The more observant among you will notice that I have not started this week with a reminder that today (Monday) is Day 59. (Of course, cunningly, I have now, which we call having your cake and eating it.)
On a related note, Bernice didn’t need me to point out that I did not, today, as soon as I was free, go upstairs to write my blog, as I usually do on a Monday, but, rather, I was doing what I have always known as pitzelling around downstairs: reading the paper, shelling peanuts, making a cup of tea, alphabetising the CDs. When I eventually faced up to it, I explained to her that I had decided in advance that I was not going to write about ‘the situation’ this week. However, between my making that decision last Thursday, and today, there have been so many developments that it seemed in some way perverse to talk about anything else. So, I really could not make up my mind how to proceed.
What I decided to do eventually was to outsource this week’s heavy lifting. I recommend to you a lengthy and dispassionate essay by a blogger called Richard Hanania. (Many thanks to my good friend and fellow-blogger Ron for drawing my attention to the article.) I find it very difficult to disagree with Hanania. Even if you find yourself reluctant to accept his conclusions, he will, I think, challenge you to marshal your counter-arguments. And again, even if you do disagree with him, you will, I hope, agree with me that he sets a standard for reasoned and calm discussion that we would all do well to emulate.
This outsourcing leaves me now free to write about anything, to act just as if life goes on, which, of course, it does; indeed, it must. Bernice and I have heard the good news of births and engagements in the last few weeks. We are due to be joining wedding celebrations in the next few weeks. Micha’el and family should be arriving in three weeks’ time for three weeks. We have to keep believing and recognising that much as what has happened here sometimes looks and feels like the end of the world, it is not.
Mamaloschen
So, let’s start by dealing with ‘pitzelling’ from two paragraphs ago. While I had no idea how to spell it, I vividly remembered it, from my childhood, as meaning: ‘to fail to get down to doing something properly’. I always assumed it was Yiddish.
However, on researching today, I can discover it only as a German word for ‘penis’, and not as a Yiddish word at all. This led me to doubt my memory. However, both Bernice and my brother Martin remember it in similar contexts from childhood, so I am reassured that I have not made it up. Why, then, is it not mentioned online? This may, of course, simply be because all self-respecting Yiddish dictionaries and word-lists, having identified the first twenty or thirty Yiddish words for ‘penis’, lost interest. I must also say that the path from ‘penis’ to ‘being slapdash or wasting time’ seems a little tortuous.
If any of my readers can shed light on the etymology of ‘pitzel’, I will be very grateful.
Mama(Mia)Loschen
I was put in mind this week of a piece of graffiti that I saw on the wall of a cowshed on kibbutz 50 years ago. (I was tempted to write: ‘I was put in mind of a graffito’, so that I could be accused of pedantry, but even I feel that ‘graffito’ is best avoided, in the same way as I would never write: ‘I try to eat spaghetti with a twirling fork, but there’s always one spaghetto that refuses to twirl.’)
Anyway, as I say, I was reminded of a piece of graffiti this week. I have been harvesting produce one day in each of the last couple of weeks, as part of a group of volunteers going to help Israel’s farmers who are suddenly without foreign workers. Last Thursday I spent five and a half hours on my knees picking tomatoes. Interestingly, the next day my knees were fine, but my gluteus maximus muscles ached like anything. In other words, I not only was, as usual, a pain in the arse, but I also had one– or, more accurately, two – one in each buttock. It was at this point that I recalled the piece of graffiti from an earlier period when I worked on kibbutz. This requires a little background.
Among the strands of Zionism that co-existed as a rich tapestry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was one championed by Aharon David Gordon, who argued that the national redemption of the Jewish people could be brought about only by fostering, through physical labour, the organic relationship of the People with the Land. His philosophy, and his personal example, inspired the entire Labour Zionist movement. Physical labour, working the land, became a cornerstone of the Zionist dream become reality.
His philosophy also inspired a later volunteer on kibbutz to paint on the cowshed wall the dedication: “A. D. GORDON DIED HERE”. I now find myself able to point to, but not to view directly, exactly where A. D. Gordon died for me personally.
Marketing Patriotism
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the major radio network stopped broadcasting commercial advertising. This seemed a very natural decision. The brash blaring of adverts would have seemed very jarring. At some point in the last couple of weeks, however, the decision was made to resume advertising, and it has been interesting to observe how advertisers have….How to complete that sentence? I am torn between:
…how advertisers have demonstrated their patriotism…
and
…how advertisers have cynically exploited the country’s existential crisis…
I think maybe I will sit on the fence.
It has been interesting to observe how advertisers have adapted to the new reality, and incorporated it into their message. So, for example, we have the advertisement for the energy food supplement in which a senior citizen explains that “In these difficult times, it is particularly important for me to keep my strength up, and so…”. We have many banks offering, to businesses affected by the war, loans that are interest-free for an initial period or that have an extended period before repayments begin. We have many products that have introduced patriotic packaging, like these tissues, proclaiming that “Together we shall win”.
I am sitting on the fence because I genuinely cannot decide whether I find this cynical or moving. All I can say is that when, a week or so ago, there was only one radio advert that did not reference, directly or indirectly, our existential crisis, I found it offensive and insensitive. This was an advertisement from a major retail chain selling domestic electrical appliances, which relentlessly advertised its November sale as if we were not in the middle of a war.
I was, subsequently, made to feel very bad, when I read that this chain, in partnership with another major chain, had installed washing machines and dryers in the public areas of shopping malls throughout the country, for the use, free-of-charge, of soldiers.
Like Light at the Hem of the Cloud
That heading is a quote from a poem by Leah Goldberg: a poem which looks forward, longingly, to a future time of “forgiveness and grace”. It seems to me an important image for these times. Here is a translation of the poem that doesn’t really do it justice:
Will there yet come days of forgiveness and grace,
When you walk in the field as the innocent wayfarer walks,
And the bare, bare soles of your feet will caress the clover leaves
Or trample the oat stubble and sweeten its prickling?
Or rain will overtake you, its thronging drops tapping
On your shoulder, your chest, your throat, your head, refreshing.
And you will walk in the wet field, the quiet in you expanding
Like light at the hem of the cloud?
And you will breathe in the odour of the furrow, breathing and quiet,
And you will see the sun mirrored in the gold puddle,
And simple will these things be, will life be, and touching will be allowed there,
And loving will be allowed, will be allowed.
You will walk in the field, alone, unscorched by the flame
Of conflagrations on roads that bristled with horror and blood.
You will once again be peaceful in heart, humble and bending
Like one of the grasses, like one of humanity.
I was led to this poem by a programme of meetings held under the auspices of, and in the breathtaking new building of, the National Library (which I am in danger of boring you with, I suspect). Each meeting is a conversation between Yuval Avivi, who presents a book programme on television, and a particular author, who is invited to present readings from their own and others’ work to offer some comfort, in these troubled times. The programme is called ‘Like Light at the Hem of the Cloud’, and I was curious about the origin of the phrase.
In one of the meetings, Eshkol Nevo read an extract from his novel ‘A Man Walks into an Orchard’. This is not a book that I know. Nevo is not even an author that I have read. However, I find the short extract he chose, even without a context, to be very haunting and very empowering. Unfortunately, I cannot find a translation, and I haven’t the talent to attempt a translation myself that would come anywhere near doing justice to this passage. So, with apologies, I offer this as a bonus for my Hebrew readers only. The rest of you can jump straight to the photographs below.”אם לשנות אז את העולם. אם לחטוא אז בלי רגשות אשם. אם גל אז ירוק. אם לנסוע אז רחוק. אם נעליים אז קלות. אם לחצות אז גבולות. אם לעשות אז שלום. אם שלום אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם יש זמן הוא הולך ואוזל. אם לרקוד אז להשתולל. אם עבר אז לשכוח. אם אסיר אז לברוח. אם גדר אז חיה. אם להקים אז שערורייה. אם גבר אז אישה. אם אישה אז בבקשה. אם לחשוב אז לעשות. אם לעשות אז לטעות. אם לטעות אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב
אם לשנות אז את העולם. אם לחטוא אז בלי רגשות אשם. אם גל אז ירוק. אם לנסוע אז רחוק. אם נעליים אז קלות. אם לחצות אז גבולות. אם לעשות אז שלום. אם שלום אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם יש זמן הוא הולך ואוזל. אם לרקוד אז להשתולל. אם עבר אז לשכוח. אם אסיר אז לברוח. אם גדר אז חיה. אם להקים אז שערורייה. אם גבר אז אישה. אם אישה אז בבקשה. אם לחשוב אז לעשות. אם לעשות אז לטעות. אם לטעות אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב
“.
In keeping with this week’s theme, let’s end with a couple of images of family life in all its glorious going-on-ness. There’s something to celebrate in just pitzelling around.
