ukraine count for nothing? And the refugees we’re taking in? I fear I’m going to be cross-examined in every conversation this week.
may 2, 2022 – israel/Ukraine Read Post »
Even in Boston, the sun is out, the trees are flowering and the weather is bit better. It is hard to believe in this kind of weather, that there are so many threats to the world, to our peoples, to our lives. It is hard to believe in covid, in danger, in evil. And yet just from the pervasiveness of the protection we’re creating around ourselves, it’s all around us.
I don’t want protection, I want peace. Standing between the pillars of the John F. Kennedy way, I remembered his commencement speech and wept. He talked of peace, but very specifically:
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I can never forget that hope that he instilled in me.
May 1, 2022 – Flowering Read Post »
It isn’t pleasant to read the news about Israel from far away. I know so much about what I read isn’t true, but some of the things Are true and I can’t defend it.
When they say that Tel Aviv is not picking up as well as other cities are, for example, I don’t have the statistics, but I know that the whole city has holes in it for the subway and it’s made the traffic impossible. With all the wonders of the city, no one wants to drive in.
This should all change in the course of a year when the city will blossom again. I will probably avoid the trains but I’ll enjoy driving through the city. I can’t wait to walk through Allenby, wander down Rothchild, etc. I’m sitting in a gorgeous neighborhood in Boston at the moment, and all that I can think of are the painted peeling walls of Tel Aviv and how the people have all built up their lives from nothing – pretty much nothing. And they’ll keep picking up their lives no matter what.
May 1, 2022 – remote news Read Post »
yeah yeah, I know the question is complicated beyond measure. I know the nature of Judaism changes with every block in every city of the world. We, ourselves, are immersed in Jewish life and history, connected to every element of Jewish existence, and – as jews – enjoying criticizing other Jews with great pleasure. But would we last under the pressure in the United States to be Jews and yet not ‘reveal’ it to the world, to hide any signs of our religion? Within Israel we argue all the time about being overwhelmed by the laws of the domineering religious culture, and yet would defend our self-definition to the death.
We managed to escape from Holocaust day in Israel this year. I always find it unbearable – remember my mother weeping uncontrolably before the television – but always remembering every individual in our family who disappeared. Even yesterday as we were being immersed in the massive beautify of Boston, I kept thinking of having missing the opportunity to discuss the great gap in our history with others,
april 29, 2022 – what does it mean to be jewish? Read Post »
We just escaped Holocaust Day in Israel by a few hours, but I never feel I can escape it. The memorial for Lida will take place next month, in which I mourn my grandmothers, my cousins, aunts, uncles, and others. And I keep finding myself writing poems about the holocaust. Why poems? Because the experiences I know about are scraps, individual events, fragments with no logic, no plot, no context.
people are scared of poems, but they are precisely the way you can get the feeling of the individuals in the situation.
april 27, 2022 – holocaust Day Read Post »
You all know that scene where Seinfeld goes to pick up the rental car and they offer him a different car because they don’t have the one he reserved. Well, we’re beginning that series now in the US. We come to a hotel after a long miserable journey in the middle of the dark drizzling night hoping to sleep in the warm bed we had often reserved in the past, and it isn’t available. So we take the room and wake up in the morning totally ready to fight or leave.
And then you keep shut because you go on to the next disappointment.
Well, not this time.
On one leg of the plane ride, the one where I was supposed to sleep, I had one of those reclining chairs that are supposed to induce total comfort, but it kept sitting me up straight every time I drifted off. The chair really wasn’t so much of a problem because the lights were kept on. But I had complained so much about the movie screen and the lifebelt door opening up all the time, I was embarrassed to keep kvetching and just mentioned it at the end. My fault, but the steward was so mortified he gave me a bottle of champagne and I grabbed it with joy.
We should have drank the champagne in the crummy room overlooking the parking lot, but we went right to sleep and are now ready for revenge. Let’s see how that goes.
april 27, 2022 – keeping the reservation Read Post »
This is the way it began. We were about to get to sleep around 9:30 figuring that if we are getting special treatment with Fatal services so we could get up at 4 and leave at 4:30 to get in time to be 2 hours early for the flight at 7. But suddenly Ezi got a message from Fatal that they can’t handle our special treatment. That meant that we would have to be at the airport at 3:30 and should leave by 3. That meant that there would be no sleep for us because we had to spend an hour vainly pleading with Fatal and the other places they referred us to that we were relying on help and therefore didn’t ask for a wheelchair. Nope.
So with no sleep we caught the flight to Boston with a stopover at Heathrow where we had decided to forego our visit with dear cousins who live nearby and play it safe. Well, it soon became apparent that we were wise to forego the visit because Heathrow is a combination of Louis Carroll and Kafka. And it took us almost 2 hours to get through customs and to the waiting room. One feature: the incredibly long queue waiting for security check. How long? So long that we got stopped at various stages of our journey because there was no room to progress. And when we finally arrived at the queue, having followed all the directions for putting every possible liquid in a regulation transparent bag, and removed our watches, revealed our devices, etc., travellers became so nervous that they began asking questions of the guard. This reminded the guard to forbid another item and everyone bent over to search through their trolleys for the newly listed item. Stick deodorant? Toothpaste given on the previous flight? Handcream presented on the previous flight? So the exercise was take 10 steps, stop, bend over trolley, open, search, remove, rearrange, stand up, repeat.
And now we’re almost on our way back to the gate, and after we all vow never to go through heathrow again, we’ll take off for a 7 hour flight.
why oh why do some many relatives live so far away?
april 26, 2022 – heathrow regards Read Post »
Eitan Stiva and the crew are splashing down even as I write and I imagine it is as exciting to every Israeli as it is my this family. Ezi is already imagining himself in space.
And just as we are admiring the egressing of the capsule, the company that is supposed to enable a VIP boarding for us at 4 this morning just cancelled because they’re busy. We had paid a lot of money for this VIP service because I have problems standing in lines, and now we’ve got to get up at 2:30. Talk about progress. I’m watching the treatment the astronauts are getting and wishing there was that kind of progress for the simple folk.
April 25, 2022 – splash dow Read Post »
