Tel Aviv Diary - March 8-12, 2013 - Karen Alkalay-Gut
March 8, 2013
The Locusts are on their way back to us in the south, and the U.N. is pulling out of Syria, so we've got an another invasion on the way. But wait, you say, the Phillipine UN force captives are on the side of the rebels. The rebels are against Assad. So they must be the good guys. But there are good rebels and bad rebels. Al-Keida, for example, are not good potential neighbors, and the UN is leaving us alone with them. At least locusts can be sprayed.
March 9, 2013 Why didn't I celebrate Women's Day? I tried. I went to a lecture at a friend's house where a researcher tried to discuss the situation of women in Israel. But the audience cut her off again and again to disprove her statistics about how critical the situation is. Their own lives are much better than they were, and they could not perceive that their lives are not paradigmatic. The refusal to accept or even hear what seemed to them a needlessly argumentative feminist approach is counterproductive to the development of the state of women in the world. A friend once told me about a lecturer who asked, "Why do women always take things personally?" and a girl shouted out from the audience, "I don't!" But who am I to complain? All this diary is 'personal' in a way. March 10, 2013 An elegant reception at the Daniel Rowing Center for some international bloggers. Before the guests of honor came in we met up all kinds of old friends, most of whom came up to us to apologize that they had been in hibernation all winter because of the recurring flu. It was very convenient - I didn't have to apologize myself. But this is indicative of this winter - superflus for the aging population. All this not to speak of the new almost-official government - an incredible disappointment - worse than my most terrible political nightmares. Most painful is the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Education and the Finance Minister. I wouldn't mind too much shuffling them up, but as it is the only hope I have is that it doesn't last too long. I'll just watch old movies in the meantime. It's like today, when I took my 2 1/2 year old grandson for an x-ray, and we were sitting in the waiting room, he said "get me something on youtube so I won't be scared." But wait - suddenly everything is up in the air again! What if Yair Lapid is using a technique he learned from Cassius Clay - "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"? What if he's thrown the whole puzzle in the air and now everything has to be sorted out again? Oh, perhaps there is balm in Gilead...
March 11, 2013 But they've outsmarted me again, with a sudden swoop into even more petty considerations in the world...There's not much to do but wait and hope. And while we're waitin around twidling our thumbs we seem to be doing a lot of killing each other. i always say they are connected. March 12,2013 "Between Two Worlds" by Sarah Von Schwartze is playing at the Cameri for 33 shows. Before it opened here it played in Stuttgart - Those are the two worlds, Germany and Israel. The entire play is a confrontation between Israel and Germany, guilt and fear, and the issues are not solved. Sarah von Schwartze is not only the author but the protagonist, and the plot is the unravelling of the story of her life as German and Israeli. Ha'aretz reviewed it with the title German-Israeli co-production is greater than the sum of its parts. Before we went into the theater all I was thinking about was how great it is that the wind has shifted and the locusts will not be coming to Tel Aviv. Earlier today I was grilling Ezi about what it was like the last time the locusts came to Tel Aviv, and he was, as usual, quite blase, but described the fist-sized insects in great detail. Imagine them, eating out of your flower pots, jumping into your hair.... Anyway, before the play that was what was on my mind. After the play there was a q&a session but my back hurt and I just wanted to go home and watch some dumb American comedy but Ezi read the program hungrily, and made me discuss the issues of identity and responsibility. It occurred to me that maybe those issues about Germany and Israel is less important to me than Jew and Arab. And I don't think they are parallel.