Tel Aviv Diary - June 14-18, 2007

June 14, 2007

Can you imagine what it must be like in Gaza right now - afraid to get near the windows, afraid to go out, afraid your family will be blown away, starve.... I know we feel we have no right to go in there but I bet there are many people in Gaza praying for us to retake the strip.

No time today - I'm on my way to Jerusalem, which, as you know, is another country.

June 15, 2007

Sometimes I am very impressed with the grandeur of Jerusalem. Yesterday we got caught in traffic and it took longer to traverse the city than it took to get from Tel Aviv to the entrance to the capital. We were both getting more and more nervous - wondering if there was some other way to get to our appointment - but after over an hour and a half we entered the David Citadel Hotel and forgot the journey. Perhaps for the other diners it was simply a regular restaurant, but there is something quiet and dignified about it that I don't recall experiencing in Tel Aviv. The food was fine, but it was the atmosphere that caught my attention.

June 15, 2007

THE LORD DESPISES LUST. The signs all over Jerusalem stayed in my mind all night. They refer to the Gay Pride parade scheduled to go 200 meters in Jerusalem next week, wich once again has made the extremists burn garbage and demonstrate in the Holy City.

The holy city. Remind me, what exactly does holy mean.

People have been asking me what's going on in Gaza. We don't know more than what is in the news. One thing I do know, however, is that there are people there who would be happy to talk with us. And that we should do everything we can to help out those people. Take a look at Hillel Schemker's comment in the Guardian

June 18, 2007

You can't really write about yourself in Tel Aviv without checking to see the condition of the country. It may seem as if everything is perfect, the sun shining, Tel Avivians chattering in cafes, and the rest of the country is bring bombed, husbands in Beer Sheva murdering their wives, our neighbors in Gaza starving. It is not that everyone in Tel Aviv doesn't know about what's going on, it's just that all that news makes them all the more relieved that the sun in shining and we have cafes to sit in.

So I rush to see or hear the news as soon as I can, and am usually relieved that it isn't worse. Knowing how absolutely terrible it is in Gaza at the moment, knowing what hell they are going through, and how impossible it must be to live, while we are helpless to help, makes our denial even more pressing. But we have to find a way to help relieve their situation. Even if it means they will renew their attempts to kill us.

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