Tomorrow morning at 11 the first ever human rights march will be taking place in Tel Aviv. Beginning at Rabin Square and marching toward the Tel Aviv Museum, this march is meant to unite all the different movements for civil rights, and I wish them all the luck in this endeavor. I won’t be there, primarily because I’m otherwise engaged, but also because something about the language disturbs me, the way argumentative and self-righteous rhetoric takes control of individuality and sympathy. This is one of the reasons I am a dats’lash (dati lesheavar), a formerly observant person, and can’t take the rhetoric of the right. I can’t even bear it when I’m called on to talk about ‘identity.’ ‘Identity-shmidentity’ I said to Dara today, and then suggested we have an international conference by this name. Maybe I’m just a sucker for individualiry in rhetoric, but i fear very much that we need to learn a rhetoric that includes the ‘other.’ “Right,” I hear myself arguing against myself, “but that’s the way Obama started and just today in accepting the Nobel prize for peace he couldn’t stop himself from using the word ‘evil’ in referring to his enemies.” i make a good point – it’s easy to be humane and inclusive while i sit in my armchair at home, but if i have someone’s knife at my throat I will not only talk about evil, I will kill him.
As we sat in the conference for Jewish Writers, examining the subjects of exile, home and language from all aspects, 10,000 settlers were blocking the traffic in front of the prime ministers residence in the center of Jerusalem. There was a lot that we could have said relating to what was going on in the streets but very few of the participants in the conference were aware of it. What does this tell us about the level of our awareness?
Remember the petition I mentioned to you about academic freedom ? It seems to be considered by some anti-Israeli.
I’m not sure why – and ask your opinion. The site claims we are ignoring the security needs of Israel, but my assumption is that we take security needs as a given.
The building I live in is populated primarily by the same people who bought their apartments before the building was up, sometime in 1972. We know each other well, even though we are very different in our lives. And on the 15th of December we turn on the underfloor heating. It is the least expensive form of heating and keeps the chill off our old bones. Sometimes we can put it off for a week or so, but today the neighbors were knocking at our door to get Ezi to fire up the furnace as soon as possible. The dampness is the hard part, the cold walls and the wind coming in from under the window sills. Before I lived here, we used a kerosene heater that had to be lit outside because it smelled so bad. After that we had a gas heat, and one night, I fell asleep next to it while keeping watch over a sick child. It was a stormy night and the electricity failed, which woke me up to discover that the gas line had gotten loose and the gas was flowing freely into the room. That was a ‘defining’ moment for me, following the sound of the hissing gas and pulling down the lever, groping for the windows in the dark and throwing them open to the rain, etc. We had no phone and I was the only adult in the house. And even though I knew then I’d be able to rely on myself, I also knew that I’d have to find a safer way to heat the house.
The more we understand the other, the better our chances for compromise and survival. One of the more active organizations I know in this field is http://www.interfaith-encounter.org the Interfaith Encounter Association. To support them, send to:
1. “INTERFAITH ENCOUNTER ASSOCIATION”
12/34 Ha’arazim Street
P.O.Box 3814
Jerusalem 91037
Israel
2. Tax-deductible contributions in the U.S.A.:
Friends of the Interfaith Encounter Association
c/o Dominic Bellino
3 N 923 Bonnie Drive
St. Charles, IL 60175
I’m a little crazy about the necessity for interfaith encounters, even though i’m not really actively doing anything about it right now.
so many little celebrations i can’t keep them straight and can’t begin to recall them. We go from birthday party to wedding celebration to birth party and there is no time to celebrate and consider and criticize our own lives. That makes me sound like an old grouch but the unexamined life, as they say, is not worth…. and i like to spend at least half my time considering. Some trivial examples:
As we admire the new palm trees lining Ibn Gvirol, making it look finally like a boulevard, someone says, “Where do those trees come from?” There is a silence. “Probably grown near the Dead Sea.” This is not the usual answer when we ask about olive trees. But we don’t go any deeper.
I was going to write earlier but have been chatting with some guy from Ramallah – i don’t like chatting because it doesn’t go into real depth, but it is such a window into my neighbors’ world i can’t always resist. There is so little we know about our neighbors – all of them. And so much responsibility to learn.
And to teach.
Tonight I saw the worst and the best of Israel. The worst of it I saw on the news, and I don’t have to repeat them to you. Suffice it to say, as the woman in the Yiddish lullaby sings to her little Yankele, “It will cost me and your father many tears before you become a mensch.” But the best of Israel doesn’t get seen so much, so I’m very happy to get a chance to point them out. First off, it was an evening for Eliya http://www.eliya.org.il which is in English http://www.eliyausa.org here. It is an association for preschool blind and visually impaired children and two of the ‘graduates’ performed – one, a seventeen year old singer, and the other a thirteen year old pianist. They were both impressive, the products of a great deal of personal care and direction. Their parents were even more impressive, in their quiet steadfastness. The organization – which now has three schools – is run by voluteer Michael Segal, who has quietly developed and expanded the institution for almost twenty years. He succeeded Haim Sanderson, the father of Danny Sanferson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Sanderson who also contributed an extended appearance tonight, to the great joy of the audience. Danny Sanderson is not only one of the major contributors to Israeli music, but he is Ezi’s absolute favorite. His first group Kaveret http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveret and the others that have followed, have had long lasting influences on poetry and music, and the audience – young and old – knew all the words.
Opening for them was a group called Tararam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tararam full of energy and invention. Dance and drumming groups are really good here, for numerous reason i will go into soon.
Nothing like Tel Aviv in pleasant weather. The amount of ogling and conversation that takes place – even in a bourgeois shopping center like Ramat Aviv G – is surprising. I know – I am one of the oglers. Even in this heartland of middle class snobbism, I manage to meet old friends and the occasional kind stranger. In bad weather you meet only the people you arrange to meet, but on nice days everyone is outside.
It was a lab test that brought me to the shopping center, at 9:45. I was number 602. When I got to the reception window I asked, “Were there really 601 people before me today?” The receptionist answered “We always start with number one.” And yet I was out by 10:15. And free to shop. The results came in at 3 in the afternoon on the internet. The doctor received me this evening, and I’m on my way to wellness.
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