israeli politics

Just to keep myself away from other people I started putting some stories online.  i’ll make it prettier soon, but in the meantime click here

we’re all going crazy here – the prospect of maybe getting out soon is almost as maddening as the fear of not getting a vaccine.  But enough complaining.  there really is enough to do at home.

But I would have liked to join the protest in front of the Prime Minister’s home – the 31 st straight week.  The fact that I’m staying home seems to have stopped all my activity except for some zooms.  

 

january 23, 2021 – stories Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

we’re still in lockdown and it is pretty clear we’ve all gone over the edge.  Even if we plan to meet on zoom, one of us forgets.  

but i have discovered that my birthday this year is the same day for the Hebrew and the Roman calendar.  After the second seder, my mother went into labor.  My father recommended that my mother wait until morning, because there was a particularly nasty rocket attack on London going on at the time, but my mother insisted, and they went to the Salvation Army Hospital in Hackney, which had been recently bombed.  My mother complained that she was forced off the table as soon as I was born and made to run for shelter, but the delivery room was also a shelter.  Anyway, it was the last night of those nasty V2 rockets.  That’s why I remember my birthday dates.  

Since nothing happens except the continuing discovery of continuing corruption in our government, I have gone to my past for a bit of optimism.  And although I told Ezi the story over and over again when we met, it never really meant anything to him until one day we were visiting the science museum in Munich and there was a display of weapons.  Suddenly Ezi stopped in from of a rocket and said, this is your partner.  It was a V2 rocket, and the sign in front of it said only, ‘last flight march 29, 1945.’

january 22, 2021 – birthday plans Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

Was I the only person not- totally celebrating at the inauguration? was it only me who was just a little worried about the sermons and the religious songs?  I mentioned something about the separation of church and state on my Facebook and got no response as if I had tried to ruin the party.  But it couldn’t be the only one wondering at the second-hand bible quotes slipping in and out of the ceremony, from “Halleluja” to the excluded stanzas of “This Land is Your Land”now I read Mira Fox in the Forward and she points out the religious nature of the ceremony.  I’m waiting for someone to now say that there were too many catchwords without substance, that the cliches were taken out of context.   I believe in Biden, but I’m troubled by the overused phrases.

january 21, 2021 – Faith in the inauguration Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

Although we’ve had dogs for many years, my only experience in recent months is with street cats.  We never trained dogs – they always trained us – and now we’re experiencing the same thing with cats.  One particularly wild street cat comes by a few times a day for meals.  She tells us what she wants by pointing to the relevant cupboard or fridge, and if I am working in my study, goes to sleep on my couch.  If I am doing housework, she leaves in a huff.  But I also meet other cats wherever I go.  Yesterday, when a severe sciatica attack made me go to the orthopedist, I found a street cat in the waiting room.  She waited with the receptionist and I asked to whom she belonged.  The receptionist said she was taken care of by the other storefront offices, but she always joined her during reception hours because orthopedists – unlike pediatricians and gynecologists – have patients who might call her over to be petted. 

 

 

january 21, 2021 – Corona and cats Read Post »

israeli politics

Since everyone has been writing to me about how wonderful the inauguration was, and some even praised all the Jewish elements in it, I have to put in my two cents  Let me begin with Leonard Cohen’s Halleluja.  Recently Rolling Stone Magazine published an article about the text and how Cohen was including holiness into every aspect of life.  It was a good analysis and may even have shown how someone introduced an element into the ceremony that way beyond the intention.  First off, that art isn’t all that mysterious – but just a measure of putting the right things together.  Secondly, that being a king puts a human being in danger of being greedy and hurting his people.  Third, that only when you’ve been betrayed by a woman and are totally demeaned do you say Halleluja. And fourth, that everything is worthy of rejoicing, whether the divine exists or not.  So even though the phrase Halleluja in Hebrew means “Praise the Lord,” it doesn’t matter what you’re praising.  It’s like what my Rebbe told me when I asked him in the middle of a lession if we’re doing all this work and there’s no God, he thought a while and then said, “Whether there is a God or not, a Jew has to study Torah.”

january 21, 2021 – halleluja Read Post »

my life in tel aviv

just a few words about my health.  Turns out I haven’t been able to walk because I have sciatica.  Who cares about the minor consequences of the vaccine? From a knee that wouldn’t bend, I moved to the big nerve pain from the back all the way down.  As soon as I realized that yesterday afternoon I called the orthopedist who saw me immediately and gave me all the medications possible.  But it was only after i spoke to Oren who reminded me of physiotherapy that things began to improve.  So I may be able to do more than kvetch very soon.

 

january 21, 2021 – a personal medical account Read Post »

blog, poetry

i read Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes” last night, since today is the saint’s day, and the last verse made me cry. Being able to transcend life through love – especially in these difficult times – is such a romantic concept.  precisely because it is impossible in real life.  that’s why we have cellphones…

january 21, 2021 – St. Agnes eve Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv

No one could hope for a more fun vaccination than we had.  At the entrance to the site we got asked – very quickly – if we had fever, have been abroad, had a sense of taste, and as we were getting used to saying no, switched to positive questions like “do you have an appointment?  are you here for the vaccine? …Ha! fooled you! Just checking to see if you were paying attention…”   Then they brought us together to a very cheery nurse – a heavy-set, braided, black man, who picked up on my strange sense of humor and realized that humor relaxes the muscles.  We joked about our respective ages, our health, our reactions… and …we were out… cut our waiting time short and off to bed.  To watch the departure of Trump from the white house.

what a delight – to keep switching channels and hearing the antithetical takes of CNN and FOX on the political games people play….  

 

january 20, 2021 – vaccine and inauguration Read Post »