Passover

 Tomorrow evening is Pesach - most people will be sitting down for the seder with their families. This Pesach is without joy, without hope.  The angel of death has touched almost everyone.  How can we celebrate the holiday of freedom when the hostages are still underground.  The war rages on, in Gaza, in the north, Iran joined in, we survived then retaliated. This is not nearly over - but we don't even know what over means, or will mean. Once again foreign airlines have abandoned us.  It is almost impossible to describe the pall which hangs over the middle east - the anxiety, the depression, the fear, the sense of futility, of grim resignation.

This is a very short entry to wish everyone Hag Herut - A holiday of freedom.

That is my very first geranium which I planted last week. It opened for me this morning.

Follow up from yesterday's post

 Tonight I went to the protest in Tel Aviv. On my walk home from the bus stop, my sister called "have you heard the news?" We are on full alert - no school tomorrow, events have been cancelled, Jordan has closed their airspace, drones have been sent from Iran. They take 9 hours to get here, so there will only be alarms when they get really close.  They think they will go for military installations first.  Hezbollah may fire rockets from  Lebanon and that is a far shorter distance.  The army spokesman and all the top brass are telling us to listen to commands from the municipalities. They keep assuring us they have ways of defending us. What the hell else can they say? America and Biden at the helm are on full alert.

If nothiing else, Iran has won a psychological war - to say this is nervewracking is the mildest and most stupid thing I can say. I was nearly killed tonight in Tel Aviv by a young woman cyclist who went through the red light - I was crossing on green, and she stopped just seconds from running me over. "Sorry" she said. At least that.  Everyone's nerves are shattered.

What I am now going to do is have a cup of camomile tea and I am going to bed.  I do have a backpack ready, and we still have 90 seconds to get to the shelters.  That is quite a long time.

Prayers for the world, please.

Friday night, April 12 2024.

 188 days since the 7th of October.

Rockets and missiles in the north - kthe TV shows the names of the areas in orange headlines.  

Israel is ready, they say, for attacks from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen.  They are giving us the length of time it takes for rockets, ballistic missiles, drones, etc. fired from each country, and what we should do. Go to shelters of course. "They" could attack or destroy our water system, electrical system, etc. etc. Of course all of this is in Hebrew and I don't even know the types of rockets and missiles in english.  This is not a calming situation.  This is not a pleasant Friday night.  Shabat shalom - really?  The talking heads engage on each channel, the retired generals speak, the head of securitiy speak, the army spokesman speaks.  Members of the government, Bibi? Ben Gvir, Rothman, Smotrich, - where are they? what do they have to say?  "Keep calm and carry on" - "We shall fight them etc". Where are those we need now?  Netanyahu is more scared of the reactions of Ben Gvir and Smotrich to that of the Iranians. What the fuck is going on?  God help us all.

Shabat shalom.

Things are Heating Up

Things are heating up, literally and figuratively. The outdoor thermometer I brought with me from the States shows 90 degrees fahrenheit which is about 30 degrees centigrade.  Hot in both systems. It is the season of change - and of chamsins.  Chamsin is the Arabic word for 50 - it is approximately 50 days a year that a fiercely dry and hot wind blows into the entire area from the Sahara.  It does not discriminate between regions or peoples - all regions of the middle east suffer.

Last night I attended the "anti government, elections now, bring back the hostages" demonstration in Tel Aviv. For a year, until October 7 there were protests and marches around the country against the proposed judicial reform and the end of democracy.  On that black Saturday everything, every system,  and everyone came to a crashing, stunning, horrifying halt.  The wonderful, brave, resilient, resourceful Israelis who had been active in the protests, turned their activism toward mobilizing and running the country as the government, those supposedly in charge, those responsible for the horror in which we now live, remained silent, and stopped doing anything. When they came to, instead of helping the army, bringing the hostages back, assisting the hundreds of refugees in the country - they have done nothing but strategise how they will win the next election, maintain their seats, feather their nests, enrich their coffers.  They have ignored the suffering, been rude to the army, militarized the police, broken ties with America, pushed Israel into isolation. Bibi who helped and encouraged Hamas, now wants to prolong the war - he cares about nothing but himself. And the people have had enough.

Hundreds of thousands are back protesting all around the country and outside the Knesset today - they will be in Jerusalem for three days. The religious refuse to be conscripted  - they want to be subsidised and to pray.  The prayers have not helped much.  Bibi promised them money - now we will see what happens. Things are not pretty and they are going to get uglier.  Maybe these days of heat and fury will herald a change.    MAYBE 

(Photos later)

The bus we went to says "choosing hostages" on the side.

Cockroach and Evolution

I do not like cockroaches. I have never liked cockroaches. I am not sure whether anyone has ever favoured these creatures of the night, but I am scared of them. I scream when I see one - I can't really kill them, but if I do by accident step on one the sight of brownish yellow blood revolts me. I read somewhere that if there is a nuclear war they will be the only things that survive. Good luck to the next incarnation that encounters them. 

I visited a friend in Texas, where everything really is way bigger than anywhere else. We were enjoying a quiet night in her comfortable living room in Fort Worth when a massive cockroach scurried too close for comfort. I screamed. Somehow, exhibiting a feat of extreme bravery, she got rid of this massive revolting thing.  It took more than a few margaritas to calm me down. A few days later we were in a Texan sized shoe store trying on Texas style boots. The tooled rhinestoned boots were way beyond my budget, and I wasn't sure how they would go down in Berkeley. What looks wonderful in  Texas should stay in Texas.  But I did try on a relatively modest pair of black leather boots - lovely they were. My friend would say, rudely, that I preened in front of the large mirror, looking at them.  I did not preen, but I did try them on and took some steps in them.  The saleslady was very helpful in her incomprehensible Texan brogue- "kin ah hip you," and so on. I asked her the price of the boots, and just as she began to tell me I saw a giant cockroach very close by, on its back.  As she said the price I gasped and shrieked "Oh My God," I shook and quivered. She said in a sotto voice, "they aren't that expensive," but I quivered and pointed at the giant roach on its back, its legs moving, and left the shop. Just a waterbug, she said, as I rushed out.  It is a fucking cockroach, it is NOT a waterbug.

Cut to Israel, February 2024.  Before October 7th I had joined a group called "Bereaved Families, Israeli and Palestinian."  Last week we had a zoom meeting to meet some of the most recent participants. I sat listening to the heart rending stories of everyone, but especially the most recent participants, all of whom had lost children or parents on October 7th.  I was riveted, looking at the screen and listening, when something made me turn around.  Next to my sofa, on its back, was a large brown cockroach.  It took every ounce of willpower not to scream - me screaming would have been the worst thing that could happen in this group of people who had gone through possibly the most traumatic events one can endure. My heart beat faster, I stifled the urge to scream, and, except for that brief look, kept my gaze on the screen. 

When the group ended I took my broom, dustpan, a roll of paper towels, and swept this thing into the dustpan and took it to my door to fling it into the wild beyond - BUT, it was gone from the dustpan. That thing was still alive and had escaped. Since then I have been looking.  But I am proud that I seem somehow to have evolved, and did not scream at the sight of this horrid creature of the night.  This, for me,  is evolution.

An Important Day

 Friday dawned cold and cloudy, but promised no rain after two rain filled weeks. I awoke earlier than my usual time as I was being picked up at 7.30 by a woman from a nearby village who had kindly offered to drive me to the junction where a bus was to pick us up. We also had to get military clearance as we were going up north.

This trip had been cancelled two weeks previously due to heavy rain and snow.

I signed up for "A Visit to Express Sympathy with Druze families whose sons had been killed in the present ongoing war."  - an unwieldy title that is shorter in Hebrew. I knew it would not be an easy day, but I felt it was important.

The bus picked us up from our designated spot near Netanya railway station at 8.00 am.  The bus was full - 50 people, men and women (mostly women.) Somewhere after Zichron Yaakov we were joined by a Druze professor, Dr. Rajah Faraj.  He was to be our guide and our liaison with the families. He is a Druze Professor of Middle East History and Educational Sociology.   Our Druze bus driver handled the narrow village streets and roads that twisted and turned and climbed and descended with skill and aplomb. It was a relief to me that I didn't have to be concerned about dangerous driving conditions, although some of the women sitting near me did gasp on each sharp turn,, of which there were many.

The Galilee after the rains is incredibly beautiful - mountainous, lush green, almond trees just starting to blossom, olive groves, stone houses on cobbled streets. I have written about this before, Israel is a beautiful country, and the geography is so varied, as is the flora, the vegetation, the climate. Its people are varied, different customs, different manners of worship, different clothes, different food - so fascinating, and so very very sad.  This land has been fought over, and fought in, and fought on, for centuries. 

We paid our respects to three families, in the Druze way of mourning.  We felt the commonality of losing children in wars.  Parents are parents, mothers are mothers, fathers are fathers.  We all grieve together and long for an end. The least we can do is hold each other, and this is what we did.

Nature

 I am struggling with a heading.  The blessing of nature, the indifference of nature?  The contrariness of nature?

On Tuesday I went to Emek Beit Shean with the birding group.  It was a cold, windy, rainy day, the kind I love.  The valley, about an hour and a half drive from where I live, in the center. It is the eastern end of the beautiful Jezreel Valley where I lived on the kibbutz, and is bounded by the Gilboa mountains, and the Jordan river.  At this time of the year, in Israel, Tu b'Shvat (we went just one day before)  which is the holiday of the new trees.  Schoolchildren go out planting trees, as does everyone wherever they are.  The mountains and the valley are covered in fields of emerald green, the spring flowers are beginning their brief and glorious display.  Red and white anemones, pink, mauve, and white cyclamen.  The citrus trees are loaded, there are carpets of wild mustard dotted with deep mauve lupine.

The birds, to my amazement seem to love this weather as much as I do. The fish ponds are full and the skies are full of the wonder and beauty of nature. 

BUT, we had all heard the terrible news that morning, 21 soldiers killed by a blast in Khan Yunis.  And yet, nature, oblivious, moves on and does what it should, when it should.  Fields of red poppies grown around Kibbutz Beeri, the scene of the October 7 massacre.   Us humans do terrible things to each other, but nature continues, through it all. It is changing because of climate change, but it will adapt, and continue to cause wonder.  It continues throughout droughts, floods, avalanches, - it survives, and will survive, even if we as a species do not.

And, as we were leaving, a rainbow.