Goodbye 40

Sunday, September 06, 2009 11:08 PM
GOODBYE 40


[It is now the month of elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashana, the new year. Normally I go to shul in pre-dawn darkness, the only other living things visible being the packs of wild dogs that roam the streets. Now the streets are alive with people rushing to say selichot, the pre-Rosh Hashana penitential prayers.

Sefardi Jews start to say the penitential prayers at the beginning of the month. Ashkenazim say the prayers a week before Rosh Hashana.

Is it that the Sefardim have so much more to atone for? Hardly. They are just so much more flamboyant about everything. Even penitence.]



[During an intermission at one of the IPO rehearsals we attended – see Goodbye 39 – Rachel and our host went backstage for a cup of coffee. Rachel returned and said “It’s mostly Russian being spoken back there”.

No surprise. Years ago I was told that when the IPO was organizing a European tour they were told in Vienna that “we had a Jewish orchestra here last month. The Leningrad Philharmonic.”]



[Damn the cats!

A situation that was driving us nuts has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

Up to three weeks ago we faced six cats, only one of which was a real problem.

There was Chaleria, my favorite.

There was Muffy-the-Slut, who appeared late morning and early evening, when things were slow at the cathouse where she works.

There were Muffy’s three kittens, now equal in size to their mother, including One-Eyed Jack who, upon lifting its tail, was revealed to be One-Eyed Jacqueline.

These five are reasonably well-behaved, and if they congregated in front of our door did so quietly.

And then there was Shitsi. This monstrous dropping from an earlier Muffy litter, this non-stop howler, forever scratching at our screen door, brought out the worst in both Rachel and my self. Our hatred for the beast reached quite irrational levels. However often we chased her away, she returned. It got to the point where we both wanted her dead, no matter how.

Rachel demanded action, now!

I announced a multi-stage plan. Stage One, to get them all away from our front door. To that end I moved the water bowls around to the back of the house, and fed them only near the bowls. It took a few days but they got used to being served at the rear, and started hanging out where the goodies were due to appear. A bonus was that I enjoyed their company while hanging laundry. It was a drag shlepping around to the back, but I figured on solving that with Stage Two.

True, as I had to admit to Rachel, I hadn’t yet formulated Stage Two. But at least Stage One was working.

Two weeks ago, disaster.

We awoke to find Shitsi lying on her side in front of our door, nursing five tiny furballs. Not only that, but sneering a short distance away was Paramour 2, another Muffy-produced monstrosity.

Feeding them around the back was no longer feasible as Shitsi could not leave her still-sightless spawn.

So now they are twelve, at the door 24/7, and I’m still trying to figure out Stage Two.]



[[aside: A dear lady in Jerusalem always writes, whenever I’ve complained about the cats, offering to send a platoon, squad, brigade, division to capture and neuter them. My response remains negative. If, however, she is prepared to capture and neuter human beings, my response is enthusiastically affirmative and I have a list of worthy potential neuterinos and neuterinas all ready.]]



[Lest you think the Nature scene is all bleak, a happy note. Aghast at a tsunami of dog poop on our lawn, I was told to place bottles of water near favorite poopoisies. These bottles act both as mirror and magnifying glass, and frighten the beasts into thinking larger beasts are facing them. I was skeptical, but it works. Praise the Lord for the stupidity of dogs.]



GOODBYE 40

BETRAYED BY OUR OWN or ARE JEWS GENETICALLY STUPID?



Good friends from the States visited recently, people who share my views of both the American and Israeli governments. I brought up a subject that had apparently slipped under their radar, that of the Youth Corps which BHO is planning and which will serve as an army of enforcers for government policy.

My friends were incredulous. “Oh, Moshe” one said, “what you have suffered here in Israel has totally warped your judgment.”

“Not in America, Moshe” said another. “Our democratic traditions are too strong for anything like that to happen.”

But it is precisely because of my experience here that I see it happening in the States. One of our hopes prior to the expulsion was that our soldiers – our boys and girls! – both religious and secular would refuse to take part.

The government was as concerned about this as we were hopeful. For an entire year prior to the expulsion the troops were ‘prepared’ by psychiatrists and psychologists who worked to convince them we were the enemies of peace.

The indoctrination worked. For all the pictures you see of crying soldiers, the great majority performed stone-faced, like robots. Of the 10,000 troops who took part, a grand total of 65 refused to participate.

The groundwork is now being prepared in the States. Anti BHO protestors are already being labeled “right wing terrorists”. And I’m certain the shrinks are already in place, preparing programs to convince the Youth Corps that democracy can be protected only by crushing opponents of the government.

The USA will soon be the USSA. The United Socialist States of America.



Of course we won’t be around to see it. The situation worsens here daily. Netanyahu is lauded for his adept twisting and turning; no big deal for an invertebrate.

What really infuriates me [yes, I know, everything infuriates me, but for the purpose of this letter, let’s pretend…] is that so many of my ideological fellows take heart from polls showing that close to 70% of genetically Jewish Israelis believe the expulsion was wrong. We refuse to see they believe it was wrong only because none of the stated goals was achieved.

The expulsion was wrong, period. If all of the stated goals had been achieved the expulsion would still have been wrong.

Boneless Bibi was much applauded because he made a speech saying Jews would never again remove Jews from their homes. Ignored was the follow-up phrase, “without the proper preparation”.

The same speech was made by one of “our own”, Prof. Daniel Hirshkovitz, head of the National Religious Party and Minister for Barbie Dolls. He made it clear that only if a quid pro quo was guaranteed would he agree to Jews being expelled.



Rachel dragged me to a meeting of those planning to move to Lachish. A representative of a construction company was making a pitch. I was apoplectic when I learned the rep was Benzi Lieberman, still a member of the Yesha Council. This was the gentleman who led our people at Kfar Maimon, when 30,000 supporters faced 5000 exhausted police and soldiers. The gentleman, through complicity or incompetence or cowardice – probably all three – sabotaged our efforts to get these supporters to Gush Katif.

Clearly, in Israel nothing succeeds like failure. Instead of crawling back under a rock, this lizard now is trying to sell us homes to replace the ones he was instrumental in our losing. But that situation is standard for this Felafel Republic.

What shrivels my heart is our total lack of self-respect in politely listening to his sales pitch.



One of the privileges of senility is being allowed to repeat oneself. Over. And over. And over. So I won’t apologize for the following:

In the future – assuming there is a future – if history is still being written – probably in Arabic – the Beginning of the End for the State of Israel will be dated to the expulsion of the Jews – by the Jews – from Gush Katif.



[Shabbat marked our 47th wedding anniversary. And we were alone. Remarkably, blessedly alone. I don’t know how Rachel has put up with me all these years. Were we Catholics, she would be destined for sainthood.

At one point in our ruminations she said “I thought you were a mature responsible adult when we married. But you were just an overgrown kid, and remained that way until reaching old age.”

If that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.]



moshe