Shir ha-Shayarah (The Caravan Song)

I had wanted to put up this post for Yom ha-Atzma’ut, but things got rather hectic. So here it is now.

The Caravan Song, an optimistic look at Israel’s immigrant roots and rebirth, appears on the joint album by Arik Einstein and Miki Gavrielov, Al Gevul ha-Or (On the Verge of Light, 1987).

This song contains several references to contemporary Israeli history and culture: the historical longing for Israel, the pioneers who drained the swamps, the refugees who came from Europe and Arab lands. The song mentions Kibbutz Degania in the north and Dimona, a development town in the Negev, in the same line.

Listeners familiar with Israeli history and culture will also pick out the first line of the Palmach anthem, Me-saviv yehom ha-sa’ar (Though the storm howl all around us).

And the old man who, the song promises, will be kept happy? He is none other than David Ben-Gurion himself, who felt so strongly about settling the Negev that he retired there with his wife Paula after leaving political life.

Another possible reference: “They won’t go on without us” could be a nod to another song on this album that achieved iconic status: Sa Le’at (Drive Slowly). (The line there is “They won’t start without us.”)

The Caravan Song
Lyrics: Eli Mohar
Music: Greek folk tune
Performed by Arik Einstein and Miki Gavrielov

We spoke languages without number
And hardly knew one another.
We left a great many places
For the only one we loved and longed for.
We left a great many places
And came here, to Israel.

And the caravan goes on
From the previous century.
The first arrivals are history now:
Farmers and pioneers
Who did tough, back-breaking work,
Never knowing where it would lead.
Now it is our turn,
And we have not been idle.
They won’t go on without us.
This is the adventure of our lives.

We slipped out of ghettos and camps
And came to swamps and wasteland.
From the furthest ends of Arabia, Russia and Poland,
We lit lamps in Dimona and Degania.
From the furthest ends of Arabia, Russia and Poland,
We lit lamps in Dimona and Degania.

From all the countries of the Diaspora,
Despite all the problems,
A nation was created and a country arose,
And a language that had lain dormant
Awoke to life once more
And keeps on talking and talking.
“Though the storm howl all around us”
And difficulties and sorrow abound,
There is still reason to rejoice:
We have plenty of courage and strength.

Look how Israel thrives all around us:
It is stronger than all our shortcomings.
[Elderly man:] And the Negev will bloom one day, too!
[Lead vocalist:] And we’ll be sure to make the Old Man happy.
The Negev will bloom one day, too,
And we’ll be sure to make the Old Man happy.

From all the countries of the Diaspora,
Despite all the problems,
A nation was created and a country arose,
And a language that had lain dormant
Awoke to life once more
And keeps on talking and talking.
“Though the storm howl all around us”
And difficulties and sorrow abound,
There is still reason to rejoice:
We have plenty of courage and strength.

And the caravan goes on
From the previous century.
The first arrivals are history now:
Farmers and pioneers
Who did tough, back-breaking work,
Never knowing where it would lead.
Now it is our turn,
And we have not been idle.
They won’t go on without us.
This is the adventure of our lives.

In Honor of Memorial Day: Upon the Highway

In honor of Yom ha-Shoah, which was last week, and Memorial Day, which is today, I have decided to share a well-known Israeli song, “Upon the Highway,” written by Natan Alterman and set to music by Naomi Shemer. The speaker is the mother of a baby boy. As she sings her child to sleep aboard a barely seaworthy ship on a stormy night, she tells him the story of why they are making this perilous, clandestine voyage to pre-state Israel, which was then barred to Jewish entry by the British.

The recording was made in 1972.



Upon the Highway a Tree Once Stood

Lyrics: Natan Alterman
Music: Naomi Shemer
Performed by the Navy Troupe, 1972
Lead singer: Haya Arad

The translation is mine (which means that any errors in it are mine as well).

Upon the highway a tree once stood –
stood listing, leaning earthward.
Sleep, child, sleep. Night is falling,
A stormy night upon the water.

Hush, child. The ship pitches sideways,
listing in the raging wind.
Upon the highway a tree once stood,
with neither bud nor apple on it.

It was to this tree, my son,
that your mother’s father used to go
as the evening shadows nested in the tree
and nothing stirred.

Your mother’s father would lean his head against it,
facing toward Jerusalem.
Weeping, he would recite the afternoon prayer
to his God, just the two of them.

To that same tree, my son, your father
was tied, bound with cords.
They beat him with iron rods and whips, my son,
as hot breath like steam ascended.

When the whip, sharper than a knife,
had become red as fire,
your father sank silent to the ground,
at the time of the afternoon prayer, as evening fell.

Slowly he sank from his altar,
his face turned toward Jerusalem.
Hush, child. The ship lists to the side,
pitches, kisses the water.

The ship pitches sideways,
and rises, claw extended!
Upon the highway a tree was cut down –
cut down to become the mast of a ship!

Hush, child. The gate of glorious fame
will open before that mast.
Today it, too, is a pillar of prayer;
today it, too, is an altar.

Upon the highway stood a tree
that will never fall to the ground.
Sleep, child. The ship lists to the side,
sails onward, cleaving water.

Another video of the song may be found here. Here is the link to the Hebrew lyrics on Shironet.

Spring flowers of Jerusalem

Here is a collection of photos of Jerusalem wildflowers that I took over the past several weeks. If it’s heavy on scarlet pimpernels, that’s because scarlet pimpernels are among my favorite wildflowers.

OK – here we go:









More photos after the jump:

Farewell, Nardo

The last of Laurence Simon’s original four cats, Nardo, the Mighty Stripey Hunter and star of the catcams back in the day, has passed on.

Nardo on the bed by Laurence Simon

Years ago, I enjoyed watching Nardo on the catcams, together with Laurence and Gina’s other three cats, Piper, Edloe and Frisky. I loved watching them all – Piper doing Kitty Yoga, Edloe being her fuzzy, Grumpus self, and Frisky chasing rainbows (Frisky sightings were good luck) – but there was something special about Nardo. (Maybe I just have a soft spot in my heart for orange cats.)

Now the four of them are reunited on the Other Side. Rest well, Nardo... and may there be plenty of toys for you to find and hide there.

To Laurence and Gina, my condolences. May you be consoled in the knowledge that you gave Nardo a good life filled with love and care, and find comfort in your memories of him.

May you find comfort, too, in the presence of the baby panthers, Bruwyn and Myst.

Modern-day Sweatshops and the Inquisition

These two articles – one from Lehigh Valley’s The Morning Call about the inhuman working conditions at the Amazon warehouse and the other from Mother Jones about similar conditions at an unidentified warehouse – made me think of an analogy that may seem over the top, darkly humorous or cheeky at first: the Inquisition. But I’m not joking. Here’s why.

Being a Church institution, the Inquisition could not sully itself with something as mundane as bloodshed. (Its officials had no problem subjecting innocent human beings to unspeakable torture, but actual executions? How gauche.) So they came up with a legal fiction: instead of condemning their victims to death outright, they would simply “relax” them – turn them over to the Inquisition’s “secular arm” with a pious injunction to “shed no blood”... wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

In other words, the Inquisition outsourced its executions, and used that very outsourcing to evade responsibility for them.

That is the analogy that came into my mind when I read this sentence: “Temporary-staffing agencies keep the stink of unacceptable labor conditions off the companies whose names you know.”

It’s only a blurb at the bottom of the second page of the article in Mother Jones, but that’s what it made me think of.

Apart from the Inquisition... the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 must be turning in their graves. In the US of 2012, the sweatshops are back.

Today's Crop of Photos

Here are some photos that I took today.

A rose hip:

A ladybug:

Pods with seeds:

White blossoms on a succulent:

A bee on a blossom. It looks to me almost as though the bee were driving a vehicle, holding a tiny steering wheel:

Finally, a mystery fruit. I’ve been wondering for ages what it is. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Botanist?

The Big Squeeze: A Public Service Announcement

When I flipped the calendar page last week from January to February, I realized – in addition to all the other things I have planned for this month – that it was time for my annual mammography.

Yes, that’s right – the big squeeze.

So off I headed to the doc, got my referral – and then, since I happened to be in the area later that day, I stopped in personally at the Hala Clinic to make the appointment. Luckily for me, there was a vacant slot the very next day!

Although I got there on time, I had to wait before being seen; the clinic is very busy. But I didn’t mind. There was good reading material in the waiting room, so I picked up a book and got comfortable. Also, I had fair warning – the woman who made my appointment told me that it might take as long as three hours from start to finish.

When my turn came, the technician escorted me to the examining room. There I was... umm... examined. Squeezed between two plastic trays with curved ends, one of which moved. Squished, squashed, temporarily turned into a pancake – however you want to describe it. But even as I tried to obey the technician’s instructions to relax, turn my head this way, hold my arm that way, breathe, and defy gravity while standing on my head and whistling “Dixie,” I focused on how grateful I was to live in a time and place where there’s access to early detection and treatment.

Then I returned to the waiting room to be summoned for the physical exam and ultrasound. A few minutes on the exam table and it was done. (They even warmed the ultrasound jelly! Pardon the expression, but how cool is that?!)

The best part – besides the clean bill of health (tfu, tfu, tfu) – was that I was in and out of the clinic in just over an hour!

So where’s the public service announcement in all this? Here it is: Ladies, go get checked! Yes, it takes time from your busy schedules. True, it’s not the most fun thing in the world. But it’s really, truly, very important. So pick up the phone and make an appointment for your Big Squeeze today!

Covered and Disappeared

When I was in a train station in Tel Aviv recently, I stopped at a stall where books intended for religious audiences were being sold. One of the books was a guide for women about how to tie kerchiefs.

Curious, I decided to take a look... and was shocked to see that in every illustration, the woman’s face had been digitally altered. The backgrounds were real, the clothing was real, but the women’s faces were not. Apparently it is now considered unseemly to show even the face of a woman in a photograph. It must be digitally altered or blurred in order to be acceptable.

Here are two examples:

I will say again what I have been saying for years about the increasing strictures on the visibility of women in Jewish society here: it is not about modesty and has never been. It is about turf, power, control and entitlement. It is about one group of people forcing their restrictive view of Judaism on others, halakhic scholarship be damned (or, at the very least, severely distorted). It is unbalanced, unhealthy, dangerous and very frightening.

A Cross-Section of Jerusalemites

As I rode the light rail last week, I saw a cross-section of Jerusalemites gathered at one of the stations, waiting for the next train.

I saw a nun, an Arab man and several Arab women wearing traditional dress, two religious Jewish men and several other people.

Wrapped Around Her Paw

Yup. That’s where Hadi’s got me.

Allow me to demonstrate. First, the gentle paw on the hand, with just a hint of claw behind it:

Oh! She’s got me!

And again! There’s no escaping Hadi the Mighty Huntress....

A moment of indecision. Hmm, the huntress wonders. Now that I’ve established my clear superiority, what should I do next?

Inspiration strikes. I know! I’ll demand a tummyrub...

... and get it.

Is this what they mean by “the belly of the beast”?

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

Plants of the Season – in Various Guises

A friend of mine has an etrog (citron) tree in her yard. Its fruits are large, and some of them are downright huge. Recently, she gave me half of an etrog to use in my soap (the grated peel, not the whole fruit!).

When I made a soap batch a few days ago, I cut the half that she gave me and was excited to find...

... germinated seeds!

Another look:

I planted five of them. What else could I do?

Finally as long as this is a post about fruit, here’s a photo for the upcoming New Year:

Shana tova u-metuka – a good and sweet New Year!

Final Respects, At Long Last

Finally, after a wait of quite a few years, the new grave marker for Max Wittmann and his wife, Dola Ben-Yehuda Wittmann, is finally in place.

Dola Ben-Yehuda, who lived to be over a hundred years old, was the daughter of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who revived modern Hebrew.

I hope that they fix the name of Max Wittmann’s city of origin, which is unfortunately misspelled on the gravestone. It should read "Sindelfingen."

Cat Pics

Here are some cat pics I took recently.

This is Mr. N., a rescue cat who lives with friends of mine. He is well cared for, loved and loving.

Here are a few of the lovely and delicious cupcakes that my friend R. made for my farewell party at my former job. She designed them herself, too!

OK, this one’s a bit of a stretch – a winged lion – but I still think it qualifies as a RFOAC (reasonable facsimile of a cat).

Pulling back a bit, the same winged lion with the Israeli flag next to it:

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

Twenty-Five Years Before, Ten Years After

Twenty-Five Years Before, Ten Years After

I took this photo on July 4, 1976, as my family and I stood on the deck of the New York Bay, passing by the World Trade Center. My father, who worked for a steamship company for many years, had gotten us tickets to Operation Sail, and we had the equivalent of a front-row seat as we watched the tall ships passing by. We saw the Statue of Liberty from the water, and the tip of Manhattan as well. At that time, I had a small camera that took a 110 film cartridge, and as we passed in front of the World Trade Center, I snapped the photo that I’ve posted above.

Some years earlier, when I was in second grade, my teacher took us on a field trip to the World Trade Center. Only one of the towers was completed then. Through the window of the observation deck, we could see the top of the unfinished building with the cranes around it.

I remember how our guide told us how high the winds could get on the roof of the building, and how a penny dropped from that height would kill someone on the ground if it hit them.

Ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, I was just coming home from work. A friend of mine in New York had just left me a message telling me that she had just heard that a small plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

I turned on the television, which was still broadcasting the children’s programming that it aired at that time of day. But several minutes later, the station interrupted its regular programming with a live feed from New York. I watched in horror, then called my family in the US to find out whether they were all right. Thank God, they were.

Later that evening, my dear, late friend Bev called and invited me to her place. Neither of us should be alone this evening, she said. When I got there, I saw that she had lit several candles for the souls of those who had perished. We sat together and tried to comfort each other as we watched further developments on the news.

in my mind, I kept hearing the guide of our second-grade class telling us how a single penny dropped from the top of the World Trade Center could kill. And the damage and losses we were witnessing were so enormously, inconceivably worse....

Pictures from the Beach

Pictures from the Beach

Here are some photos from my trip to the beach last week.

Snagged a plane....

And another:

Folks having fun:

Another plane (and the plane flew over the moon!):

A tail made of water:

I even got some detail of the moon’s surface on this one:

A plane leaving the sunset behind:

I’ll put the rest on my Flickr page when I get some time.

Why I Am Now Moderating Comments to This Blog

Why I Am Now Moderating Comments to This Blog

About a year ago, I got an email from someone (I forget the name he used) asking me to insert a link into one of my posts in exchange for over a hundred dollars. The link was to one of these places that lends out money before payday. The business sounded legal enough – I understand that there are places like these all over the US – and I looked up the site. It appeared well-kept and above-board, but I still felt uncomfortable. The whole thing just felt fishy, and it felt even fishier when I saw that the person who got in touch with me was using a fake name. (I don’t remember the name now, but it was unusual, and when I looked it up, it turned out to be the name of an obscure American figure from the Civil War era.) I explained that I was not comfortable accepting money from someone I didn’t know, and I asked him for his real name and location. I never heard from him again.

Well, now the tactic is a bit different. First there was the guy who left a marginally-relevant comment whose obvious goal was to drive traffic to his site, which is actually about a topic I like, but it’s still a trashy content farm. That was a day or two ago. Then there was the shameless spammer who left a comment on the post that I wrote about my teacher, Miss Jurist, mentioning her by name and saying how fondly he remembered her classes... and leaving a link to some SEO site. Pretty low, if you ask me.

So I᾿ve had to lock the door and use the peephole before I allow anyone inside. In other words, comments are now moderated. I don’t like it. I wish I didn’t have to do it. But spammers are slime, and their techniques are getting a bit more sophisticated – fortunately, not so sophisticated that I can’t protect myself.

My Unfriendly Shul Story

My Unfriendly Shul Story

(inspired by Treppenwitz’s post, ”The Unfriendliest Shul in the World”)

Some years ago, I decided to try a synagogue that, while adhering to halakha (Jewish religious law), made efforts to increase the participation of women in the service. For example, after the Torah scroll is removed from the Ark, a woman carries it through the women’s section, and then a man carries it through the men’s section. In this way, all congregants, men and women alike, have the opportunity to kiss the Torah scroll as it is carried to the reading table.

One Shabbat morning, I was asked to carry the Torah scroll through the women’s section, an honor that I gladly accepted. When it was time, I took the Torah scroll in my arms and carried it down the main aisle, from the front of the room to the rear, as I had been told to do.

I was about halfway down the aisle when I noticed a small group of women gathered in the rear of the women’s section. I didn’t recognize them, and it seemed to me that they looked a little lost. I figured that they must be guests or perhaps new to the area. Thinking that it would be good to reach out to them a little, I walked a few steps away from the main aisle and brought the Torah scroll directly to them to kiss. Then I turned around, retraced my steps to the mehitzah [the divider between the men’s and women’s sections] and handed the Torah scroll to the man who would take it through the men’s section. My extra walk to and from the group of women took no more than several seconds – a very small price to pay, I thought, for making them feel welcome. Since I hadn’t caused any delay in the service, surely no one would have a problem with what I had done – or so I thought.

After the service, one of the women who had been at the back of the room approached me. She said that she and her friends were new to the area and thanked me for having carried the Torah scroll to them. It had meant so much, she said.

At almost the same time, one of the women in charge of the synagogue gave me a quiet reprimand. The next time I was given the opportunity to carry the Torah through the women’s section, she said, I was to carry it straight down the aisle, not turning to the right or to the left.

I told her about the woman at the back of the room – how lost she and her friends had looked, and how she had thanked me for carrying the Torah to them. “Doesn’t that mean anything?” I asked. “It was only a few seconds, no more. I didn’t delay the service at all, and they felt so much better.”

The woman only repeated: “When you carry the Torah, you must carry it straight down the aisle.”

Well, I figured, this lady certainly has her priorities in order....