I quote my child psychologist late mother-in-law over and over – “It all started when he hit me back…” So we get stoned and we get the army in and they get beat up and then we … and then they shoot rockets and then we…
The problem is we’ve got much less tolerance in general and I’m sure they have lost it as well…
april 18, 2022 – jerusalem Read Post »
As we were leaving our friends at the nearby cafe we passed other groups of people talking. It was almost the same conversation we were having – about the violence today in Jerusalem. But we had also been putting it in context. Because of our different professions, we were also discussing a wider view of the society, the level of violence in the schools, in the families, in the courts, in the world of medicine, the sense of unequality in the society. “And why aren’t you, with such a religious background, keeping kosher?” “Because it’s being imposed on me.” And today, Easter Sunday, Ramadan, Passover – even our religions are clashing.
In the world too.
April 17, 2022 – Cafe Talk Read Post »
Last night at last we went to the play we had to delay for months, “The Tank.” Ezi had read the book about the five different guys who in 1948 claimed they stopped the Syrian tank from attacking kibbutz Deganya and turned the war around. It didn’t sound all that great to me, but the play was much more fascinating.
(gotta go – will fill in later) (As you know I don’t reread and don’t erase so consider this a blip)
In any case, the play was about heroism, patriotism, the flaws in the history of the state and the need to overcome them. The play ends with two Druze (or Arab) soldiers discussing the need to tell good stories, that will model our lives.
For me, the play was uplifting, not only because of the acting, the singing, the directing, etc. but also because of its concern with ethics. Ethics that we need to reconsider.
april 17, 2022 – The Tank Read Post »
What’s on the news? Some of my family have moved to alternate news – people who broadcast on the spot. One is very right wing and he believes in his sources, another reads all around and seems to know everything but he must spend at leastc 12 hours a day gathering pieces here and there and comes to his own conclusions that are much broader based. Me, I don’t know what to believe. Here, for example, I feel the remoteness of some of the Arab student population, but this may be because I don’t have the opportunity to get to know them – I only know the students who work with me on advanced degrees or have become friends. My major friends in the Arabic department have passed away, so I don’t even know what to make of what I see every week. My conclusion: No news means you’re hiding out.
But this Passover there are two centers of news in the country – One is the stone throwing from Al Aksa (in the effort to protect the third holy place from the explorations underneath for our first holy place) You tell me what should be done. Sometimes my thought is we should get the Iranians to bomb both holy places.
The other news is that for this holiday 100,000 Israelis have taken their vacation to Sinai – the heartland of Isis – and are enjoying themselves immensely….
april 17, 2022 – what’s on the news Read Post »
I kept thinking about freedom during the whole seder, and we discussed Ukraine with great spirit as we drink glass after glass of the most amazing wine. How Russia is being ruined and the whole face of Europe will change as they free themselves from importing gas. Oh what a raucous evening.
But then, as always, I cannot sleep after wine, and I listened to the last book of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. All night I thought of the flesh pots of Egypt and how I would probably not have wanted to join the freedom-seekers in the desert, would have probably slipped away from the group and begged the nearest neighbor to take me on as a slave. Freedom has a very high price, and I might be able to talk big (with some wine in me) but don’t seem to have the character for fighting for it.
april 16, 2022 – post-seder Read Post »
I don’t know why this year has been so hard to get ready for passover, but I suspect it has something to do with the sense of helplessness in the face of the destruction in the Ukraine. One tiny example: I managed to fill at least 15 bags with stuff for refugees from the Ukraine, only to be told that there is no more demand for bedding and clothing – not because there are no more people in need, but that there is no way to get to them. There are countless other examples of helplessness, but I’m too exhausted to go through them and I am sure you too are experiencing that sense – about the environment, government, safety, the needs of others, the desire to give, to love, to help….
april 14, 2022 – getting ready Read Post »
a friend sent me a picture and reminded me of how much i always suffered through my mother’s famous gefilte fish, even as every one else absolutely loved every bite. So I made it into a card…
Pretty much everything else my mother made was absolutely delicious to me – from her amazing soup with yoich, to her taiglach. Of course on passover there was always her matzo meal cake. My niece asked me for her recipes long ago and I’d forgotten them, but now I’m remembering and I’ll begin to post them soon.
The first time I did a colonoscopy was 35 years ago in Long Island and my father was discovered to have colon cancer. Since my mother’s father had died of it, I agreed to the procedure. An indifferent doctor gave me just enough anesthetic to feel no pain but hear every word of his conversation with his nurse – the jist of it was the renovation of his kitchen and the kind of marble top he wanted for his counter. After the procedure he had no time to tell me, but left a note that he had removed 2 polyps and I was okay.
That’s why I waited a decade or so when I got back to Israel to allow a repetition of the procedure. Then it was in the hospital, and as I lay waiting to be brought into the operating room, I heard the doctor inform the man in the next room the patient that he was sorry but his cancer had returned.
Again I had two polyps and was reminded as I was waking up that I had seen my father hospitalized at the last moment from an ulcerated polyp, so I better getting over listening to what doctors say and just keep repeating the process for my own good. So I tried some private doctor’s clinic one year (when my step-daughter had to back up an entire block to get to his house and we had a good laugh about that), and different clinics – every three years. One was with Ezi who went first and wasn’t given enough anesthesia, so as I waited to be rolled in I heard him screaming, “I FEEL IT – IT HURTS!” When I got into the operating room right after, I heard myself scream, I WANT MY WHOLE DOSE AND WHATEVER YOU SKIMPED ON HIM. Pain makes one narcissistic.
Finally I wound up with a kind, discreet, and efficient health clinic gastroenterolist and stayed with him for over a decade. But today was my last one, and it was the least traumatic. This time when the pre-op nurse went through my tests, praising the results, and then saying the same thing to the man next door, I laughed out loud, and when the operating nurse answered my inquiry about her name with “Ruba,” I said “tasharafna” – an inappropriately formal way of saying “nice to meet you” in Arabic – and she laughed. The doctor announced the removal of my 2 polyps and we said farewell for the last time. Whatever happens now I’ve already outlived my father and my grandfather. And I’m going to make sure my kids take care because both of their grandfathers…
april 12, 2022 – colonoscopy Read Post »
