My cup runneth over
I don't often go abroad. Don't feel like it and anyway I'd rather struggling Israeli tourist people have my money. A few years ago something struck me when I came back from a short trip to Europe. I realized how relieved I always was to be home. The western world is a bit straight laced for me. I love the chaos. I love it that roads aren't perfectly straight. I love it that people are a bit crazy. And bad tempered. And say what they think, instead of giving you a dirty look and leaving you to guess.

I hear a lot of people who come to Israel are put off by the Israelis' brusque manner. Of course, they can't make light of the situation by laughing at it, by making jokes with strangers at the bus stop. They can't disarm clerks, policemen, or security guards with casual familiarity. Not that they don't try. I've seen. But do the people they are talking to really get them? How good is their English really? A longtime resident of Israel I know, who never quite got the hang of Hebrew, once commented that one thing he missed, living in a country of which he was not a native, was being able to make humorous remarks to people. But I can. I can't do it anywhere else, but I can here. I love that this is home.

I love Tel Aviv on Shabbat. I love running errands with Bish on a Friday morning. I love listening to Youngest playing the piano (I see Alisa's Pashosh also plays). I love watching Eldest being an infuriating adolescent and fearlessly doing things at nearly twelve that I didn't dream of doing until I was fifteen and more.

I could go on and on.

Occasionally someone remarks how brave we Israeli bloggers are. Our life is so dangerous and still we laugh. What are they talking about? My life is wonderful. I am the luckiest of people (Tfu tfu tfu. Sorry, it's a reflex). I have enough to eat and drink. I am healthy (Tfu tfu tfu again). The sun shines every day and I am surrounded by love. What more could anyone possibly want? (A guarantee of immortality, you suggest? No, I pass.)

If I get blown up tomorrow, don't reread this post and shake your heads in sorrow. Be happy for me. I may be dead, but the day before I died was a great day. Who could ask for more?

posted by Imshin 21:37

Thank you so much to all the well-wishers on my blogiversary. It turned out to be a good day for my ego (or would that be a bad day for my ego?). Some people wrote very nice things about me on their blogs, notably Allison, Jonathan, Laurence, Lynn B and Geoff. And I got the greatest present from KL.
posted by Imshin 18:22

Shabbat Shalom (nearly forgot)
posted by Imshin 22:48

A call for Israelis to ban Belgian chocolate has been doing the rounds in Israeli e-mail boxes. It is an answer to an advertisement that has been appearing in Belgian newspapers calling for a ban on Israeli goods. Take a look.

[The Hebrew says: "Belgian chocolate has an anti-Semitic taste. The Belgians are calling for a ban on Israeli produce. Don't put their chocolate in your mouth."]

I would like to point out that I am not endorsing the ban, or the Hebrew comment. I'm not crazy about such bans or such generalizations, although I do personally refrain from buying stuff that I associate with people who I feel hate my guts. I also try not to buy toiletries from companies that I hear test their products on animals. I posted the link to the image mainly because I thought the original Belgian advertisement interesting.

Update: Micol wrote to me: "living in belgium i'd have a hard time boycotting belgian things, but i would like to pint out that the nasty boycott israeli products isn't a "belgian" boycott on israeli brands, it's a boycott made by a (worldwide) chain of stores called OXFAM. this boycott isn't new, this oxfam organisation has a store on my campus and they're really really annoying. so we stuck "boycotting israel is boycotting peace. 70% of palestinian GNP comes from economic interactions with israel" stickers on their door, but they don't really care :p "

posted by Imshin 14:12

I made it!
Today is Not a Fish's first blogiversary.

This has probably been the most emotionally intense and aware year of my life.

This year I sat with my mother and held her hand as her body gradually betrayed her (Or was it her holding my hand?). And we said our goodbyes. This year my mother left that treacherous body of hers and I watched it being lowered into its resting place and being covered with soil. I have struggled to internalize and understand my new relationship with her, for she is still with me in a very real way, maybe even more than before.

I don't know how this process would have unfolded had I not been observing it and experiencing it with the help of this new mode of expression I have found through blogging. The words have always been whirling round my head for as long as I can remember, but I never knew I could string them together as meaningful sentences, and I never knew how insightful this practice could prove to be.

In the year that has past, there has hardly been a day that I haven't thus strung words together and put most of them on display for others to read, something I never would have believed I would ever dare to do. I have learnt that if I am feeling very strong emotions, I can look at them, understand them, and deal with them, by writing about them. This is a wonderful gift.

Everyone who has visited Not a Fish, linked to me, written me an e-mail or a comment (when I still had them) or "just" read what I had to say (and I am still amazed that anyone should want to) is a part of this. I am deeply grateful to you all. You have enriched my life in a way I find hard to describe.

All my life, I think, I have spent learning about, and trying to deal with, my weaknesses and shortcomings. This year I have been learning, maybe for the first time, about my strengths and abilities.

This was my very first post, written a year ago. Little more than a link (Sorry, I didn't know how to link directly to a post back then) and a quote, it is still relevant. I think it sort of sums up this whole year for me. Thank you, Diane.

posted by Imshin 07:01

Silflay Hraka. New URL. Adjust.
posted by Imshin 18:53

Mothers and daughters
Just over a year ago, Hen Keinan's baby daughter, Sinai and Hen's mother, Ruth Peled, were killed in a terrorist attack in Kfar Saba. Less than a month later, Pnina Eizenman also lost her five-year-old daughter, Gal, and her mother, Noah Alon, to a similar attack, this time in Jerusalem. Both Hen and Pnina have recently given birth.

* * * *

Last night a seven year old girl, Noam Leibovitch, was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist that shot at the car she was riding in along a new intercity toll road with her family, on the way home from a wedding. Her three-year-old sister was critically wounded. Allison is worth reading. I don't actually feel as she does, because I ride buses (mainly Tel Aviv's infamous no. 5 bus) and live and work in a quite central part of Tel Aviv. Too many human bombs have blown up near where I live, and in places that me and mine frequent (and Dad and R.T. live in Netanya) for me to believe that we are all anything more than plain lucky.

Oh, and don't miss Allison's previous post about the Golan. Our Sis likes going cherry picking too.


posted by Imshin 17:58

Oh, yes. Definitely. Read my mind.
posted by Imshin 16:23

Good one.
Thank you Alisa (who got it from Jonathan).

Michael would appreciate that.
posted by Imshin 06:51

Me unskillfully interviewing the girls, having just woken up from an unplanned nap (me not the girls)
This afternoon I lay myself down on these Indian mattresses things we have on the living room carpet, just for a few minutes, while I waited for the plumber (This is not going where you think it is. You should be ashamed of yourself!). It's the building's plumber, not mine. He has to do something with the building's pipes that run through my apartment. An hour later I woke up to find he hadn't arrived. It goes without saying that when we made this date I forgot to take his phone number. I'm very busy all this week and his not turning up is very inconvenient, because he'll probably just arrive some other time, when we least want him. In the waking up fuzzy brain mode these thoughts hazily passed through my mind.

Then I started thinking about the debate about Israeli kids hating Arabs that went on here in response to this, which I only discovered because Jonathan Edelstein linked to me and it turned up on my sitemeter. I've been thinking I should write about it, but it's such a tiresome subject.

I donned my serious journalist hat (just kidding, I don't have a serious journalist hat and even if I did my girls wouldn't be taken in for a second) and asked Eldest (nearly 12) if she hated the Arabs (I'm not sure if I asked about the Arabs or just Arabs). She said she hated Arabs who kill us and Arabs who want to fight us and want to kill us and want to throw us out of here. She said she didn't hate Arabs who want peace. She said that not all Arabs want to fight us and kill us. Then she said that on second thoughts maybe they do. She continued to develop this line of thought, in a far more eloquent fashion than I have managed to recreate, demonstrating her understanding of the complexity of the question. I think the bottom line was that she didn't hate Arabs; she hated people who wanted to harm us. Eldest is a very gentle child. I felt no real hatred in her voice or manner. I doubt if she is capable of a burning hatred. She was very matter of fact about it, checking her views in a serious grown up manner (I often think she is far more mature than I am). Then she asked in a giggly voice if this was for the blog. I asked her if it was okay for me to publish it and she said it was.

Then I asked Youngest (8) if she hated the Arabs. She asked me indignantly what sort of question that was. Then she said that if it was for my blog she refused to answer. Clever kid.

So there you are. Never underestimate people just because they are shorter and younger than you. And don't jump to hasty conclusions based on silly newspaper articles.

Being a mother in Israel with two reasonably sociable daughters, I know one or two or a few dozen (at least) Israeli kids, other than my own, quite well, and I am quite secure in my assertion that the newspaper article quoted in Ampersand's post is one of the silliest I've read in a while. The title of the article - "Psychological Study of the Mentality of Jewish Children" is particularly silly. Even in this hazy, post-afternoon nap fuzzy brain state I am in, I fail to see how serious bloggers, or even silly bloggers, could read such tripe and take it seriously.

And now, if you don't mind, those Indian mattresses things are beckoning. I say flow with the haziness. When hazy, nap some more.

You can quote me on that.

posted by Imshin 19:23

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