Collection of open letters or letters to individuals that were never mailed.
Over the almost forty years that I live in Israel, I’ve always sensed a kind of pity for the plight of my Arab neighbors. As Israel developed over these decades, villages and farms grew and displayed the obvious signs of development - good roads, street lighting etc. Over the same period, the Arab villages in areas previously controlled by Jordan, remained in relative darkness and with poor infrastructures. It was not because the Jewish state discriminated against...
It was an unbearable movie, at least for me(1). I don’t even think that I sat through the entire performance. I’m pretty certain that I walked out in the middle. None-the-less that expression has played through my mind a great deal lately. I don’t know why! In a way I suppose it expresses a series of sensations that I’ve experienced over the past few months. Fleeting ephemeral sensations of watching myself from outside myself....
There is an anecdote about an Israeli driver who accidentally hits a sheep belonging to an Arab. The driver gets out and offers to pay for the sheep. The Arab refuses. The driver offers to pay for five sheep, for ten sheep. The Arab still refuses. “What do you want?” the frustrated driver asks. “I want that sheep,” the Arab says, pointing to the dead sheep. That is the Nakba in a nutshell. The...
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. Cyril Connolly
I used to. There isn’t a demonstration connected to Eretz Israel that some representive of our family hasn’t participated it, at least since our return in 1992. The reason I personally no longer participate stems from two separate reasons. The first is self evident. It is a waste of time. Over two hundred and fifty thousand people crowded around the Israeli Kenesset building on the eve of the vote in favour of the Oslo...
A quote for today’s world: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862
No matter how long the quiet calmness lasts, it takes one simple phone call to turn your world inside out, to cause your already over worked heart to work double time. “Where are the kids?” my wife of thirty-four years asks with a calm intensity over my cell phone. One-by-one we confirm the location of each of our kids, then agree to call the two ‘unknowns’ who might have been wandering around Yerushelayim on...
I have this ‘thing’ about the collection of wind-blown garbage that collects in the streets of the otherwise beautiful community I live in. What especially bothers me is the filth and apparent lack of care around the community’s principle bus stop – the ‘trampiada’ where most of the inhabitants wait for their buses or a free ride from other residents. Whenever I wait there for my bus to travel to work, if I see...
I haven’t seen the movie yet; my kids told me they recently saw a movie with this name; but I’ve been thinking about it for some time. I may or may not live a long time, and I’m not too certain how I feel about the idea, but as my body ages it has become apparent that my capacity to climb mountains or trek across desserts is gradually (or rapidly) dwindling. I figured that...
The Fourth Chute at Sunset, originally uploaded by ssphillips. The past few weeks I’ve been taking a long (virtual) trip to the land of nostalgia, visiting places I where I once played, canoed and hiked. For this year’s NaNoWriMo project I’m writing a ‘fictional’ autobiography. I explain to people who know me that the facts (as they pertain to the protagonists in the story) are fictional, but the emotional portrayed are real. As part...
