israeli politics

This morning I had a haircut.  It is such a often repeated event and I usually busy myself with my phone like everyone else.  But today, as Amir swept the floor, I suddenly recalled physically what it felt like to sweep the floor in my father’s barber shop.  Because of the union he had to work on Saturday, and Saturday was always his busiest day.  For a year or two I was old enough to work for him after synagogue and it was my great honor to do it.  My body remembered the long broom, the repeated movements to catch the fine white hair of the fat old man who laughed a lot, the thick brown-black locks of the young wrestler, the short crumbs of the redheaded boy who always asked to be completely shaved. I remembered the repeated emptying of the metal dustpan, and the sounding of the knocking of the pan against the bin to release the hair.  Of course now the hair is brushed into an electronic wastebin and most of the movements I so enjoyed don’t exist any more.

My payment was a bottle of seven-up from the machine.  

And while I was musing on all this, my coiffeur came out too short again.

 

haircut – 28.1.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

going home - 28.1.25

Picture this: You have a brother who was taken from his bed one morning to the tunnels of Gaza and has not been heard from again, and you are watching the programs on television of the released Hamas prisoners who might have been the ones pulling your brother out of bed.  And the prisoners are being treated like hostages (welcomed and pitied by the reporters as well as the families)  and your brother will never be heard from again.  How would you feel? 

 

going home – 28.1.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

Poems for Holocaust Day - 27.1.25

here are 2 poems first published in Minyan Mag

 

Absence

“What are you looking for?”

we’d ask Mother, as she rummaged

a cupboard or a drawer or the phone book.

“My lost youth,” she’d answer

absent-mindedly, having forgotten

whatever had occupied her mind

when she first began to search.

 

The bombs, the soldiers, the streets

covered with bodies, the story of the children

smashed against the wall, her babies

washed down the drain in the bathtub in Danzig,

they were always

right there in the cupboard, the drawer,

the book next to the telephone.

Their Tattoos

At the annual picnic of the New Immigrants Society

in the park shelters at Ontario Lake Beach,

while all the children went to swim

I disguised my fear of water and assuaged my boredom

by concentrating on organizing the numbers

exposed to the sun on the refugees’ arms

into some kind of arithmetical sequence.

 

I knew enough to be discreet,

counting the history of their agonies,

without looking directly at the tattoos.

But their arms were bare, exposed,

as they sat telling indiscreet tales

around the samovar and the hill of sugar

and they had nothing to hide

from one another.

 

Now I cannot remember

a single cipher

except the number 1

that looked so much more fundamental

than what we learned in math class.

poems for Holocaust Day – 27.1.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

p.s. 25.1.25

Gershon Baskin writes:

It is not yet too late for Israel to convey to Qatar and Egypt that it is ready to adopt the three-week deal that Hamas agreed to in September. In three weeks, all the hostages – living and dead – can be released, the Palestinian prisoners who have been agreed to be released can be released, the war can end and the Israeli army can withdraw from Gaza. Israel can also initiate a regional-international conference with neighboring countries and the Palestinian Authority on the future of Gaza – the reconstruction and the alternative Palestinian government that should govern Gaza instead of Hamas. This will of course lead to the fall of Netanyahu’s coalition, but this is actually the will of the majority in Israel. If Netanyahu is so confident in his abilities and the people’s support for him, let him bring this chapter to an end and return the mandate to the people. (Gershon Baskin, January 25, 2025)

p.s. – 25.1.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

Another Drop in the Bucket - 25.1.25

4 more girls.  And we’re all estatic.  It is amazing to see them all. Looking healthy and happy and emotionally powerful, they have not begun to tell their stories.  But we want more – we want all of them, all of them that never should have been there in the first place.  

But they are such cool girls – every one of them gives the sense that there is a future for our people.  Each one is worth the thousands of terrorists we paid.

 

 

another drop in the bucket – 25.1.25 Read Post »

israeli politics

moving into the weekend - 24.1.25

There may have been times like these in the past, where every day brings a new anticipation and fear, but the media that informs the individual of the national and international fears, magnifiy the feelings.

we know there will be four hostages tomorrow – a day that is difficult for people to break the sabbath and come to see the freed hostages.  We don’t know for sure who they are and what condition they will be in.  We don’t know a lot more.  

it might be easier to handle of we didn’t know they are playing with us.  it might be easier to handle if we were optimistic about our future… Wait a minute – I AM optimistic about our good future….

 

moving into the weekend Read Post »

israeli politics

Shopping - 22.2.25

I hate to complain about it, no – i hate to think about it – but shopping is an incredible shock lately.  Every time I got to the supermarket the price of each item is higher.  It’s easier to shop online when I am watching television to distract me, and I don’t look at the prices.  Downgrading the quality is my only response.  No free range organic eggs – they are twice the price.  No more organic veggies.  No more imported chocolate. 

Don’t worry, I won’t lose weight.  There’s enough cheap candy on the market. 

Potato chips is a bigger problem.

 

Shopping Read Post »