Judenstadt: February 2006

Trouble in Sudan

Everyone knows there are problems in Sudan these days, but I don't think people realize how far the Sudanese are willing to go.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4748292.stm

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me

Shulamit Lapid, the Zionist

"Lapid is a Zionist of the old-school, unfashionable variety: She barely finds flaws in the Zionist dream that she loves. To an extent, she sets forth, in this book, to defend old elites.

"When I wrote 'Gai Oni,' the Second Aliyah was well-established in the awareness of a public that granted it status and esteem. There was no reason to have any concern for the movement at all," she says. "Meanwhile, things have changed and the respect that we had for members of the Second Aliyah, the kibbutzim, the moshavim, the kvutzot [early kibbutzim], for everything that they established - it has been marred. I decided that I have to write about them."

What has actually changed?

"People started talking about the rich kibbutzim, hedonist and condescending, and I found it important to show what they gave the nation - they actually created the boundaries of the nation, everywhere they settled was paid for in full and not taken from anyone. They lived, at first, in abject poverty, with starvation, disease and horrible isolation. They died, they were killed and they committed suicide. They suffered terrible deprivation and didn't dare discuss it with their friends in order not to break their spirit. But on the other hand, they are well-documented - they wrote about themselves. That created a feeling that we didn't have to worry about them. But I felt a new sense of objection in the attitude toward them that isn't fair."

There is no other place in the world for Jews, Lapid firmly declares. The nation is still only a blink-of-the-eye in Jewish history - we must still defend it and care for it as we would care for a newborn infant. "Many of the children of families that surround me have left the country, and I still think, as Rabin did in his day, that this represents elimination of the weak. It is not nice to say that, but we still have a role to play. This place is not yet secure."

How do you confront post-Zionist critiques that consider Zionism a form of colonialism?

"Post-Zionism may only be born of a position of security, when we can afford to criticize what we have done. Colonialism? If the effendi sold his land, where the Bedouins lived, and they, justifiably from their perspective, felt that their land was being taken from them and began to steal so that they would have bread to eat, then the conflict was between individuals who need the same plot of land.

"This nation is a miracle that happened to the Jewish people. People leave Eastern Europe - 5 million emigrate to the United States, 3 million of them are Jews, and 3,000 of them come to Israel. The crazy ones came to Israel, while the establishment institutions were telling them, 'Don't come because you will have nothing to eat and you will cast aspersion on Israel.' To relate to these people as feudalists who exploited others is simply incorrect.""

Yom haTel Aviv

This is in the art shuk that takes place on Friday mornings. If you look closely you can see an old man under all that stuff.

Born in Poland in 1911 and is 100 percent handicapped, his wife has had cancer for a year, moved to Haifa in 1934 and is the parent of 6 children.

Oranges in the shuk.

Spices in Kerem haTemanim

Dizengoff

Yaffo

Yaffo boats.

Grocery Store Edition

This is me introducing the grocery store edition at Mega in Raanana~

Liat refusing to be a part of this project~

And it ended with a bang ~

All European Life is Dead

(translated from Spanish)

By: Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
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I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz.

We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious
extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of
Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and
others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

Al Waff

There is this fun, hole-in-the-wall waffle place next to Ben Yehudah at the end of Shamai street. Most of you who hang around that area may be familiar with it because of all the waffle-eaters pouring out of it, but for those who have not been, now is your chance. There is no sign, and basically no seats inside, you will have to watch out for it and then be prepared to take it to go.

I ordered a waffle with caramel sauce and nuts. Liat bought a waffle with apple sauce, and 'sour whipped cream.'

Rosh Ha'Ayin

Watches at the Rosh Ha'Ayin shuk... for 6 dollars..... with (believe it or not) a warranty.

Settling the Land

On our walk back from the film "Munich" - a beautiful 'prayer for peace' (just kidding), Liat and I found somethink very special.

We came across a heap of garbage. Liat is cheap, and of course I'm not, but I saw an old leather couch that I thought might be a little useful. So we surveyed the furniture checking for bugs, smells and tears in the leather and soon decided that the love-seat was suitable for my room. We started off carrying the couch (which is a lot heavier than it looks) but that did not last long. This was around 1:30 AM too, so it's not like what we were doing was anything less than sketchy.

While carrying the couch we passed someone walking a dog. The man asked "genavtem??" Which is translated as "are you stealing that?" Which is funny because we were walking at about 1 step per minute, not the ideal pace for someone robbing a house.

As the journey continued, our choice for moving this thing evolved. It was probably humerous to anyone who saw us, but we decided the best way to accomplish our task was to get in the middle of the street and slide the couch home. We finally made it all the way down Herzog, up Nayot, and up four flights of stairs by about 2:30 AM.

Here are some pictures:

(Tu Bishvat is here, the holiday for the trees)

Faisl Country

Here are the Jordan pictures. Over all the Jordanians were surprisingly friendly. I don't know if it's because they saw Jordanian Dinar signs when they looked at us, or because they are actually nice. Most of the population is poor, and I learned from a cab driver that there is no public education. Is there a connection between a huge discrepency in the rich and poor and no access to education? Of course.