It is Friday. Heading to Jerusalem this afternoon for shabbat. Cleaning my apartment 'cause Friday is cleaning day.
(I am looking to sell a practically-new Mii2 Stand 2.0 escooter... if interested ping me!)
Seen
The coffee shop and tattoo place around the corner, still closed. A surprising number of businesses in this part of the world are one-person-shows. The francophone woman who runs the coffee shop went to a small town to escape the rockets? No coffee shop. Ditto the tattoo parlor. The shuk is stocked. Foot traffic there is light. Weed delivery service. Other sights around Tel Aviv... and the scooter for sale...
Heard
A friend on the phone today:
"You come home from the funeral of your neighbor's family. You visit the other neighbor who has two family members held hostage. There is a siren so I go into the safe room. This is 'Normal' now. Every time a siren blares, you check in with your kids. And I am in central Israel! This is nothing! The folks living in the south have rocket alarms all the time."
Read
The rabbi of Columbia university wrote one of the better essays about the line between acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering and anti-semitism. A small excerpt:
Challenge the reductionist view that acknowledging the awfulness of Hamas’ violence is the same as celebrating Israel, and, equally, that you cannot support the Palestinian people without endorsing the killing of Jews.
...if the presence of a strong Jewish community on campus, or your understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the ties between the governments of Israel and the United States leaves you with no room for Jewish vulnerability, that is cause for alarm.
That is antisemitism.
As observers of the “campus conversation” know: There was the antisemitic angle packaged in the BDS movement, and today there is the antisemitism packaged as “anti-colonialism.” Each of these movements has a legitimate angle. And each of these angles is applied nowhere else but ______.
Anti-Relief Area
(contains graphic images)
During the Israeli elections a year ago, Netanyahu presented himself as the only "grown up" running. An add was run during that campaign showing him showing up as the "Bibi sitter" (baby sitter), to the great surprise of the parents.
Bibi: “You ordered a baby sitter? You got a Bibi sitter. Where are the kids?”
Further on he says: "Who do you trust to look out for your kids?" and “You wouldn’t trust your kids with ‘Joe the baby sitter,’ would you?”
And: “In the upcoming elections, choose who you would want watching your kids.” “In the upcoming elections vote only for Likud.”
This has been mashed up with recent footage. (contains graphic images)
Relief Area
This is in Hebrew (I don't have time to do English subs on a Friday... I think it takes me an hour to do 2 minutes of subs.) It is about a guy running a safari who is visited by the new "Minister for Animals" who is there to implement a "reform." The safari guy asks: "Since when is there such a minister? Who asked for a reform?" etc.
I am off to mop.
Shabbat Shalom from Tel Aviv (and soon Jerusalem).
Raf
(Thank you A.K. and S.P. for material.)