For the last couple of months, we (Bernice and I) have been devoting considerable energy to not doing something….and in a magnificent joint effort over the last two weeks we finally did it! What, if anything, will come of it, far wiser folk than we are would be hard pressed to say, so we’re certainly not counting any chickens or placing any bets ….although, in a sense, we already have placed our bet. Let me explain.

In June 2020, in common with millions of other people, we didn’t fly; in our case, to Portugal, using the national carrier, TAP. When we were forced to cancel our trip, TAP issued each of us a voucher for the full value of the flights we had booked, redeemable over the next 24 months against equivalent flights to the value of up to 20% more than the flights we had cancelled. This seemed a very fair arrangement. Actually, we each received two full-value vouchers, but, sadly, TAP realised their mistake a couple of days later, and cancelled one pair of vouchers.

For a brief period a few months ago, we considered booking to fly to Portugal for the month of August. In the end, we decided against that, for a number of reasons. First, the whole Covid-19 international air travel situation seemed potentially very volatile. In addition, if we were able to get to Penamacor, and found ourselves unable to return to Israel, we would have to spend the Tishri chagim (festivals) there, and the prospect of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot in Portugal seemed overly challenging.

Plus, the kids were here in Israel for a visit that only ended in mid-July. It seemed wiser to wait a little for our next visit.

Of course, that didn’t stop us talking almost constantly about when that next visit would be. We soon decided that a month’s trip, starting soon after all the chagim, made most sense. The weather in Portugal then would probably be not too cold; it would be two and a half months since we had seen the kids; if we ended up having to stay longer, we could manage Chanukkah and even Purim in Portugal, so we really wouldn’t have to be back in Israel until Pesach, in mid-April. (A five-month cushion seemed enough for most Doomsday scenarios – Polyanna is our middle name.)

Having made the decision, the time still didn’t feel right to start making the arrangements. We told ourselves that we should wait until the situation was clearer, even though I felt, and still feel, that the only thing that is going to get clearer in the foreseeable future is uncertainty. I suspect that our hesitation had something to do with a feeling that booking a flight was tempting providence.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we took ourselves in hand. To be more accurate, Bernice finally persuaded me to stop hiding under the metaphorical bed. As soon as I had agreed, she took the first bold step, of phoning a travel agent who had been recommended to us. This was because, some weeks earlier, I had spent one of those fruitless four-hour sessions jumping from one online travel site to another, watching flights appear and disappear and prices rise and rise. I had come away traumatized, which also partly explained my subsequent deer-in-the-headlights inability to act.

The travel agent was tremendously helpful, and no use at all. She pointed out that, since we wanted to cash in our vouchers from TAP, we had to book through them, rather than using her. She also offered another invaluable piece of advice. Many of her clients had been discovering that they were unable to get travel insurance, or that it was going to cost more than they were prepared to pay, and so she urged us to arrange our travel insurance before booking our tickets.

Inspired by Bernice’s seizing of the initiative, I sprang into action, and found online outward and homebound flights that ticked our various boxes. Those boxes included, for example: the outward flight had to be early enough in the week to allow us time in Penamacor to prepare for shabbat, and also had to be timed to allow a Covid test less than 72 hours before departure.

I then called our insurance agent, who arranged a conference call with an insurance company. I explained our situation, and asked for a quote. The very pleasant lady from the company explained that they could not give a quote until we had booked a flight. I explained that I had been told not to book a flight until I had a firm insurance quote. She restated her position. I restated my position. Impasse.

In the end, we decided we had no choice, and so I went into the TAP site online, and proceeded to book flights. I was pleasantly surprised by how user-friendly and responsive the site was; even the level of English was excellent. I cruised through to the penultimate stage, a page on which I was asked whether I had a voucher that I wished to redeem. I entered the number of my voucher, and then noticed that there wasn’t any box for a second voucher.

So, I typed in a comma and Bernice’s voucher number and clicked Submit. As I half expected, I got an error message – Invalid Voucher Number – and so I back-pedalled and entered only my voucher number, hoping that, after Submit I would be asked whether I wanted to redeem another voucher as well.

Instead, I got the same error message – Invalid Voucher Number. Taking a deep breath, I checked back through all my emails to confirm that I had used the correct voucher number and not the cancelled one. I then re-entered the number, double-checked that it was correct, clicked Submit, and got the same error message. Echoing in my ears was a comment from our daughter-in-law Tslil that rumour in Portugal had it that TAP was about to go out of business, and was no longer honouring vouchers.

At this point, I searched the TAP site and found a Tel Aviv phone number for customer support. Since it was now 8PM on Thursday, I knew there was no point phoning. I also suspected that the office would be closed on Friday. On Sunday morning, I decided that the office was probably staffed by Portuguese, and they would all obviously be at church. You can see that the prospect of spending hours waiting for my call to be picked up did not appeal to me.

It was therefore 10AM on Monday when I decided to bite the bullet. Pausing only to equip myself with a couple of cheese sandwiches, a mug of tea and a cryptic crossword, I tapped in the digits, and was connected to a straightforward English language menu. I listened carefully to the eight menu options, but of course none of them was anythiong remotely resembling Ticket Purchase or Flight Booking, So I listened to the options again and selected the least unrelated one: Technical Online Help. I then settled down for the long haul.

Not two minutes later (I still stagger in astonishment as I recall that), a pleasant service rep picked up. I explained my dilemma and she explained that ticket purchases involving redeeming vouchers have to be handled on the phone, and I had reached the correct extension. Naturally, I wanted to ask why, in that case, the website page includes a box for entering a voucher number and then claims that the number is invalid. However, I recognised that this was neither the time nor the place for me to attempt to troubleshoot TAP’s website, and I should stay focussed on the task in hand.

The service rep asked me all the relevant questions about the vouchers, confirmed that they were valid, asked about flight dates, asked me to hold, and, two minutes later (here I am, staggering in astonishment again), returned to say that she had booked the flights, departing October 24th, using the vouchers. I pointed out that we wanted to book a flight departing October 4th, not 24th (“One, two, three, four!”).

Profuse apologies, another wait of only two minutes (another stagger), and then an email arrived with all of the correct details. I confirmed that all was correct, and the rep issued the tickets. She was even able to tell us that the total cost was less than the value of the two vouchers, and we still had a balance of about ₤100. I felt as though I had won the lottery.

The same day I hired a car, and we then visited our family doctor for a summary of our medical conditions. Bernice’s summary, of course, fitted onto one side of a sheet of A4 paper, and mine…..didn’t. We are still waiting to hear what our travel insurance is going to cost. However, we keep telling ourselves that, because of Covid restrictions, we have missed four trips to Portugal, so think of all the money we have saved!

And here we are, more or less ready to go, though still determined to manage our expectations, since, of course, the situation in Israel or in Portugal can change at any time.

Just before I finish, a piece of housekeeping. For the first time since I started my blog, Jewish holidays are going to disrupt the publishing of next week’s post. I always aim for publication on Tuesday, 9AM Israel. Next Tuesday at that time, I expect to be deep in prayer in synagogue, on the first day of the New Year. At the moment, I am planning to publish 24 hours earlier.

This means that the post you are reading now may not be the last post of 5781, although I imagine many of you will have better things to do on Erev Rosh Hashana than read my blog. This therefore seems to me to be the ideal time to wish you all individually a happy and a healthy New Year, and to wish the world at large a more stable and healthier 5782.

Mind you, for a little one who has hardly known any different, and who is at the heart of a loving family, 5781 appears to have been very healthy, very stable, and very happy.

Don’t worry – this is not a personal medical update – the life (or lives) and death (or deaths) are not mine. Indeed, on my health front, the voice seems well on the way to complete recovery of its own (vocal) accord. (Did you see what I did there?)

No, this week we will reflect on the lives and deaths of and surrounding three figures of great distinction in the Israeli world of letters. They are front and centre in my thoughts at the moment because Bernice and I have just indulged ourselves in what is becoming an annual ritual. Every August (although, of course, not in the recent non-year, 2020), the Israel National Library holds a documentary film festival – Docutext – whose focus, as the name suggests, is on the written word, (though not exclusively).

This year, we saw four films over two days. Out of kindness to both the National Library and the filmmakers, I shall not comment on one of the films we saw. Nevertheless, we reckon three jewels and one lemon out of four is an acceptable strike rate.

The pleasure of anticipation began a month or so ago, when we bought a package of 12 tickets, and then sat down to decide what to see. This was, of course, a complex exercise. We wanted to attend two events a day over three days, rather than having to go into Jerusalem on four or five consecutive days. We wanted the emphasis to be on Hebrew language films, since this is a good exercise in staving off…um…what do they call that disease where you lose your memory? In the end, we made our selection.

First up was a 2008 American documentary about poet, diarist, Zionist pioneer and SOE parachutist Hannah Senesh, coupled with a guided tour of the Library’s current exhibit of her archive. You can read an account of her brief, but heroic, life here. Unfortunately, we weren’t, in the end, able to attend that day, but we hope to catch at least the exhibit at a later date.

Our next choice was On This Happy Note (in Hebrew על החיים ועל המוות), a 2021 Israeli film directed by Tamar Tal Anati. Where to start explaining this film to anyone who hasn’t heard of Anat Gov?

She and her husband Gidi were at the heart of a new wave of Israeli satire, that found early expression in what began as an Educational TV series, Zehu Zeh. Gidi was one of the stars of, and Anat wrote for, and played small parts in some sketches in, the series. From there, Anat eventually developed as a playwright. She also developed as a very articulate peace activist in Israel.

All of her plays are simultaneously extremely witty and deeply serious; written in everyday language they nevertheless have a poetic rhythm; although quintessentially Israeli, they remain accessible to a universal audience. Above all, they are completely – often searingly – personal.

Bernice and I have been lucky enough to see four of her plays on stage, the last of which was Happy Ending (סוף טוב): slightly surrealistic and part musical comedy, the play accompanies an actress in her 40s to her first chemotherapy treatment, where she learns that her cancer is terminal, and, over the course of the play, decides how to act in the light of that news.

At the time of the play’s premiere, Anat Gov herself had just decided, at age 57, that she was no longer prepared to undergo treatment for the terminal colon cancer that had been diagnosed 4 years earlier. She died the following year.

In that last year, as she prepared for her death, she also decided that she wanted to leave a spiritual legacy, and so she invited her theatrical agent, Arik Kneller, to interview her on film. This edited interview is overlaid with relevant spoken extracts from her plays and occasional brief observations, some years after her death, from her widower, Gidi, and from her best friend and the director of many of her plays, Edna Mazya.

These contributions are poignant, and the extracts are entertaining and enlightening, but the backbone of the film is the clarity and eloquence and calmness, the warmth and acceptance, with which Gov describes her philosophy. Death, she argues, is the one certain thing in life; it is therefore ridiculous to be afraid of it. She expresses gratitude for what she has been able to do with her life, for those with whom she has been privileged to share it, and for being granted the opportunity to prepare for her death. She is entirely accepting of her death.

She was originally opposed to having any treatment for her cancer, but her family persuaded her otherwise. However, when, after a few years, she had reached the point where she felt she had prepared her friends and family for her death, she simply stopped treatment and waited to embrace death.

On screen, as throughout her life, Anat Gov smokes one cigarette after another. When the interviewer comments on this, Anat is delighted, and proud, to point out that her lungs are completely clear. (Mazya recalls that when she was discussing with Anat the wording for her death notices, Anat was insistent that they should read “Anat Gov has finally quit smoking.” In this instance, she was overruled, apparently.)

Having seen the film, Bernice and I both felt that its lessons about facing death, and the image of Gov’s radiant face, would stay with us for a long time.

That same evening, we watched The Fourth Window (החלון הרביעי), whose subject is the literary work (and not the considerable political actvitist writing and thinking) of Israel’s best known author worldwide, Amos Oz. The film was made after Oz’s death, and therefore draws on a lot of archive material.

The trouble with that is that Oz was, in many ways, an extremely private man. He was, of course, a much filmed and interviewed public figure, but in those interviews I feel he was always very much in control of what he was prepared to share with the interviewer and the camera.

Oz had a difficult childhood, as described in his masterful family saga and magical self-portrait, A Tale of Love and Darkness. He was the only child of intellectual immigrant parents. His mother committed suicide when Amos was 12, and, in a move that seemed to spurn his parents’ heritage, he left home aged 14, changed his surname, rejected both his family’s right-wing revisionism and their academic life by moving to a kibbutz, and, after school, worked on the kibbutz’s agricultural land.  His long-time friend and biographer, Nurit Gertz, wrote that he ‘spent his whole life with a black hole inside and nothing could fill it’.

In the search to reveal more of Oz than he was prepared to share, the film’s director, Yair Qedar, struck unexpected gold. In the course of researching the film, she gained access to the recordings Nurit Gertz made of the phone calls Oz initiated with her at the end of his life. Oz asked her to write his biography, and over many phone calls ‘told’ her what she should write.

The film is interspersed with extracts from these phone conversations (or rather, for the most part, monologues). In these extracts, Oz reveals a great deal of what matters most to him, and of how he feels he has been misrepresented. He reveals insecurities and irresolutions that he usually took great pains to keep from public gaze.

Most fascinating in the film is the interplay between the guarded and unguarded Oz, the man at the peak of his powers and in full control of his narrative, and the man in his late 70s weakened by the cancer that was killing him.

Reading back over the last 1200 words, I realise this is all a bit on the bleak side. I hope that the last film I am going to talk about will life your spirits, although even David Grossman’s story is, as you may know, touched by tragedy.

Grossman will, I hope, not object to being called Israel’s second world-renowned contemporary author. It’s not a competition, as Bernice keeps trying to get me to accept, but, if it were, this is how Oz and Grossman would square up:

Remember that Oz died aged 79, whereas Grossman is only 67, and is still very much writing.

Oz wrote far more books, and was translated into 45 languages, whereas Grossman has been translated into 35.

They both received the Israel Prize for Literature. Oz won the Goethe Prize from the city of Frankfurt, while Grossman won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Oz was named to the French Legion of Honour, whereas Grossman won the Man Booker International Prize. In total, Oz won 27 awards and ‘recognitions’ from 11 different countries, including 8 within Israel, and no fewer than 7 within Germany. Grossman has won 19 such awards from 7 countries, including 8 within Israel.

Perhaps more significantly, the graph of Oz’s career has been compared to a Bactrian camel’s back, with one hump near the beginning, with My Michael, and another closer to the end with A Tale of Love and Darkness, and a number of troughs between, in terms of literary merit.

Grossman, in contrast, seems to write novels of consistent merit. He also speaks, as, in fairness, does Oz, with extraordinary clarity. Indeed, of course, so does Anat Gov. Not every writer is as fluent a speaker as each of these three is.

The director of Grossman, Adi Arbel, revealed, in the post-screening Q&A session, that Grossman was a most reluctant subject. However, it seemed to me watching that, once he had agreed to be interviewed, he was prepared to open himself up completely, and the film is fascinating in the glimpses it offers of the writing process itself, and particularly in Grossman’s descriptions of the period when an idea for a book first presents itself, and of his relation to the book, which seems to have a life quite independent of him.

However, the highlight of the film for me was a curious (perhaps unique) working practice that Grossman follows. He clearly has a warm relationship with his by now regular team of translators. When he finished writing his latest novel, More than I Love My Life, he invited some dozen of his translators to Croatia, where the book is partly set.

There, over the course of a week, they sat at a circular table, Grossman read the entire text aloud in Hebrew, and the author and translators commented, questioned, probed, discussed. The warmth, pleasure, focus and intimacy of that closed circle were completely enchanting.

I have mentioned previously my reservations about many authors reading their own work. However, I suspect there is a room in heaven reserved for when David Grossman arrives, where he will give daily readings from his work for the delight of the locals.

In conclusion, I know how lucky Bernice and I are to be retired, and therefore to have the time to go to documentary film festivals. Not everyone is so fortunate.

I have long felt that life offers very few more enjoyable experiences than a good meal eaten in the company of friends. There are even times when I feel that there are very few better ways to spend an evening than trying, and failing, to decide which is more delicious, which more nourishing: the food or the company. A good meal stimulates and satisfies; good conversation does the same.

Whenever I start going on like this, I wonder whether I’m being trivial. I surely can’t be suggesting that dinner with friends is up there with experiencing a performance of King Lear or The Marriage of Figaro? However great the chef, a meal is, in essence, an ephemeral thing, and the few traces it leaves behind are singularly unattractive. I love our friends dearly, but none of them would claim that they were wits and intellects in the class of Robert Benchley or Isaiah Berlin.

And yet….and yet. There is something about dinner with friends: the interplay between the semi-formal structure and the ease of being in a group all of whom feel completely comfortable in each other’s company; the balance of predictability (the set table gives a good idea of what to expect) and a sense of the unknown (down which particular byways will our conversation take us this evening?); the knowledge that no one in the group has anywhere better to be, and that the next couple of hours will provide an oasis on the journey through life’s desert.

It has, therefore, been a wonderful experience, over the last few weeks, to read a book one of my favourite dining companions lent me, a book with the daunting title: The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, by Leon R Kass. Let me first say that I’m not sure whether the erudition and breadth of scope of the book or the author is more intimidating. Kass summarizes his background thus:

This strange book was written by a strange author. Trained first as a physician and then as a biochemist, he now practices neither. Untrained in philosophy and literature, he teaches both without a license, studying some of their greatest works with serious students at one of the world’s best universities [University of Chicago, which has just been ranked 10^th in the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World’s Universities) list – so that’s not a baseless claim].

As for the book, it has been described, fairly, I feel, as follows:

Who would have thought that a book on ‘eating’ could turn out to be a profound and brilliant exploration of the human condition, its limits and its potential?

As another critic wrote, Kass:

…recognize[s] that everyday activities are charged with unsuspected meanings….The way we eat together has everything to do with the way we live together.

So, in choosing to write this week about dining tables I have slid my feet under, I feel that I am not necessarily throwing out a few light-hearted observations, but rather touching on something that speaks profoundly to the human condition.

In one chapter, Kass points out the prominent part played by hospitality in Homer’s Odyssey. In modern Western civilization, of course, much of that private hospitality has been replaced by hotels, restaurants, inns and so on. However, as I repeatedly discovered when I travelled abroad on business regularly over a period of about 13 years, sometimes some of us need (or at least crave) more than the hotel and the restaurant can offer. A typical trip for me would be to attend, as part of a team of 5 or 6 people, business meetings, for two weeks in a single city.

Since I was very often the only religious member of the group, I expected to be alone on the middle Saturday, when my colleagues were either working round the clock or seeing the sights. Then after meetings ended on the last Friday, my colleagues would fly home, and I would be ‘trapped’ until the Sunday, unable to fly over shabbat.

It is fair to say that I was sometimes feeling rather sorry for myself at this stage. I would typically have survived all week on kosher cup-a-soups, tuna, crackers, salad and fruit, nuts and raisins and chocolate, all eaten in the sterile environment of an anonymous hotel bedroom. I would have worked 15–18-hour days, two thirds of the time in a comfortable but characterless conference room, and the other third in that same hotel bedroom.

But then, on Friday, more often than not, something amazing happened. Having completed my work, I would shower, change, and make my way to the home of someone I had never met, who was hosting me for shabbat. Sometimes this was the friend (or, on one occasion, the parents) of one or another of our friends in Ma’ale Adumim. Sometimes, it was someone I had called without an introduction (never a comfortable experience) earlier in the week.

On one occasion, it was pure good fortune. After two weeks in St Louis, I was unexpectedly asked to fly to Dallas for a third week. After meetings ended on the Thursday evening, I was completely exhausted, and also feeling that I had used up all of my charm and affability. So, I decided to spend shabbat alone in my hotel room.

Accordingly, I drove to a supermarket that had a kosher aisle, planning to stock up with goodies. Unable to find the challot, I spotted someone who was obviously Jewish and asked whether he could tell me where the challot were. He pointed me in the right direction, and then asked: ‘Are you in town for shabbat?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Have you got anywhere to stay?’ ‘I’m just going to stay in my hotel.’ Looking around, he called out to a tall young man in the next aisle: ‘Michael, you’ll host this gentleman for Shabbat, won’t you!’ I was simply unable to refuse without appearing rude. I jotted down the address, and comforted myself with the fact that I would at least get to stay in a J R Ewing-style Dallas mansion!

When I arrived at my host’s home the following day, I discovered it was a
small townhouse (terraced house) on a very busy main road. It transpired that
Michael was the principal (headmaster) of the Jewish primary school, a post
that came with a house. As he said to me, over dinner that evening: ‘You find
yourself in the only Jewish home in Dallas that votes Democrat.’ It was,
nevertheless (or possibly in part for that reason) a delightful shabbat.

I must have been hosted by twenty different families during those work years,
and every shabbat was a very special experience. In the same way as I feel at
home walking into a synagogue anywhere around the world, so I felt among
family, sharing shabbat with all of these diverse hosts. The sense in which we
both, host and guest, felt warmed by the experience was often palpable.

Incidentally, the synagogue I attended on that shabbat in Dallas was tremendously welcoming, with designated hosts for anyone looking for a dinner invitation on Friday night and separate designated hosts for Saturday lunch. After the Friday night service, three separate people asked me if I had a dinner arrangement. The only other place where Bernice and I have experienced that level of warmth was on our first shabbat in Ma’ale Adumim almost 24 years ago, when we first attended what has been, ever since, ‘our’ shul – Musar Avicha.

In only one city did I receive no welcome at all; that was Chicago (despite my dropping broad hints, to various congregants, that I was a visitor in town and staying in a hotel). This just bears out what has always been my experience: large, established communities are much less welcoming than small ones.

Which brings me to the most open house I have ever known, the house where Pauline and Louis Saville lived. They were the parents of Bernice’s closest friend since childhood – Denise. Louis had grown up between the wars in the then strong and close-knit Glasgow Jewish community, while Pauline had grown up in England’s second city, Birmingham. Louis qualified as a medical doctor, and, in 1940, Pauline and Louis married. During the Second World War, Louis was ordered by the Government to move to Ogmore Vale, a small mining village near the head of a South Wales valley, to serve as a family doctor there.

It is fair to say that, for Pauline, who loved the bright lights and social buzz of the big city, tiny, insular Ogmore was a huge disappointment, and, I imagine, for Louis as well. However, to Ogmore they were posted, and there they stayed for the rest of their lives. They very soon decided that if they were destined to live in a backwater, then no boat, however little, that ventured anywhere near their backwater would be allowed to float past without mooring for a shorter or longer time at their home.

I first experienced their extraordinary hospitality in April 1965. By that time, I was a veteran of one winter camp of Hanoar Hatzioni (the Zionist organization where Bernice and I met), and five or six of us from Ilford took the train to Swansea during the half-term holiday, to stay with various of our new friends. One afternoon, we decided to train and bus up to Ogmore Vale, to visit Denise. I can’t now remember how much notice we gave; I doubt if it was more than a few hours.

Regardless, we and our Swansea hosts (so, a party of about 10 or 12) turned up at the Savilles’. We spent a couple of hours listening to Beatles records on Pauline and Louis’ rather grand music centre, and were then ushered through to the dining room, where a long, long table, easily seating all of us, bowed under the weight of fried fish and salads.

That same hospitality was shown to anyone of interest who passed through, or even just nearby (both Cardiff and Swansea, the two cities of South Wales, were an hour’s drive away)….and probably the most important lesson I learnt from Pauline and Louis was that everyone is of interest, if you open your house to them, put them at their ease, ask the right question, and sit back and listen. They were both wonderful listeners. With them as your audience, you always felt as though you were a fascinating person, full of perceptive insights.

I always told them that it was a terrible shame that they did not keep a visitors book, because the number and range of guests they entertained over the decades was extraordinary.

Theirs was also a hospitality that could not be strained. One Saturday evening, Bernice and I had arranged to drive the eight miles up the valley from our home in Bridgend to Ogmore, for an evening of bridge. As we drove through Bridgend, a few snowflakes began to fall. We decided that it would be an exaggerated reaction to turn back, and so we continued to Pauline and Louis’ home. We arrived safely as the snow started to thicken. We were eventually ble to drive back home on the following Wednesday, after snow ploughs had cleared the drifts on the valley road. Meanwhile, the Army had helicoptered bread and milk in to the village. I bring up this story only to say that at no point in those four days did we feel for a moment that we had outstayed our welcome.

So, you will appreciate that it is with a broad smile that I tell you that my voice is now much stronger than it was, and I have been given the okay from the throat specialist to speak freely. Not the least welcome outcome of that is that we can now resume issuing, and accepting, dinner invitations…..at least until the next lockdown.

Tao, as you can see, has already learnt the art of engaging his audience non-verbally over dinner.

Author’s Note: The title is a reference to the 1959 11-minute film ‘The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film’, which those of you with shorter memories can get some sense of from the description here. However, rest assured that the film has nothing to do with this week’s post, so you can safely ignore the link and go through the rest of your life unaware of what proved to be a seminal bridge between The Goons and Monty Python.

When Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, said: “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part,” he cannot possibly have imagined what the Olympic Games would look like in 2021. As I write this, on Sunday 8 August, the very last Olympic medal has just been decided, and all that it is left is the closing ceremony. So, having made an oblique reference to the Games last week, I thought I would give them my full attention this week.

First, in the interests of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I have not seen (live or recorded) a single moment of the Olympic Games 2020. (Here’s a great trivia question in another century or so: When were the Olympics 2020 held?) I have, however, seen some still photographs, and so that, I think, is where I’ll begin.

Running
Arguably the greatest achievement of the Games was the smashing of his own men’s 400 metres hurdles world record by the Norwegian Karsten Warholm . This event is notable for having long-standing world records. The American Ed Moses dominated the event in the late 70s and early 80s of the last century (I feel about 140 years old when I write something like that), and the fourth and last world record time that he set, in 1983, stood for almost 9 years, before American Kevin Young took 0.24 seconds off Moses’ time, to set a new record of 46.78. (How is it, I wonder, that a country where everybody drives everywhere produces such good athletes?)

Young’s record stood for almost 29 years until July of this year! If you think for a moment of the advances that have been made over the last 29 years in such things as running shoe technology and training and diet regimens, Young’s achievement seems almost unreal.

Then, in Oslo, before his home crowd, last month, Karsten Warholm shaved 0.08 of a second off Young’s time. A Norwegian! Can you even name another Norwegian track athlete? Checking back, I see that, in 27 Summer Olympics, Norway has won 9 gold medals, which is, to be honest, more than I expected. Another good trivia question. Norway is one of only three countries to have won more medals in total at Winter Olympics than Summer Olympics (368 and 160). Can you name the other two countries? (Answers at the end.)

And finally, of course, on 3 August, Warholm improved his own month-old world record by a staggering 0.76 of a second, to take Olympic gold. And what was the photo that made the world’s front pages? What is the moment that captures the essence of the Olympics in 2021?

Well, if you google ‘karsten warholm world record’ and filter for images only, of the first 38 images you get, 28 are close-ups of Warholm after the race, showing his facial expression of shocked delight when he realized he had broken the record, 5 show him standing by the record display board, and only 4 show the actual race, with any of the other competitors. Someone clearly needs to explain to the photographers that “the important thing is to take part”.

Jumping
Speaking of which, the Olympics produced one story that was universally presented as heart-warming, although I have my suspicions. I’m talking about the men’s high jump final. After an unusually long competition, Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi couldn’t be split, having each recorded best clearances of 2.37 metres, failed three times at 2.39, and produced error-free records on countback. The pair were invited to take part in a jump-off, but the Qatari asked whether they could share the gold medal instead, and everyone agreed.

The media have been full of glowing stories of how they both felt that it would have been terrible for the other one to be deprived of gold. But I can’t help thinking: if they came to me and said: ‘You can share the podium with a gold medal round your neck, or risk getting silver’, I wouldn’t hesitate either. For these two, I suspect, “the important thing is to make sure you don’t not win, by turning down the opportunity to continue to take part.”

Standing Still
But at least all of the above athletes did take part. Probably the biggest story of the Olympics, and certainly the celebrity competitor who attracted most media attention, and a great deal of admiration, was Simone Biles, who, after suffering from the twisties (a potentially extremely dangerous disorientation in mid-exercise), elected to drop out of the team competition and, ultimately, withdraw from all but one individual competition, in which she won a bronze medal.

Before the games, of course, she had been tipped to repeat or better her 2016 haul of 4 golds and a bronze. CNN’s gymnastics correspondent wrote a telling piece, focusing less on Biles’ decision, and more on the prevailing culture in the American gymnastics camp.  

At the 2016 American Cup, I asked then-national team coordinator Marta Karolyi how she dealt with athletes who felt fear. She blew me off, saying, at the elite level, fear is not a problem anymore.

This, obviously, was not true. Asked by the New Yorker in 2016 why she wouldn’t try a front handspring double-front vault, called the Produnova, Biles said, “I’m not trying to die.” But many elite gymnasts have described the pressure to never show weakness under Karolyi.

The correspondent goes on to suggest that this prevailing culture of iron discipline may have helped create a climate in which then USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was able to prey sexually on the gymnasts, with none of his victims being prepared to call him out for a long time,.

I must confess that my initial reaction to Biles’ speaking of mental health issues was less than sympathetic. This was partly because of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from two successive Open tennis championships; she felt unable, or unwilling, to tolerate the required post-match press conferences.

I respect her right to withdraw, but anyone who is ready to sign the very valuable sponsorship contracts that a player of Osaka’s stature attracts must recognise that she is not only a competitor but also a commodity. If she feels unable, or unwilling, to handle that, then, sadly, top professional tennis player in the 21st Century is not a profession that she is qualified for.

However, the more I read about the treatment of gymnasts, the more persuaded I am that there is a real issue here that Biles has been brave enough to confront.

And finally
I may have mentioned before in my blog what was for me the greatest moment of irony in the history of the Olympics. At the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, a children’s choir, and then John Lennon on a huge screen, sang Imagine, which, of course, includes the line ‘Imagine there’s no countries.’ This after many, many countries around the world had invested millions over four years preparing for a two-week contest built entirely around competition between countries. Then, for 17 days, the world checked medal tables to see whether their country had improved its position. Finally, at the closing ceremony, thousands of athletes waved their national flags in time to the music, and nobody appeared to see the absurdity.

I have always found Imagine a fatuous song, and I was therefore delighted to read just a couple of weeks ago of a music journalist friend of John Lennon visiting him in New York. When he walked into the apartment and spotted a large ice-box containing a collection of fur coats, he turned to Lennon and said: ‘Imagine no possessions!’. Lennon replied: ‘For goodness sake! It’s only a song!’ I cannot tell you how far, in that moment, Lennon went up in my estimation.

There you go: an entire column about the Olympics with virtually no discussion of actual sport. How do I do it?

In 2032, Tao will only be 13 years old, so it’s probably unrealistic to expect him to compete in the road cycling events at the Brisbane Olympics…but it’s never too early to start practising.

And the two other countries to have won more winter than summer Olympic medals are Austria (218 and 86) and Liechtenstein (10 and 0). Incidentally – more fodder for trivia fans – Liechtenstein is the smallest country in the world by population to have won an Olympic gold medal, and the second smallest by area (after Bermuda), although San Marino is the smallest country to have won any medal.

Athletes from Liechtenstein have won a total of ten medals, all in alpine skiing. It is the only country to have won medals at the Winter, but not Summer, Olympic Games. Liechtenstein has the most medals per capita of any country, with nearly one medal for every 3,600 inhabitants. (If Israel performed that well, we’d have won 2,500 medals!) Seven of its ten medals have been won by members of the same family: siblings Hanni and Andreas Wenzel, and Hanni’s daughter Tina Weirather. Further, the brothers Willi and Paul Frommelt have won two of the other three; only Ursula Konzett has medaled for her country without being related to Wenzels or Frommelts. Bet you wish you hadn’t asked. Ah, right! You didn’t.

First, an Olympic update. Four weeks ago, I attempted to describe to you the hoops that Israel and Portugal are making Micha’el and Tslil jump through in order to prove that they are not married, so that they can now get married in a civil ceremony in Portugal, which will, among other things, make various bureaucratic procedures in Portugal simpler for them and for Tao. It strikes me that, if skateboarding (2020) and breakdancing (2024) can qualify as Olympic sports, then there is no reason why bureaucracy shouldn’t qualify as well.

Or perhaps it should be a founding sport of the Anti-Olympics. The motto of the Olympics is Citius, Altius, Fortius – Faster, Higher, Stronger – so perhaps the motto of the Anti-Olympics should be Tardius, Inferioris, Inbecillioribus – Slower, Lower, Weaker; in that case, this clash between the bureaucracies of Israel and Portugal is starting to look like a gold-medal contest.

Last week, we received a slip from the Post Office informing us that a registered letter for Micha’el was waiting to be collected. When Bernice collected it, the envelope had already been torn open, albeit quite neatly. (I find myself wondering how much postage one has to pay to ensure that a registered letter arrives intact.)

When she looked through the contents, Bernice saw that the envelope was sent by the Israel Foreign Ministry, returning all of the documents that Micha’el and Tslil had submitted to prove their identity. These documents included Micha’el’s birth certificate, translated into Portuguese and notarised. Attached to this birth certificate by a paper-clip was a handwritten, unsigned, undated slip of paper from (presumably) a Foreign Ministry clerk, which read:

Greetings!
It is not possible for us to authenticate the attached document since the authorized signatory no longer appears in the system.
You have to get a new certificate issued by the Interior Ministry, and then send it again. 

If we understand this correctly, authorized signatories are removed from the system even though documents they signed will continue to circulate for decades. It beggars belief, and it makes me believe that the similarity between the Latin for weaker – inbecillioribus – and the English imbecilic cannot be a coincidence.

We only hope that Bernice manages to get a new certificate issued, and that the new certificate will reference the old one, so that the Portuguese notarisation document will still be valid, and Micha’el and Tslil will not need to pay another exorbitant notarisation fee.

I have presented this story in a light-hearted fashion, but it is, in truth, infuriating.

Speaking of slower, lower and weaker, my voice is not really improving, and I am, this week, making a concerted effort to speak as little as possible. It’s not easy, let me tell you. I have now managed to train myself not to answer my phone as a reflex reaction, but to hand it to Bernice. When I first got my voice back a little, I answered the phone and embarked on the following conversation.

• Hello.
• Hello.
• Is this David?
• Yes.
• I’m calling from [a charity].
• I’m sorry. I can’t speak.
• I can call back later.
• No! I can’t speak!
• Well, when would it be convenient for me to call back?
• I can’t speak! I’VE LOST MY VOICE.
• Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I wish you better. Goodbye.

I have started attending services in synagogue again, which also has its challenges. Much of the service, even the weekday service, includes verses that are sung and responses that are spoken aloud. When I went back, I could only speak in a whisper, and I was determined not to take part in those congregational responses; however, it is almost impossible not to get sucked in, particularly if the service is being led by someone who has a tuneful voice.

To my surprise, I suddenly realized, ten minutes into the service, that I could hear myself reciting the prayers. My voice had suddenly strengthened considerably. This, of course, meant that I had to remain continuously conscious of how I was reading, in order to stop myself speaking aloud.

This led to a couple of very interesting discoveries. First, there are many prayers that I have been reciting aloud for years, without needing to glance at the prayer book. Suddenly, I found I was unable to recite these prayers silently. I only know them off by heart if I recite them aloud. Over the last couple of weeks, I have developed a technique where I consciously ‘hear’ the prayers inside my head, even though I am making no sound. Using this technique, I remember the prayers perfectly.

This technique also helps me to weigh each word separately, rather than having the words melt into each other as they tend to do when I am not ‘hearing’ them. Needless to say, weighing each word is something I strive to do anyway when I pray (with, it must be said, varying degrees of success).

This led me to wonder about memorizing other texts. If you ask me my ID number, I can tell you it without hesitation…in Hebrew, but not in English. However, if you ask me to write down my ID number, I have discovered that I cannot do that unless I ‘speak’ the Hebrew name of each number silently in my head. Interestingly, I still know my army number (although I haven’t used it in 20 years) in English, but that is presumably because I found a convoluted arithmetical hook to hang that number on, and I still certainly do my arithmetic in English. (In my experience, counting is the very last language act that people retain in their native tongue, however well they speak the language of their adopted country.)

None of this really surprises me, because I have long known that I am a verbal, and not a visual, apprehender. If I were ever present at a crime scene, I hope that I would refuse to appear as an eye-witness, because my testimony would, I am sure, be unreliable. One of the reasons I dread Bernice disappearing is that I would have to report it to the police and they would inevitably ask me a string of questions I would be embarrassingly unable to answer. ‘What was she wearing when she disappeared?’ ‘How tall is she?’ ‘What is the colour of her eyes?’ ‘Her hair?’

Let’s make this perfectly clear: This is not the main reason I dread Bernice disappearing – of course it isn’t; don’t be silly. Nevertheless, it is a reason. (When Bernice reads this, she will suddenly realise why I insist on taking a photo of her every time she is about to leave the house.)

I leave you this week the most tenuous double segue since I started this blog. Are you ready? Speaking of leaving the house, a couple of celebrities left their shared home – Earth – rather spectacularly recently. Inspired by the examples of Richard Branson and Jeff Besos, Tao commissioned a spaceship and is pictured here about to make his maiden voyage.