Yesterday and today have been dedicated to Ezi’s 77th in between bouts of exhaustion. I don’t know whether the past war and the threat of another war in the near future are contributing to this exhaustion, or it’s the long-term side effects of the vaccination or some other evil eye, but it doesn’t feel right. Even though we were in one of my favorite places last night, Suzana, and it was almost as perfect as always, something is funny, strange. I think I need a little literary challenge.

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I asked the guy at the grocery what he thinks of the political situation. Now he’s always incredibly positive and careful to help and not trouble any of his customers. That’s why we all love the grocery even though it’s much more expensive than a supermarket. Always optimistic. But his answer was the same one everyone else gives. “It’s troubling.” No one really believes Bennet is a leader, no one believes he’s mature, worldly, sophisticated. And our lives depend on his maturity, wisdom, sophistication, and delicacy. If he just knew Arabic I’d be a little less uneasy.

And yet, the possibility of the return of Bibi and his ruffians terrifies me even more.

From moment to moment the situation changes. When we left on Tuesday I asked the neighbor to take in our newspaper for us. “But be careful,” I added, “Don’t damage your health. Don’t read it!” She didn’t, and she hasn’t aged at all. Now me, I watch the news all the time, and I age from minute to minute. A moment ago I heard Miri Regev urging her followers to take to the streets, to protest. The phrase, “The left has sold the Negev” keeps coming up, because if there is an Arab representation in the government, we will have to give in to all the disputes, which is ridiculous. So what I’m worried about is not the new government, but no government. With nothing to lose, anarchy and chaos seems preferable to Bibi than losing his hold on the government. The danger to democracy doesn’t interest them. The only good news, I guess, is that people are blase enough that they probably don’t read the news.

I’m so happy to announce the publication of my latest article on poetry and medicine. It was the beginning of my research on exploring how poem sequences trace the development of disease like a fever chart = in some cases with great success. Poetry can sometimes help you get better. In this case, Henley was lucky to be a patient of the man who initiated the use of antiseptic, who kept patients apart, who washed his hands – who used many procedures over 150 years ago that now save our lives. I’m still amazed at this confluence of new medical and poetic techniques. It’s called Chronicling medical progress: W. E. Henley, Joseph Lister, and recovery and it’s here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2021.1921476

I came here to rest, but this place is so exciting, I can’t help but look at every painting, every sculpture, every view from this amazing place.

iso I rested for a few minutes and then ran around, praising Yacov Richter, the original architect for his wisdom in suiting himself to this remarkable environment, and wishing I could run into Lili Elstein, who renovated this place and making it into an center for the arts as well as a hotel. A hotel that is whole. Yesterday I saw her eating dinner in the restaurant, and knew the food would be as wonderful as the place. And it was.

So sorry I will have to leave soon. Wish I could be here for at least a week.

Unfortunately we have a tv in our room, and that means we had to watch the reports given by Sara Netanyahu’s cleaners about her madness, but it also meant we could be happy with Herzog’s election as president, but it also meant we are mourning the disruption of the government. Oy, how much better we are than our politics.

I warned you. I need a vacation. And I’ve finally got it – a spa hotel in an art gallery. overlooking the sea. it’s a little piece of heaven – surrounded by a mess everywhere. We are not far from Binyamina, Jisr Al Zarcha – in other words, the place I told you about a few days where there was an attempted lynch on the Arab workers in the gas station. So it’s difficult to escape the world. We’re not far from Bibi’s home either. And tonight, we turned on the tv just as we were turning in – after a day of pool, massages, an amazing lamb dinner, a stroll through the corridors strewn with contemporary art – and there was an investigation of the workers in the prime minister’s house who had complained throughout the years about her psychotic behavior. Nothing that we hadn’t heard before. But it fits with the rumor that Gantz had been summoned to the US because Biden fears Bibi is going to nuke Iran so he won’t have to give up his position and go to jail. probably much crazier than the basic Sara stories that we’ve been hearing for years. There was also a story that Nasrallah tried to commit suicide.

anyway my concern today was more basic: Professor Galia Rahav has been a heroine for me for her numerous and tireless efforts to save the country from this plague. When I heard her speak in a memorial for the town, Zhedtl, I understood the deep sense of humanity that motivated this dedication. Recently, she was attacked for advising vaccinations for children from the age of 12. This is a woman who deserves many accolades and enormous support.

But I’m on vacation

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i warned you – i needed a vacation /

 

I have no idea what awaits me – but i know that both of us are overbooked and need time off. two months ago we wanted to go to a place to rest but it was independence day and the hotel was full of virus-carrying children who filled every corner of the places we wanted to relax in. So we went on nature and archeology hikes. This time we hope to swim, relax, enjoy art, enjoy viewing nature…. and maybe gathering the fragments of my life into a comprehensible whole.

It isn’t a normal whole – i have to incorporate all the hate and anger and loss that has accumulated in our world. It includes the 65 children killed in Gaza, and double that number unsung in Afghanistan, and the uncounted in Africa. Those sacrificed and those forgotten. It includes all the politicians who have spread poisons throughout the world in their different ways. It includes the shameful way we’ve treated old people.

There are many ways of saying ‘oy’, including the gratuitous complaint and the expression of relief… i’m going through them all.

and i’ll try to explain it.

So everyone has a deadline, and I have to sign off on all of them. doctoral candidates have extended their extensions as far as they can, and now everything has to be approved. Then there’s a whole bunch of programs to arrange, birthday parties to celebrate, And we’re going to Zichron tomorrow to celebrate Ezi’s birthday. and then back home to continue the celebration for the weekend.

So I’m ignoring the politics. It’s messy and dirty, and there isn’t enough soap to help clean it up. It’s a pleasure to be ignorant.

I even had coffee with one of my students this afternoon in my favorite square. She grew up there in the old days, when Peres and Rabin lived, and Naomi Shemer down the street and felt very wistful of the good old days – and I pointed out that Efraim Kishon’s son and Aharoni now have shops here next to each other, and there were local celebrities all around us. That’s because it is simple in this country to stand out, to become famous, to become influential. And I suddenly felt terrible that I was trying to be uninvolved. We all have a responsibbility to be active here, to be involved.