August 4, 2017
At Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt tonight, presented in the Knights' Templar Hall in Akko, the opera stopped in the middle of act I as the Muezzin called for the fifth prayer. The speakers of the Minaret point right at the open concert hall and it was announced in advance that they would freeze the scene. Akko, Handel, Italian, Egypt, all that should be confusing enough, but the replacement singer for the role of Cleopatra was Nur Darwish. We all enjoyed it, despite what to me was an uncomfortable seat and a terrible sense of exhaustion. We'd been in traffic for 3 hours, and then stopped at the hotel Zarka - which does have luxury suites. from there we walked over to Arabesque for a pre-opera-party and then walked over to the knight's templar hall.
When opera was over we walked back to the hotel, through the alleys of Acre, where relaxed conversations were taking place on the street even though it was way past midnight. i was grateful we didn't decide to take the night train home - it would have been a rush to get there and i would been worried throughout the opera that it wouldn't end on time.
August 4, 2017
So we slept at Zarka Luxury Suites in Akko, in which the room was incredibly luxurious but the narrow staircase caused me some disconcersion. There was an enormous bedroom, a jacuzzi room, a kitchenette, and the bathroom. a view of the sea too. from 2 small windows. And when we came home late and knocked at the locked door, we had to give up after a while and go around to the alley and unlock the back gate. But i like it and would go back again.
August 5,2017
After seeing Dunkirk I decided not to sleep tonight. anyway we have to get up at five to get Ezi's biopsy at the hospital. I was planning on going shopping while he's doing the ultrasound, but suddenly realized that the shops will be closed at 7.
August 7, 2017
I'm going to the World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem tomorrow morning to give a talk on Kurt Gerron. It has been murder writing it because every where i look there is a new fact, in a different language, and it's about a new film, and a new program, and a new film. The web doesn't tell you everything but sometimes it leads you places you never imagined. this guy did over 94 films and who knows where the next click will lead me. The thing is, I'm talking about how he was cut out of films he acted in, and thrown off films he was directing. And then they made him do that film in Theresinstadt before the sent him to Auschwitz to be gassed - and that's all he's remembered for.
I really hate talking about politics - maybe like Gerron I couldn't survive without illusion. Bibi and Trump. Who could face what we've known for years but haven't been able to prevent? Is revolution still possible or is it too late?
August 8, 2017
Have I ever written about Mount Scopus? It has always seemed to me a paranoid fortress intended to confuse the visitor and meant only for those who belong. But that is what this country has become.
Yet I really feel the change coming, a complete revolution that will bring us back to sanity. All the channels on television are turning the events of the last few years inside out, examining all the business and politics and exposing the incredible corruption. All this does my heart good. Everything I suspected that twisted my heart is now being proven.
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