Tel Aviv Diary April 29-May 3, 2016 - Karen Alkalay-Gut

Tel -Aviv Diary - April 29 - May 3, 2016 - Karen Alkalay-Gut

April 29, 2016

While most of the locals here - like Chaucer - long to go on pilgrimages in April - we have tried to stay close to home. And home is never really private around here. Least, the leak from our upstairs neighbors has to wait for sunday for the plumber, and the completely different leak from the communal pipes that go through our apartment as well. Both are getting unbearable. So neighbors come in and look and examine and leave. Grandchildren come by with broken toys to be fixed. we have to get out. no further than dizengoff, however.

When I saw this video I suddenly remembered it. Not only when it was broadcast, but when Rabin's accusations against Netanyahu became part of the discussion after his assassination.

He blames Bibi for the violence in Israeli society and describes accurately the atmosphere that led to his own death.

April 30, 2016

Passover is over. It might be a great holiday but for us this year it was too much. We should have stayed in one place for the whole time. The news stinks and tonight I turned on the news just as Bibi sat down to bless the people of Yavneh on the Mimouna. We had a wonderful holiday, he said, thanks to the soldiers who watch over us and the policies of the Likkud party.

May 2, 2016

Last night at Beit Leyvick I found myself weeping at the pair - Sabine Hunyh and Rivka Basman translating each other from French to Yiddish and back again. Where in the world could you find a harp and clarinet playing Dona Dona and the whole crowd singing the words spontaneously in Yiddish? Where in the world could you find love like that between a youngish Vietnamese-French writer and an ancient great Yiddish bard?

Greatly disappointing children's concert today. Not by the music - how could you go wrong with great composers like Beethoven and a great orchestra like the Israel Philharmonic. But the children were bored because there was no real interrelationship between their own lives and the long pieces. I imagined that I would have made an afternoon like that with children more of an interactive one because when you play Strauss you should get the kids to dance. And Mozart might be introduced with a biography but more with movement and color. Nevertheless one of our grandchildren held out until almost the end - but that's because, although not yet six he is experienced in 'children's' concerts. When in the introduction the conductor told the children understand how a deaf person can compose music by imagination their favorite tune in their heads, he closed his eyes and tried hard. I would really like something better for classical music in Israel. The audience had such potential and it went unfulfilled. I know some of the children absorb the music whether it is explained or brought to their level or not, but I wish we had the money to invest in things like this, and not so much in memorial services.

Which leads me to Holocaust day. It is coming up in two days and already it fills the media. There are times I fear my heart will not last this day, and I wish less money was spent on memorializing and more on taking care of survivors as well as building a future for the next generation. It's not that I don't want there to be education about the holocaust - it's that I don't want all the funding to go there, especially because I strongly suspect political motivation in promoting shoahbusiness.

May 3, 2016

I have this friend who goes to everything - films, plays, lectures. She's a performance consumer. And she's got a full schedule on Holocaust Day. "You have to see the film on Polnar," she says, "It's so moving." I should. I know. I can't.

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