Tel Aviv Diary July 14-18, 2018 - Karen Alkalay-Gut

Tel Aviv Diary --July 19-23, 2018 Karen Alkalay-Gut

July 19, 2018

Quoting the proclamation of independence of the state of Israel:

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Read the full text on the government's website

today we are going back to learning Arabic. Just because 62 members of the government have voted to cancel Arabic as a national language, to cancel democracy in favor of the Jewish State here

This is a day of mourning.

July 20, 2018

Because Ezi pulled a muscle yesterday on his foot and we feared further problems, we decided to skip most of our plans and stayed close to our room. This worked out well because we kept meeting the most interesting people and it helped to distract us from what is becoming a terrifying situation in Gaza. Even the 'jewish state' business went on a back burner as we follow the unfolding story with horror.

For example Flemming Ravn appeared and took us to a cafe called Obelisk where he asked a couple to allow us to sit at their table. Anywhere else it might have been a terrible intrusion on their privacy but somehow here it felt right, and the couple soon became engaged in our conversation and it soon appeared that the woman had some Jewish blood and so forth and so on. This kind of thing happened again and again, and it makes me sad to leave Copenhagen tomorrow - there are so many people and so many things I want to do here. But now I'm too full and too tired to explain myself at all.

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