Passover

It is the morning after Passover and I am waking up with this song in my head:

והיא שעמדה לאבותינו ולנו, שלא אחד בלבד עמד עלינו לכלותינו
אלא שבכל דור ודור עומדים עלינו לכלותינו, והקב"ה מצילנו מידם

And I’m singing it as I get out of bed, without giving much attention to the words, admiring my voice and my audacity to sing without a worry in my heart so early in the morning.

After all, I’ve been singing this song on Passover since I don’t know when. And during my homemade Seder with a bunch of goyims friends who know nothing about this passover thing (unless they saw the movie), I sang it too, after telling everybody how much I liked that song.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, it hit me. What a crazy song this is. Am I really saying this crazy stuff out loud and my brain is not short-circuiting when it notices the words? What type of person can wake up in the morning singing something like that and stay cheerful afterwards? Go have breakfast and look for the rest of the day with some sort of normalcy? This is not possible. Some molecules inside me must respond to the message even if the conscious me is not aware of it, because these words do have meaning, even if the meaning does not sink in.

And then another thought occurred to me: that all these years that I was singing these words in Hebrew I never gave them much attention.

But this Passover, I noticed the translation, and for the first time I realized the craziness of the stuff I was singing to my unsuspecting subconscious without ever checking in how this song affected it, and consequently, me.

Here is my translation of the song:

This is what sustained our ancestors and us. For it was not only one [enemy] who intended to annihilate us; but in every generation there are those who intend to annihilate us. And the Holy One blessed be He, saves us from their hands.

I don’t know about you people, but I finally understand Jewish paranoia. Every year I mouth this stuff without ever registering the words. But they must stay somewhere in the brain. So how do you expect me to be in this world and not be on guard every minute trying to detect who intends to annihilate me?

I don’t want to think like this. I don’t want to indulge my unconscious in this paranoia and fear. I want to free myself from this paranoid attachment to doom's day or the salvation from it.

Furthermore, counting on the Blessed Be He is the last thing I want to do. I’ve seen the lousy job he had done saving my ancestors from bullish goyims.

I think it is time to rewrite the songs and the stories we tell at Passover, or we are doomed to indulge in this paranoia until the end of our days.

I, for one, am going to think about new ways to do this Passover without harassing my subconscious, who has enough to deal with without worrying about unnamed goyims who want to annihilate me.

Adventures in grassroot activism

I have a problem with American toilets.

In Israel, privacy is a non-issue. When you walk into a store there is always a security guard who rummages through your purse or backpack looking for a bomb; people are not too shy to ask how much money you make or why you got divorced, and they even feel they have the right to look over your shoulder when you withdraw money from the ATM. But when you are in the toilet, no one knows what you’re up to.
Meanwhile in America, where people would kill or die to defend their privacy, you can’t find privacy in the toilet.

Let me explain: The women's bathrooms in my workplace don’t have real walls between them. They have plastic planks that neither reach the ceiling nor touch the floor, and the gaps surrounding the doors are wide enough to allow innocent bystanders to get a glimpse of what is happening inside. I have seen this abomination countless times around the country, restaurants, airports, movie theaters, schools and the list goes on and on.

I once wondered why privacy does not exist in American public bathrooms and found out that the goal was to prevent sexual activity in the toilet stalls. But as the famous case of the disgraced Senator Larry Craig has shown, it was precisely the space in the stall partitions that allowed for unmentionable shenanigans to occur.

So I was still at a loss. But since there was nothing I could do to change this architectural atrocity, I had learned to live with it. But there is a limit to the indignities I can endure and remain silent.

One day, while I was using the toilets at work, I noticed that the toilet paper dispensers had been replaced by new dispensers that sported a loose metal flap that covered the paper roll. I didn’t give it much thought until the moment I actually had to use toilet paper and realized that it entailed a struggle. The metal flap kept slapping my hand, every time I tried pulling on the roll. The next time I went to the bathroom, again I found myself fighting that metal flap, trying to outsmart it for an extra square of paper.
Now, had I encountered this ungodly dispenser in a movie theater or restaurant, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. We women suffer many indignities and this would be just another gift to reminds us of our place in society. But it was happening at my workplace, where I spend most of my waking hours… So I decided to take action.

First, I made some inquiries, and this is what I found out:
1. The new dispensers, which also included a different type of paper roll, were installed by the company who made them. They did not cost my employer a penny.
2. The new dispensers were installed to save time for the janitors. They were built for larger rolls so the janitors would not have to replace them as often. I beg to differ on this point since more than once I was stranded there without anything resembling toilet paper, but that’s beside the point. And yes, I accept your sympathy.
2. The new dispensers were installed to save time for the janitors. They were built for larger rolls so the janitors would not have to replace them as often. I beg to differ on this point since more than once I was stranded there without anything resembling toilet paper, but that’s beside the point. And yes, I accept your sympathy.
3. There were already a few complaints regarding these new dispensers. Apparently, people had to touch them to get the paper, and touching anything in a communal bathroom is icky.
4. I could email someone and express my concern and this someone could forward my email to someone else who may or may not do something about it.

Ah, the good old American way. Send an email up the chain, express concern – preferably without curse words, and remember to document everything and be ready to provide proof upon request – and then hope for the best.

This way of doing things may sound acceptable and may even be efficient if you were born into a system that respects rules and etiquette and you happened to internalize it. But not if deep inside you are still a raging Israeli. I was not going to fall into the email trap. One email here and there would get me nowhere in this bureaucratic labyrinth. I had to approach this problem with ingenuity.

I decided to circulate a petition among my female colleagues. It started with “We want our old toilet paper dispensers back,” and ended with a short list of “challenges” these dispensers posed. You may be aware that “problem” is a dirty word in American English. Here we only have “challenges” and “concerns.”

The response to my petition was overwhelmingly positive. Only two women didn’t sign it. One said she never signed petitions, and the other had no problem with the new contraption, bless her agreeable soul. All the other women were more than happy to sign and share their toilet paper horror stories. One woman described how the metal flap had torn her pants. Another not only confirmed that the new rolls were narrower than the old ones, but pointed out that they were also of a poorer quality. She then described an ingenious way in which one unidentified bathroom visitor rearranged the toilet paper in such a way that fighting to get it out would be less harrowing.

After I collected enough signatures to fill a page, I scanned my petition and emailed it up the chain along with some chosen anecdotes, encapsulated by positive thoughts and female righteousness.

That night I was sleepless with anxiety. Will I get fired for organizing a workplace toilet paper mutiny? Did I go too far with my demands? Would I be better off if I had kept my mouth shut? Was I creating new enemies?
At work the next morning, a stranger came into my office, asking for Galia. He was holding my petition. I didn’t know who he was and I was not sure how to respond. He was standing at the door looking at me. I wanted to duck under my desk. My knees were shaking.

I confessed that I was the person who sent the petition and begged for mercy. I was prepared to apologize, beg for forgiveness. Just don’t fire me. I’m a single mom, an immigrant. I’m saving for retirement. Please.

To my utter surprise, the man told me he was the building operations manager and that he had decided to bring back the old toilet paper dispensers. He said that the offending contraption had created unpleasantness and complaints throughout the building. He then promised me that the problem would be resolved in no time.

“So I am not in trouble for organizing a toilet paper mutiny?” I asked, feebly.

 “This is a free country,” he shrugged. “You can say whatever you want.”

I wanted to give him a big hug, but instead I just said, “That’s why I love America.”

I'm gonna let you go now

If there is one thing that some people say in this country that makes my skin crawl it is this line: "I'm gonna let you go, now..."

What do you mean you're gonna let me go now? Go where? And why are you letting me go already? What have I done to merit such abrupt ending, such finality?

Here I am having an uplifting conversation with you (on the phone), feeling close and cozy and basking in your attention, and suddenly you are going to let me go. Why? What happened? How did you become this distant person who is going to let me get out of your life without asking me if I am ready to do it?

Only a moment ago you were sharing the latest highlights of your life with me, and suddenly out of nowhere, without any apparent reason or warning, you are letting me go, shutting me out of your life until the next time you are going to bring me back into it, only to let me go again when you are running out of things to say.

And what if I am not ready to be let go? What are my rights when it comes to ending a phone conversation?

There is something so patronizing in this utterance: "I am going to let you go." Now you are the one who decides how long this conversation is going to last, you have more important things to do than spending the entire afternoon with me on the phone, you are done bestowing your graceful attention on me and I have to go back to my uninspiring life while you ride into the sunset.

Every time I hear this line uttered on the phone I want to smack the utterer in the face.

So person, If you need to go, just say it as it is: "Hey, I got to go, I got a ton of things to do, it was great talking to you, blah, blah, blah," but don't just let me go as if I am a fish on a hook who is getting a second chance. Don't put yourself above me with this subtle slap on the face: "I know you are hanging on to every one of my precious words, but unfortunately, I have to let you go, because it looks like you can't do this on your own."

Thank you for listening. You are welcome to stay for as long as you wish.

Gilad Shalit

I think I finally figured out the best shock therapy for low self-esteem. I would call it The Israeli Prisoners Exchange Method. All you have to do is count how many potential "martyrs" Israel is ready to exchange to get you back home! one thousand? one thousand and one? one thousand and twenty? one thousand and twenty seven! I think Gilad Shalit will never have to lie all alone in the dark again and feel the existential throb many of us sometimes feel in the dead of night "nobody loves me..." The Hamas Inc. can cry victory until hell freezes over, but I don't buy it. You can say that the rules of the game have been stretched too far, you can say that the Israeli government messed up, showed weakness, opened another Pandora's box full of bloodthirsty wanna be martyrs, surrendered to the Hamas, should never have released so many prisoners for one Israeli soldier, whatever, but I don't buy it. Because no matter how much the Hamas Inc. brags about victory, there is one thing it can't deny: That one Israeli kid is worth more than a thousand of them! Since the Middle East is built on the honor system, do not delude yourselves that this fact has gone unnoticed by those who adhere to the honor system. This is one sneaky tiny teeny unspoken fact no one on the other side wants to admit. But at night, when darkness falls, when the noise and the gun brandishing and the posturing dissolve into oblivion, the wanna be martyr will have to accept the fact that not only Allah remained indifferent to his/her sacrifice, even the Israelis no longer give a damn about it. Because there is someone much more important in the world than the death wish of the wanna be martyred hero and his ilk. Gilad Shalit is no hero. But those who fought for his release are.

Steven says, "Don't Delete This Post!"

What is it with the right-wing government?

During the early 1980s, after Prime Minister Menachem Begin from the Likud Party signed the peace agreement with Egypt and gave up the Sinai Peninsula, a period of political stalemate became the right-wing government motto. The inability to negotiate with the Palestinians led to the First Lebanon War in 1982 and later to the worst economic meltdown in the history of Israel - the 1985 banking crisis and a lost decade of economic growth.

At the beginning of the 1990, the Likud broke away from the National Unity Government (or Alignment) with the Labor and embarked on a policy that rejected any peace initiative with the Palestinians. As a result, Israel experienced cooling in the relations with the Bush I-Baker administration, the first Intifada, and a recession, until Rabin won the elections in1992 and changed direction with the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Between 1996 and 1999, the first Netanyahu government promised to embrace the commitments Israel has made in previous agreements, but three years later the peace process was in shambles and Israel’s diplomatic relations with many countries were again falling apart.

This trend changed once again after Netanyahu’s government collapsed and Barak of the Labor Party won the elections in 1999.

In 2003 Arik Sharon won the elections for the second time in three years. He doubled the size of the Likud Party to 30 seats in the Knesset (out of 120) and established a right wing government. Yet, in spite of his powerful position, he was unable to get a majority inside his own party to accept his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. This plan called for the eviction of a few thousands Jews who were living in the midst of a million and a half Palestinians on one of the most densely populated pieces of land on this planet. Only after Sharon dismantled the Likud Party and took 15 Knesset Members with him to establish his own Party, Kadima, was he able to accomplish a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. As usual, all the right wing parties, including the Likud and Netanyahu, stood and are still standing united against Sharon’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

Nowadays, Netanyahu’s second government, elected in 2009, is repeating the same patterns. After a year full of promises, declarations, and a temporary freeze on building settlements in the West Bank, the usual feet dragging and new demands and conditions for this or that point have brought upon us another stalemate.

Unfortunately for Israel, this time the Palestinians chose to stay away from violence and play the political field: asking for a UN resolution that will recognize the state of Palestine. But as we have seen in the past, there is no chance that a right-wing government would enter any negotiations that could result in territorial concessions to the Palestinians. It has not happened in the past, and it is not going to happen now. Furthermore, any attempt to make changes in the current coalition by Netanyahu is not realistic, because in order to take this radical step Netanyahu has to be Arik Sharon and this is far beyond his qualifications. Therefore, the future scenario is very clear: deterioration in the relations with the regional players, international isolation, economic siege, and erosion in Israel’s security and ability to respond to provocations.

So why do Israel’s right-wing governments keep repeating the same old pattern over and over again?

Just like the scorpion in the famous fable, who catches a ride on the back of a frog in order to cross the river, but in the middle of the river stings the frog and ends up drowning… because it can’t help it, it is in his “nature,” so do Israeli right-wing governments keep bringing Israel to the edge of the cliff, because, as we say, it is in their “nature.”

To be continued…

The perfect storm

Second posting in collaboration with my brother, Yoram Bar On.

This week the collapse has finally begun. All the security and intelligence organizations in Israel have warned us about it (Ha’aretz 9/12). Everyone knows what to expect. Israelis today are sailing toward a hurricane, but they cannot do a thing about it. The bridge is manned by a captain and a team of officers committed to follow their predetermined course. These officers tell us that choosing another course would be more dangerous than staying the course, because man cannot fight nature (that of the Muslims). So, prepare your life boats, put on your life vests, and….

The downward spiral began with Turkey whose leader took advantage of the current vacuum in the Middle East and redrawn the regional agenda. But it could have started elsewhere. Egypt, who now follows the Turkish lead, will pull into the circle other neighbors from North Africa, and this new block of nations will attract more Muslim nations from East Asia; and the circle of nations who severe their diplomatic relations with Israel will only keep growing. This winter the Palestinians will be the hopeful newcomers to the Middle East, and the Israelis will be the all too familiar hateful gangsters. The spectators have already decided who they are going to support. And this support will cost Israel very dearly: it will jeopardize its economy and its security. The Israeli stock market has already lost 30% of its value in the last two months, twice as much as the average losses in other markets, and this trend will only continue in the future. It is becoming very clear that international isolation and a limited ability to react to provocations will have incredibly serious effect on Israel.

Those who are worried about another war, you can rest assured that we will not witness a major war between Israel and its neighbors at the moment. This is not in the interest of any Arab nation, and certainly not in the interest of the Palestinian Authority. A more realistic scenario includes civil disobedience in the territories, violent protests in the Arab world, severance of diplomatic relations, bombings of Israeli targets, and new limits on trade with Israel. As stated earlier, the short-term effect will be mostly economic.

No one who understands the dynamics of the Israeli right wing government was surprised by the latest developments in Cairo and now in Jordan. The question was not “will it happen?” but “when will it happen and what will be the consequences?” The only difference today is that this time the Arabs are the “good guys” in the movie – they are not violent, and they demonstrate for freedom and democracy, while Israel is being perceived as a barrier to peace and justice; a nation caught in the darkness of oppression. Yet, in spite of all this, the right-wing government of Israel will still object to negotiations with the Palestinians and to recognition of a Palestinian state.

This is not the first time it has happened; this is a very familiar pattern, which has been repeating itself since Israel has seen its first right-wing-religious coalition.

To be continued... Putting things in perspective.