Is Raf OK? -- Installment #71
2024-01-15 -- Tel Aviv
Tags: 4 Min Read; Family History; Jumbo Relief Area!
I leave shortly on a vacation. Expect few to zero posts until mid February. Just think of the humor that will accrue!
G-d knows that’s needed.
It has been raining. I've even used the heat a few times. On the streets: more visitors and tourists. (Note: Right now is a great time to visit Israel: The Old City isn’t packed with people and the great tour guides are available.) Spotted in Haaretz:
Israeli journalists don’t show enough of the destruction in Gaza
An opinion piece: "If it isn't Genocide, what is it?" -- I think it is called "regular" war (think WWII). In recent years, wars waged by the West have been "surgical." This doesn't map well to a hostage-holding-entity dug in to tunnels and stationed in schools, mosques, ambulances and hospitals. And, as mentioned, such warfare may qualify under the broad U.N. definition of Genocide. (And such qualification isn’t necessarily useful or constructive.)
And as Aeyal Gross just wrote in Haaretz:
However, it is exactly because the events of October 7 are justly condemned, and causing so much shock over the shattering horrors faced by so many innocent people in Israel, that we must not shut our eyes and hearts to the horrors so many innocent Palestinians are facing. Even if the International Court of Justice does not see it as a case of genocide.
(He is speculating on how the ICJ may rule, saying the degree to which the Israeli public should care should be independent of the ICJ ruling.)
Overheard
Conversation with an Israeli university student who has been in New York and is now heading to Paris for the semester:
Q: "Are you afraid of antisemitism in France?"
A: "It's better when it is obvious. That's better than in the U.S. where it is there, but hidden."
With a right wing Israeli who says Israel can never allow a Palestinian State:
"Because they would use weapons to shoot over the border into Israel."
"And what happens now, without a Palestinian State? They have every weapon they want, and attack when they want. Gaza isn't its own state, but they have been shelling over the border for years."
What is that Sartre quote? "Hell is other people." (Other people are also heaven. [So we ask ourselves, who are we surrounding ourselves with?] Sartre exploration one. Sartre exploration two.)
How We Got Here (featuring Hell & Heaven)
Video: Dashcam footage and interview with Oz Davidian, who rescued over 100 from the Nova Music Festival on October 7. (9 min, Hebrew w English subs. Many dashcams audio record the cabin, as does Oz’s.)
Thought
In college I read a line that stuck:
Ideas take three generations to be realized.
(I thought this is in Small Is Beautiful, but I don't spot it there just now.)
What is it that I do or think, that started generations ago? How can I know?
For example, when I grew up, my parents were progressives. Socially and economically. One of my great-grandmothers was arrested (and booked into Los Angeles County Jail) for deportation under the McCarran Act. (Why arrest a Yiddish speaking grandma from her kitchen? Because she had attended some union meetings and had never bothered to get U.S. Citizenship, so she was considered [by McCarthyite extremists] to be a subversive. So she was put on some list and arrested by the Los Angeles police.) They were also, internally and externally, Jewish. (Saying “externally” because of Sartre’s thoughts vis-a-vis antisemitism. Sartre’s thoughts are profound. Among them: If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.)
Zionism surfaced in multiple ways, including my father's first cousin who went from Los Angeles to Israel to fight in the War of Independence at age 19.
It makes me wonder: No one stays the same. We develop and change over our brief lives. Different aspects surface at different times. And nothing about life is easy. Is the task to be as open as we can be to all our aspects, to allow each room to be?
Relief Area
Alef - Hamas the Musical: ‘West Is Next’ Side Story
(3 min, English)
Bet
An Israeli comedian in Europe is heckled… and engages. (5 min, English)
Gimmel
Dalet
Newly discovered hash tag (yeah yeah, old news for social media fans)
#WitchesForPalestine
I never searched for hashtags before. Have now! I found:
#WichesForIsrael
#ShamansForPalestine
#BakersForPalestine
TikTok seems to "synthesize" tags for certain keywords. "#DruzeForGaza": Zero hits. But "#BakersForIsrael" gets hits, though it is not clear if this is a real tag or a TikTok “synthesis.” (I use the Kagi search engine.)
Hey
I'm cold. I'm pissed off at my gym who makes me jump through hoops to get unlimited access to Pilates. (Might be the first time I told off a business, at length, in Hebrew.) I need to work out, eat, and take a nap.
First, I'll turn on some heat.
Until I next post... (Mein Gott, there are 70 other posts to keep you occupied until I next post. Poll: Should Raf get a life? No, wait! He has one!)
Raf
(Thank you A.K. and D.H.)
“I've even used the heat a few times.” Eich naphlu giborim! Have you seen the temps in Seattle this week?