The other day, a friend who had read last week’s post specifically made a point of asking me to “keep giving us the medical updates; they’re so funny.” I’ve been wrestling with this comment ever since, trying to decide whether I should feel flattered or insulted. On balance, I’ve decided that, if I have to suffer this string of health issues, at least let it be of some small benefit, bringing a smile to other’s people’s day.
I thought this week I would offer you a bouquet of vignettes, in no particular order. We will get back to my health, tangentially, later, but first:
One of the things that Micha’el and Tslil have discovered during their time here is that the interface of Portuguese and Israeli bureaucracies is the equivalent of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.
I looked up ‘marriage’ in the dictionary: ‘the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship’. While Micha’el and Tslil, in their own eyes, formalized their relationship in a wedding ceremony, this was not a ceremony legally or formally recognized in Israel. According to the Israeli authorities, they are not married.
Portugal is a very traditional, Catholic country, and various administrative and bureaucratic procedures will be much easier for Micha’el and Tslil, as well as for Tao, if they are married. They therefore intend to get married in a civil ceremony. This will be in Portugal, not least because civil wedding ceremonies conducted in Israel are not recognized in Israel. (But that’s a whole other story.)
To prove their eligibility to be married, they are required by the Portuguese authorities to provide evidence that they are not already married. When they approached the Israeli authorities to request such evidence, they were informed that Israel does not issue formal recognition of single status. Rereading the last sentence of the last-but-one paragraph, I realize that it has two possible interpretations:
According to the Israeli authorities, they are not ‘married’. In other words, there is no record of them having been through a marriage ceremony.
According to the Israeli authorities, they are ‘not married’. In other words, there is a record of them not having been through any marriage ceremony.
The Portuguese authorities require this second interpretation, but the Israeli authorities do not recognize this.
The kids are left having to try to convince the Israeli authorities to issue a formal statement, while simultaneously trying to convince the Portuguese authorities to waive the requirement for a formal statement. I have a hunch about how this will pan out in the end, but I am, for the moment, keeping my own counsel.
While the kids have wrestled with these, and other, admin issues, Tao has started to get adjusted to life in Ma’ale Adumim. He was initially overwhelmed by the volume of traffic here: ‘Bus! Truck! Car! Digger! Motorbike!’. (Those of you who know Ma’ale Adumim will realize that this indicates just how sleepy Penamacor is.)
He has also had to cope with far more people at one time than he is used to. On Tuesday last week, we invited friends to hear Micha’el talk about their life, their plans, and his interest in water management. On Wednesday, we had our extended family over. As the last guests arrived, Tao was heard to say: ‘More?’.
Among the questions Micha’el was asked on both evenings was whether Tao is in any ‘framework’. I was, of course, unable to take part in the conversation, because I have to rest my voice. Had I been able to chip in, I would have said: ‘Yes! He is in the best possible framework – the nuclear family.’ Anyone who has spent any time seeing Tslil and Micha’el with Tao will understand what I mean.
My accumulated frustration over those two evenings at being unable to take a meaningful part in the conversation made me determined to find a way to change this. I managed to cobble together a kind of solution. I activated the Select to Speak functionality on my phone. This allows me to type a note on my phone, then select it, and have my device speak it aloud.
I haven’t yet tried this out in company, but it was very useful when we went to Kfar Saba last week. Bernice was driving, so I obviously couldn’t message her or show her notes on my phone. However, I was able to ‘play’ those notes to her.
Of course, this is not an ideal solution. Despite my carefully choosing a male voice not dissimilar to my own, my device insists on selecting a female voice. This leaves me feeling like a transgender whose wishes are being ignored.
What actually pains me more is that the voice has no sense of irony, no nuances of stress. All of my sparkling wit is blandly flattened.
Worst of all, repartee is impossible. When Bernice made a comment, I immediately thought of a riposte, typed it, activated the functionality and highlighted the text. My brilliant reply arrived about 40 seconds after Bernice’s comment. My wit suddenly had the turning circle of a transatlantic liner. This was not so much l’esprit de l’escalier as l’esprit de corpse.
Over Shabbat, of course, things were even more challenging. On several occasions, I resorted to miming. Now, our family are very fond of charades, and Bernice and I pride ourselves on being pretty good at miming, and, after almost 49 years of marriage, at guessing as well. However, it is one thing to mime ‘Dr Strangelove’, and quite another to mime ‘Adele and Martin went to an exhibition about the Czechoslovak Jewish teenage refugees who were brought to Britain after the war’.
This was, let us say, a quiet Shabbat, much given to reading and contemplation.
Indeed, Bernice and I are enjoying/suffering a respite from the kids. They went up to stay with Esther and Ma’ayan for a few days, and also to spend shabbat with Tslil’s family, camping on the Kinneret.
In all of these various groups, Tao has blossomed. He has been playing happily with his cousins, interacting with the various adults he has met for the first time, and moving effortlessly between English and Hebrew. It does not seem as though he will have a problem socialising as he gets older.
And finally*, for today, a recommendation. I know I am coming late to the party, and I also know that I have made this recommendation to several of you individually, but nevertheless…
On my morning walks, I have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History. This podcast describes itself as ‘Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past — an event, a person, an idea, even a song — and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.’
It is quirky, stimulating, amusing, fascinating. Gladwell convinces me that these are all subjects he is interested in (and the personal anecdotes that accompany many of the episodes certainly reinforce that impression).
The podcast also passes my two tests. First, despite the fact that Gladwell has a transatlantic accent (albeit Canadian), and despite the fact that I have been listening to an episode a day for six days in a row, neither the voice, nor the mannerisms, nor the structure, are yet grating on me at all. The subjects Gladwell selects are very wide-ranging (if, not unreasonably, US-centric), and the format and ‘take’ of each edition is very different.
The second test is that Gladwell can present a subject in which I have zero interest – Elvis Presley in performance, for example – and have me completely absorbed in his presentation. This is, for me, the mark of true communicators: they sweep you up in their enthusiasm.
*‘Finally’, of course, means except for the pictures. Tao has this week been learning chess with amateurs, as well as studying patisserie with a professional – his aunty ‘Es’.
