israeli politics

Left, Right, Whatever - 6.19.26

Now is the time for us to start arguing about what way we’re going in this country.  One thing is certain – we have to do everything in our power to keep ourselves together.  This country has to continue to exist.  And almost everyone agrees, it has to change. 

The arguments about how it has to change have invaded our dinner table – For me, change for the worse took place the night Yizchak Rabin was murdered.  And what we need is to return to Rabin’s values.  

The Hope

 

Karen Alkalay-Gut

 

On the night Rabin died I dreamt I wandered the streets

homeless and lonely in a crowd of confusion, ricocheting

off relatives and friends barely regarded, while dogs of peace

ran with panthers and tigers all loose and all free. 

 

No one was working — everyone

out on the streets or in groups

sleeping in different houses, using

 interchangeably each others’ phones —

connecting  with wrong numbers

saying a few impotent words,

disconnecting indifferently

 

Unseasonable cold penetrated my clothes,

and uncoated  I sought shelter

in cloaks of the dead,

but found myself in other byways

before I could wrap myself in them

 

The river was solid and the earth

liquid under our feet — the worst

walked on water while the best

fell in the treacherous sands.

 

Nothing held  the dream together

and everything could fall apart

at any random moment

 

 

 

(published in Jewish Quarterly, Moznaim (Hebrew), and Poetry New York

Alkalay-Gut, K. (1995). The Hope. Jewish Quarterly, 42(4), 10. https://doi.org/10.1080/0449010X.1995.10706605

 

Left, Right, Whatever – 6.19.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

escaping - 6.17.26

What did I learn today, as I watched the dance competition, was that the isolation and agression Israelis have been feeling from the world has made them stronger – as dancers at least.  I have been feeling all the time that people in general have been behaving more … more completely rhan ever.  The interviews I had this week, for instance, were more knowledgable and encouraging than I’ve ever known because the interviewers were totally into giving the best presentation possible. The hairdresser, with whom I am in love, but we can never find a common ground for conversation, asked me to watch over a neighbor of ours who takes her walks in the middle of the night.  What wise fulfilled personalities!

whatever happens to the country, we’ve expanded our humanity in some strange way.

escaping – 6.17.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

you don't want to know - 6.16.26

Maybe its a good thing they’re going to blow up the world.  Maybe the concert we saw that included Doctor Atomic Symphony by John Adams that includes John Donne’s sonnet, “Batter my heart” has got it right.  

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

 

I would rather have peace ,but it doesn’t look that way.

you don’t want to know – 6.16.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

here we go again - 6.14.26

we’re back to preparing for war again. it’s particularly rotten for me because I’m trying to get used to some new heart pills that make me dizzy, and now I’m going to have to run down two flights of stairs in the middle of the night.

what? you say.  Aren’t you angry that the US has screwed you into a corner?  

it’s complicated, I say.  And Trump is playing checkers while Iran is playing Go.

So I don’t have much say in this matter except to wear clean pajamas and keep shoes in a place I can step right into them.

And hope I can keep my balance.

 

 

here we go again – Read Post »

israeli politics

dismantling - 6.13.26

The woman we visited today, the daughter of close friends of Ezi’s parents, was dismantling her home in the Galilee, and wanted to give away photos of the group of friends – pictures of their friendship in the 1930’s in Palestine.  A honeymoon in Cairo, athletics at the beach in Haifa, groups of people in love with each others’ company.  Simple, pure enjoyment.

The joys and hopes they had then are being dismantled now.   I think of Ezi’s mother, who isn’t in these picture but was one of the crowd – she had gone to Berlin to get a doctorate in psychology, and returned to her birthplace, Palestine, in 1933, just in time.  “But I am Jewish!” she told her classmates who were beginning to follow the Reich’s antisemitic program.  “No,” they answered, “You are Palestinian!”  

dismantling – 6.13.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

Market Music - Ronen Shapira

Ronen Shapira makes the old market of Lida – now in Belarus – wake up with his deceptively simple-looking  instruments

Here’s the poem he is working from:

Rynek Square in Lida 

The market is always the heart, 

the center of life in Lida.  A mile 

from the train station, a few steps 

from the shul, you would always 

find yourself passing through 

the square, hearing the banging 

of the coppersmith, the bargaining 

in Yiddish, Russian, Polish, 

Belorussian.  And since the Jews 

were  half the sellers, 

most of them spoke all the tongues. 

And since the factories were nearby 

you could buy the Hebrew-named

Ardal shoes and the famous Pupko beer. 

Picture the farmers, the tradesmen,  

bakers, milkmen, money changers,  

the bartering, selling, an apple stolen 

from a cart.  Think of the gossips, the news, 

the information exchanged while a horse 

was being shoed, a pair of trousers let out. 

Imagine the morning psalms 

before the trading, the evening prayers

after the day’s reckoning,

 

now those images 

exist only in our construction 

recreated in our music 

market Music – Read Post »