israeli politics

Shvuout starts on Saturday evening as shabbat ends.  We have our traditional dinner with friends on Shvuout, but that’s where our tradition ends.  Half the family with corona will be out of quarantine by Monday so we will celebrate Ezi’s birthday then, but for a beginning we”ll have dinner on the beach at sunset with the healthy half tonight.  The beach will save me from exploding over all the screwed up plans for the holidays.  My ideal shvuout would be to take all the grandchildren to a kibbutz where there is a parade of the first fruits.

 

june 3, 2022 -before shabbat Read Post »

israeli politics

Uri Zohar has passed away.  z”l.  

When I first became exposed to Israeli pop culture – in the seventies – I wasn’t very excited about him.  Even though he was incredibly funny, it took me years to see that he was exposing the very decadence he embodied, and it was not an enormous revolution when he turned to religion.  

Most people thought Uri Zohar’s ‘conversion’ was a joke, that he would soon shave off his beard and cut his sidelocks and announce that he fooled us.  But he continued for at least a quarter of his life to study torah every day and practice virtue in earnest.  

blessed be his memory.

june 2, 2022 – pop culture Read Post »

israeli politics

this is the invitation from the Yiddish Cultural Board

הרשות הלאומית לתרבות היידיש

אירוע לציון 70 שנה לפטירתה של המשוררת אנה מרגולין

יום שלישי, כב’ בתמוז תשפ”ב,  14.6.22

 

תכנית  הערב: 

ברכות: ד”ר שרה זיו, יושבת ראש הרשות

הרצאה: “הפנים הרבות של אנה מרגולין”

פרופ’ קרן אלקלעי-גוט

תכנית אמנותית :  משירי אנה מרגולין

  • “איז די גאָלדענע פּאַווע געפֿלויגען, געפֿלויגען” – מילים: אנה מרגולין  לחן : לייבו לוין
  • “שלאַנקע שיפֿן” – מילים: אנה מרגולין לחן: רגינה דריקר
  • “געווען איז אפֿשר דאָס מײַן גליק” – מילים:אנה מרגולין לחן: מ. לײַנוואַנד
  • “איך גיי אין שאָטן פֿון דײַן לעבן” – מילים: אנה מרגולין לחן :מ. לײַנוואַנד

הסדנה לשיר היידי האמנותי ע”ש נחמה ליפשיץ בניהולה של רגינה דריקר

גלי בן- אריה  – שירה

ז׳אנה ינקובסקי – שירה

רגינה דריקר – פסנתר

 

 

june 2, 2022 – coming event Read Post »

israeli politics

The feral cat we feed has not been happy with us since we went away, leaving a neighbor to leave her food.  And until everyone came down with Covid, the house was full of strangers to her – a fact that disturbed her greatly.  So today she left us a message – she crapped on our welcome mat.

Somehow I thought that agression is consistent with this country.  In general.  We all crap on the carpet of the people who feed us.

 

may 31, 2022 – cat Read Post »

israeli politics

We seem to be getting closer and closer to the problem of how can there ber a Jewish State that is a complete democracy.  Somehow my memory jumps back to 1954 the first time in school when we had to add “under God” to the Pledge Allegience.   Whose God I asked then, and I realized that the democracy I was living in was a Christian democracy.  I still don’t understand what it means.

may 30, 2022 – democracy Read Post »

israeli politics

sometimes I don’t write. Sometimes even though there are vast subjects tp write about, i don’t have words, or time, or attraction.  But lately poems about the holocaust keep spinning out of me.  The two best so far are in Minyan Magazine    

but there are dozens more – closets full of them, to coin a phrase.  

they are all from my past, hearsay and actual experiences that I have blocked out – unaware of trauma, but i have blocked out may things from my life and the holocaust was just one of them.  

what others could be of similar ilk?  getting locked in a closet with a boy in third grade.  getting  caught stealing in a department store, being excluded from a class event… Similar ilk in those are things one blocks out. 

 

may 26, 2022 – poems Read Post »