Goodbye 38

Subject: GOODBYE 38


[I awoke at 2am to test the plumbing. The plumbing passed the test. Would that my own plumbing were as reliable.

I thought I might as well destroy the ozone layer for a few minutes before returning to sleep. I grabbed a stogie and a transistor and stepped outside. Slugs adorned the screen door, the walls, the walk. I returned for bug spray.

After dispatching loathsome creatures to the Great Wormhole in Space I lit my cigar and turned on the transistor. It was the classical music midnight to 6am program. As happens with disconcerting regularity a symphony had just begun. I know every note but could not remember if it was Schumann or Mendelssohn or Schubert or Shicklegruber. A sigh escaped as I realized I’ll have to wait for the announcement at the conclusion. Unless, with my luck, two or three symphonies are being played in succession. With no announcement until all are done.

The air was thick with bug spray and cigar smoke when Muffy and Chaleria made their appearance. I went back inside to get their food. Muffy has a new wound on her throat, doubtless the result of rough sex. She also has three kittens in tow. Where and when and by whom is a mystery. The kittens are impossible to differentiate, except for one who has only one eye. Naturally I am smitten with that one.

Rachel appeared saying the bedroom seems empty without her own 800lb gorilla. I beat my chest and went inside.

Dawns early light. Another day of non-stop fun in the refugee camp is about to begin.]



[Had my ancestors swung on the trees of Britain rather than Bialystok, had they been landed gentry rather than landless grubbers, we would likely have a family crest. On that crest would be crossed salamis under a pickled herring. And the engraved motto would be – in Yiddish, of course – ‘No Moment Spent Sleeping is Ever Wasted’.

There is another motto equally valid: ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’.

We had guests on a recent Shabbat. With Oshri on duty, Tamar brought the Wrecking Crew. Rachel invited an old friend and colleague. They had taught together at various schools for over fifteen years, and despite our leaving Jerusalem had never lost touch. The guest was coming by bus and I was to pick her up in Ashkelon. It was late and I was anxious to be on my way but Rachel remembered something she needed from our grocery.

The grocery was closing its doors when I arrived but they gave me what I needed. A woman was standing next to my car when I turned to leave, a case of Cola beside her. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Ashkelon” I replied.

“Could you just drop me at my house? I can’t carry this..”

With every nerve in my body screaming ‘SAY NO!’ I smiled and said “Yes.”

My punishment was not long in coming.

She opened a rear door, put the case on the back seat, said “Excuse me” and returned to the grocery, emerging with a second case which she also put on the back seat. This was repeated over and over in what seemed like slow-motion until there were four cases on the back seat, three cases in the trunk, plus five or six plastic bags of junk food.

By the time she got into the car I was apoplectic.

Of course everything turned out alright. But my already delicate mental state was sorely bruised.]





[Thanks to those of you who expressed concern over my bowels. Something exceeding strange has happened. A dear friend, visiting with a group, took me aside and handed me a plastic bottle marked Triphala. “Take these and your problems will disappear.” From that day on I have had few recurrences of earlier problems.

Why, you ask, do I say ‘exceeding strange’? Because I have never taken the pills. I haven’t even removed the seal on the bottle. The bottle simply stands on a shelf in the toilet, in full view, and just staring at it has the desired effect. On those occasions when something more is needed, I reach out and touch the bottle and the problem disappears.

So thanks again, Helen and Charlie!]



[I am well known here as the King of Laundry. This is not a compliment but a term of derision. In this society ‘real men’ don’t do laundry. That our laundry lines abut a well-used walking path behind our caravilla only adds to my notoriety. Children stop to watch the One-Armed Wonder at work. Women smile, men sneer. I ignore them all. I love doing laundry.

The shirt was bright red. Whatever had possessed me to buy it? I had only worn it to please Rachel, who is always at me for how drab my clothes are. Now it was time to wash it. Having bought it at my favorite El Cheapo shop I realized that the color would run and accordingly, washed it only with very dark items. Without mishap. The second washing, assuming that whatever was going to run had already ran, I didn’t hesitate to mix it with a variety of items. Alas and alack! Everything was bright pink. Some, Rachel insisted on throwing away. Others, I hid before she could dispose of them.

At a Kiddush in our synagogue one recent morning someone bumped into me and a quantity of schnapps was spilled on my shirt. I unbuttoned the shirt and there was a deathly silence as my bright pink ritual fringes and undershirt came into view. I should simply have explained what happened, but those standing closest were well-known nudniks who would have bombarded me with “Why didn’t you do this…” or “You should have done that…”

To preclude conversation I smiled and said “I’m wearing these in honor of Gay Pride week in Tel Aviv.”

Now, when doing laundry, I notice that among passersby, Women sneer, Men smile.]





GOODBYE 38 WHEN THE SPINELESS LEAD THE BRAINLESS…HOPELESS



Poor Netanyahu. Not only spineless, but clueless as well. His last day in the States included a visit with Jewish members of Congress. Most, of course, are Democrats and supporters – enthusiastically or with misgivings – of the Anointed One’s policies toward Israel. Even those who see where it is all heading are too cowed to speak.

The situation today, absurd as it may seem, is that believing Christians in Congress are far more supportive of Israel than are Jews. And far more reliable.



Whether or not the American President is The Manchurian Candidate [or, as some of my Christian friends believe, the Anti-Christ] is irrelevant. Indisputable is his fawning on Muslims and his animus to the State of Israel.



Whether or not his principal enablers and supporters, American Jews, are naïve or self-hating is irrelevant. Indisputable is that their efforts are leading to the destruction of the State of Israel. And, eventually, of themselves.



Much of the blame lies with Israel. If you wear a sign saying KICK ME, how can you be surprised when you get kicked? And after the big boys kick you, and you don’t respond, the normally quiescent realize its open season and there are no consequences to kicking you, so they join the jamboree. Some years ago I described Israel as a Felafel Republic, the Middle Eastern equivalent of a Banana Republic.

I want to apologize to any and all Banana Republics. Even the most pathetic pretends to have some self-respect. Not Israel.



It wasn’t long after the Six Day War that Israel allowed itself to be turned into a vassal state of the Americans. One example:

Israel Aircraft Industries developed a fighter plane, the Lavi, a generation ahead of anything being done by the US or USSR. The US, to protect Grumman or McDonnel-Douglas or whoever else was building fighters, demanded Israel cease the project. Like an obedient canine, it did. And we have seen over the years how the US regularly steps in and orders Israel to cancel contracts for military equipment made with other countries.



It was the Red Chinese, I believe, who developed the term Paper Tiger for the US and its allies. Well, for all Israel’s supposed military prowess, it is a Toilet Paper Tiger. If you have the capacity to win, but won’t use what you have, you might as well not have it.

When the Oslo Accords were signed by Rabin, in the ruling elite’s mindset the Arabs ceased being the enemy. They might still be killing us, but it was no longer necessary to defeat them, merely to contain them until a deal could be made.

The entire military establishment was corrupted by the leftist mantra that ‘there is no military solution to the problem’. No one can advance in a military career unless he subscribes to this belief.

But if the Arabs were no longer the enemy, who was? The religious settlers.

One example: A young man of my acquaintance, a kippa-wearing lieutenant, had just completed his doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies. He was asked to give a lecture at the War College. The room was filled with officers from the rank of major and up. Before he could speak an officer stood and said “Where do you live?”

The young lieutenant named a community north of Jerusalem.

“We’re not interested in anything a religious settler has to say”. And all rose and left the room. If you think this just anecdotal, consider the army’s performance during the Second Lebanon War and it’s refusal to smash Hamas during the recent Gaza festivities.



Some of you will be upset by my comment that American Jews are as doomed as their Israeli counterparts.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, of blessed memory, wrote in the 1970’s that if you walk into a bar anywhere in the States, you can hear the Jews being cursed. As long as the patrons have jobs and homes they can vent their Jew-hatred verbally. But if the economy should take a dive, as is happening now, the verbal may become physical.

We are told unemployment is 9.5%. But if you include former full-time workers now working part-time, and those too disheartened to seek work at all, the figure is 20%.

With the Anointed One’s administration top-heavy with Jews, and with Jews seeming to be involved in every new scandal, the feces will soon be hitting the fan.

It is a miniscule step from ‘the Jews are as corrupt as everybody else’ to ‘the Jews corrupt everybody else’.

While I might get some perverse pleasure watching my liberal American co-religionists grovel apologetically, a performance that they have turned into an art, I doubt any of us in Israel will still be alive to enjoy it.



Some of you have complained that my hatred of the army and police – actually, I don’t discriminate and hate pretty much everybody, with the army and police at the top of the list – is grossly overdone. Even given that they took away my home, my sense of purpose, my sense of belonging, my pride and self-respect… even if they made the physical suffering I underwent, and continue to undergo every waking moment, once a source of pride, now a source of bitter regret… the intensity of my anger seems over the top. I have given it much thought.

I had an epiphany. An epiphany is fraught with light. Mine was fraught with darkness. I finally came to understand that the reason I hate so fiercely is that the one I hate most is my self.



It was by accident, not by design, that the fat, forever frightened New York Jew was transmogrified into Super M in Israel. Not that I took it seriously. But as time wore on, and I became less uncomfortable in my new skin, my behavior followed suit and I acted in ways that would have given my former self cardiac arrest. Without even a hint of false modesty, I say that I carried it off with aplomb.

Then came the period of the expulsion, during most of which I acted in ways befitting my new persona.

Unfortunately there were two incidents that made me realize what I had been is what I still was.



The first was during what passed for our struggle to save Gush Katif.

I would be out nightly driving the roads, hoping to find supporters to smuggle into the Gush. As a resident I could pass the many police and army roadblocks, and I was armed with i.d.’s from Gush residents that I could give to suitable infiltrators. I had many adventures but limited success, which didn’t bother me as the real pleasure was just being out of a house already bursting with supporters.

Now it was midday Friday and I had picked up the sons of a couple already at our home. Each of the boys now had the i.d. of a Gush Katif resident. We were stopped at the last and busiest checkpoint and it was clear there would be a long wait. I left the boys in or near the car and got out to stretch my legs and destroy the ozone layer. Walking around, I came upon a scene that has left me with nightmares to this day.

Alongside a string of pre-fabs housing police offices, there was a small compound where people caught attempting to infiltrate – mostly teenagers – were being held. Seated in one corner was a girl about sixteen, very thin, very pretty, very modestly dressed. Hulking over her, screaming, clenched fists waving menacingly, was a plainclothes policeman about thirty. He was almost incoherent with rage. Though he never touched her she was clearly being assaulted. She was crying and appeared frightened to the point of collapse. Everyone stopped to watch. Even the police stepped out of their offices. Not a smirk. Not a smile. Just stares ranging from discomfort to horror.

I wanted to rush forward, tell him to leave the girl alone, to pick on someone his own size. What’s the worst that could have happened? He’d hit me? He couldn’t damage me any more than bombs and bullets already had. He’d arrest me? Think of what a great letter a Shabbat in jail would have produced.

Instead I just stood there, trembling with fright and self-loathing. Of course I justified my inaction by telling myself I had a responsibility to get the boys to their waiting parents. But I knew the truth:

Super M had reverted to Forever Frightened Fatboy.



The second incident took place about ten days after our expulsion. Individuals were allowed back in to complete the packing so moving vans could remove their belongings before the bulldozers leveled our homes. Rachel’s broken ankle kept her in the hotel. As a cripple I9 was permitted to have someone accompany me. That someone was Ari, who drove our car.

At the Kissufim checkpost [also the site of the first incident] vehicles were backed up for two kilometers. Slowly we crawled forward. About two hundred yards from the crossing I got out and walked, telling Ari I would wait for him to catch up. At the checkpost there was a scene to match the scene of the first incident.

A pickup truck was trying to get through. The driver was middle-aged, with the weather-worn face of a farmer. In the passenger seat was a boy, about fourteen. The passenger door was open and leaning inside was a police officer. The officer was short, thin, gray-haired, and in one hand he had a baton. With the other hand he was trying to drag the boy out of the vehicle. The father was crying, holding on to the boy. “Please, I need him to help me pack” he wept. The policeman was whacking both father and son with the baton. He was as hysterical as the plainclothes cop in the first incident.

“This is a country of laws” he screamed. “The boy – whack! – is not on the list – whack! – so he is not going through. We have – whack! – LAWS! WE HAVE LAWS!”

The scene was not only heartbreaking. It was obscene. Not twenty feet away stood a gaggle of army officers, all high-ranking, all pot-bellied, all bald or nearly so. And these Sharon-clones were watching and laughing hysterically. These bastards had killed us and now they were pissing on our graves.

I wanted to yell at them “You couldn’t beat the Arabs so you’re beating the Jews.” I wanted to drag the cop off the kid, to beat him with his baton.

As before, I did nothing, justifying my inaction with the thought that if I created a scene my son would intervene and I didn’t want to see him hurt or arrested.

But I knew the truth…



These two scenes are nightmares that don’t fade or disappear.



Now that I have been epiphanized, and understand the reason for the intensity of hatred, has that intensity lessened? Not in the least. Though I remain besotted with Rachel, and my passion for the children and grandchildren is undiminished, I believe it is the hatred that keeps me alive.



[Rachel has amazed me once again. I heard her playing an unfamiliar piece on the electric organ. It was very attractive and I asked her what it was. She blushed, and said she had written it herself. I was flabbergasted!

What an amazing couple we are:

Rachel is composing.

I am decomposing.]



moshe