The new Assuta hospital – 8 in the morning – pouring rain – underground parking – green and red lights tell you if the space is free or taken. Elevator right up to the ward. Me I was just accompanying someone so it was all pleasure – comfort – doctor dressed up as a pirate – the nurse as a princess. Even the coffee was good. I hope you never need medical care, but if you do, it’s not bad here.
Why haven’t I complained about the gossip around Mahmoud Mabhouh? Most of it seems totally crazy to me – like why Israelis wouldn’t know they were being filmed, that Israelis take passports at the border and copy them (they are never out of your sight), that Mabhouh himself had a bunch of fake passports with him, that 30 agents would be needed to do one careless man…..
But why should i add to the speculation?
I think the whole thing is a fantasia – made up by the Dubais – Each one of those facts and a lot more should have been explained by our government.
But the present man in charge doesn’t seem to know the difference between truth and fantasy and therefore cannot explain things properly.
i only wish that when Joe Alon was murdered in 1977 in Washington they had surveillance cameras.
Even before I go to the dentist and then the memorial for Sutskever I have one of my little conversation with the invisible birds outside my kitchen. They are particularly talkative today after the thunderous storm last night, but they also find a little time to converse with me. I know what you’re thinking, but my cleaner heard me yesterday and swore it sounded like a regular dialogue.
Of course she’s on my payroll.
Shimon Peres opened the memorial for Avraham Sutzkever with a beautiful peon to Yiddish, and even read a poem in Yiddish himself. Then he sat through the two hour long program, as moved as every one in the audience. Although innumerable stars brilliantly performed Sutzkever’s work, in Yiddish and Hebrew, there was a space when I stopped listening. It was when his poem about the wagon of shoes dancing was read. There’s a passing English translation here but it doesn’t do justice. (I doubt that I could do better) What Sutzkever does in this poem is foreground the empty shoes of victims dancing in the wagon, identifying even his mother’s Sabbath shoes, with typical Lithuanian understatement. I got distracted by that poem, imagining the baby shoes of two of my baby cousins who were bashed against a wall in Zhedtl. Suzkever’s granddaughter, the actress Hadas Calderon, brought me back with her warm and genuine personal grief. But I came home with a headache.
Thank goodness I can go and say goodnight to the birds near my house, and then good evening to the bats.
Any moment now, I expect to discover I’m one of the suspects in the assassination in Dubai. Everyone else is. So appropriate for Purim.
A program I did Monday afternoon on Kol Yizrael is
here. It’s in Hebrew, English, and some Yiddish in memory of Avraham Sutzkever, an amazing poet.
How’s your Italian? Here’s a review from yesterday’s
Corriere Della Sera
After work today we trotted up to the College of the Valley of Jezreel to do a radio program – mostly about Yiddish poetry. They are still between semesters and the school is not crowded, which gave us the opportunity to see the really classy place itself. There is something special about that place – and I’m going to have to go back there again to see what is really going on at that school.
After two hours of radio, not having eaten since a thin sandwich at twelve, I was really ready for dinner, and was picturing Il Barbour in Uhm El Fahm or even Sahara near Afula, but we were too hungry by 7:30 to wait, and crossed the street to the Mizra Restaurant, where we were satisfied – but not more – with a hamburger and fries.
And while we’re into different identities, here are some excerpts from very recent readings in the U.S.
with Joe Rosenstein: The Market
Expect more later.
An old Purim poem of mine:
PURIM THOUGHTS
What if even one of the sons of Haman was not evil –
didn’t even carry the evil gene, and might have been
so much of a reaction to the evil he had seen
his only thoughts were of love.
What if he had been the one
to father the peace maker of Persia
in our time
how can I celebrate until I do not know the difference?
This one talks about the danger of collective punishment, something we do all the time all over the world. One thing we can learn from Purim is that this is the holiday of alternatives. That we have to try different identities, perspectives, and that distinctions are absolute.
I always imagine my doggie Shusha as an old woman from the shtetl. Her expressions, her personality, the way she treats others, all remind me of the way my mother described her grandmother Kaganovich. And since Purim is nearing, I began to sing her a Yiddish song about an incompetent balabosta from the shtetl. My crazy neighbor overheard me and chimed in. It was the first time I’d sung the song in years. But it needs greater coverage. Here’s the Yiddish. You can follow along here
Hop! Mayne Homntashn!
Yachne-Dvoshe fort in mark
Zi halt in eyn pakn,
Fort oyf Purim koyfn mel,
Homntashn bakn.
Chorus:
Hop! Mayne homntashn,
Hop! Mayne vayse.
Hop! Mit mayne homntashn
Hot pasirt a mayse!
S’geyt a regn, s’geyt a shney
Es kapet fun di decher.
Yachne firt shoyn korn-mel,
In a zak mit lecher.
(chorus)
Yachne trogt shoyn shalachmones,
Tsu der bobe Yente-
Tsvey-dray shvartze homntashn,
Halb-roy – halb-farbrente!
(chorus)
Here’s a rough translation:
Yachne-Dvoshe is off to town
She’s very busy packing -
She’s got to buy flour for Purim
to get her homentaschen baking
Jump, my homentaschen
jump, my white ones
dance with my homentashcen
for a miracle happened once
A rain is falling, the snow is falling
It’s pouring from the roofs
Yachne is already lugging her corn-meal
In a sack full of holes
Now she’s bringing Purim gifts
to the Grandma Yente
Two-three black homentaschen
Half raw, half burnt up
The melody – at least of the chorus – is a Ukranian dance – which lends a little irony to the dancing of the homentaschen and the ‘hop’ which accompanies a good masculine jumping dance. Dvosha is a diminuitive for Dvora, which was my mother’s and my father’s mother’s name.
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