israeli politics

Bar Kochba, my son called Zelensky, a hero to the Jewish people, even though his rebellion caused Judea to be – a Wikipedia calls it – “depopulated.”   In any case, we seem to be completely absorbed in his heroism and the devastation it is causing.  Kids like my granddaughter are not sleeping at night around here – afraid it will reach us somehow.  I used to have Hitler dreams when I was her age, sure he would enter our home and kill us all.    This situation is much more complex, however.  If we were to give the help Zelensky needs, we would be swiftly punished by Putin, who has missiles near our borders.  Yet how can we watch silently as masses of people are slaughtered?  

 

 

march 4, 2022 – war Read Post »

israeli politics

As we raced in the rain to the concert hall so we could make it in time for Zubin Mehta conducting Tosca, we encountered a crowd of people shouting something about Putin.  For or against?  We were too much in a rush to hear, but when the rain stopped the demonstrators put down their umbrellas and raised flags of Ukraine and signs urging Israel to help in the fight.  There are many people here who really identify with Ukraine.  And the Russian people. 

So of course in the opera it was all I could think of – tyrants, loyalty, and what is worth dying for… 

and most of all – the fact that evil is not punished and the good suffer.

 

 

march 3, 2022 – protest and Tosca Read Post »

israeli politics

Who can be deaf to the cry of Ukraine?  Our hearts are broken and our hands are tied.  Putin’s power over Syria is a serious threat to Israel – we dare not endanger our existence.  And yet many Israeli citizens have gone to fight in Ukraine, and at least 2000 Ukrainian workers from here have returned to Ukraine to defend their country.  The terrible misery of the people has also brought out their heroism.  Zelensky is of course the man of the year.

march 2, 2022 – ukraine Read Post »

israeli politics

what a way to escape the news.  what a way to run away from the prospect of the world falling apart.  

But the most overwhelming sensory experience was the overwhelming aroma of the Rotem.  As Natan Yonatan once wrote.  I remember translating this poem with him, and feeling the pain of beauty of which he spoke here

AND THE ROTEM* WOULD WHITEN 

And the rotem would whiten slowly along the way

Tel Aviv wrapped in mist, Jerusalem far off

Someone may not get to the end of this winter, to nowhere.

Blood comes and blood goes and the earth abides forever.

Yesterday a beautiful photographer was shot in the heart.

She who desired the gold of dunes and the noble ascent

Of pelicans from the nature preserve of Ma’agan Michael,

How it chases away clouds in its flight and scatters

A flock of electric poles on its voyage to the winter 

Holy‑feast in the slumbering fish pond.

This was not what I had intended from the start; 

this draft was written

At the beginning of winter.  The first buds of frost 

broke out in the air.

The sea green of the rotem were blown waves on waves

In the shore wind.  

I wanted to leave after me in these troubled times

A short confession of the love of rotem and the need

To write poems.  I thought beauty could protect us

And the children from fire and ice

That delicate longing of the flower along the way

And the one land that remained

And sandy desert rotem and its awful beauty, I thought

 

 

march 1, 2022 – Where have the flowers gone Read Post »

israeli politics

i keep seeing it – the ring of tanks surrounding Kiev, the secret forces hunting out Zelenskyy and doing things more terrible to him and his family than Froissard could describe about the100 years war.  The world has let things happen like that – people poisoned on English soil, dissenters dragged from planes flying over foreign countries and throwing them into prison, officials imprisoned for their free thinking.  Damascus bombed, Crimea taken by force… There are many who support him, and more who are indifferent.  but it is beginning to look like a full-scaled opposition is rising up.  That will take time, and there will be much destruction on the way.  I don’t believe in the talks, and I want Zelenskyy to pull through.   But I also fear we’re next.

february 28, 2022 – Read Post »

israeli politics

Do I have relatives in Ukraine? I keep getting asked that question.  And my answer is, I don’t know.  I HAD relatives once in Dneipropotrovsk.  And I appeared on Russian television years ago looking for them.  My mother had one surviving nephew out of at least a dozen.  He was away in military school when the entire family in Lida was wiped out.  My mother found him in the early fifties, and they corresponded for a while, but he wrote that her letters endangered him and they had to stop.  She said they had four sons, but never received more information.  I hope they survived and will continue to survive and someday we’ll find each other.

february 27, 2020 – relatives in Ukraine Read Post »

israeli politics

One way from getting away from the news is to go to the beach.  In my Arabic lessons on Duolingo, next to the phrase “praise be to God,” the most common phrase is “I love swimming in the Mediterranean Sea,” and almost the only Mideast cities that are mentioned are those on the coast – Alexandria, Beirut, and “ancient Palestinian cities,” and it is so understandable.  On holidays and weekends, the beach is full of Arab families, but during the week in winter, there are only surfers, a few brave swimmers, and some stragglers like us.  But the sea really helps to recognize how fragile we are.  And how universal human emotions.

february 27, 2022 – Beach Read Post »