Those pesky Jews, they even invented Tree Hugging (updated)
Today, besides celebrating the Shabbat, which we do every week, we also celebrate the New Year for the Trees, Tu b’Shvat. It’s a fun day, although better when it falls during the week. It’s time for planting trees, not a pastime observant Jews can engage in on a Shabbat. It’s also a time for eating dried fruits, and an interesting mixture always appears in the stores, in addition to the usual stuff. My all time favorite is dried quince, absolutely delicious, but horribly fattening. The smaller school kids have a field day on Tu b’Shvat, literally. They go out and plant trees. This year the reluctant teachers managed to weasel out of it, because it’s on a Shabbat. Youngest staggered home with three plants the other day. They were selling them at school. I’ve no idea how she managed to juggle three, but they arrived intact, a cyclamen, a violet and another one, Youngest said it’s called “primula”, but I can’t find that in the dictionary.

In recent years there has been an effort to get people to have a Tu b'Shvat Seder, like the Passover Seder. I think the idea is that it's something everyone can relate to - religious, secular, left, right and center - trees, nature, nice stuff. It’s apparently quite an ancient tradition, dating back to the elders of Tzfat (the town of Safed in the Upper Galilee) in the sixteenth century or something. I tried to do it with my family a few years ago, having edited out some of the Naomi Shemer songs. Even I have my limits. Well the table looked lovely, the fruit and nuts looked delectable, all organized on plates in three layers according to the Seder, but no one had any patience for reading and singing. They just ate and disappeared. So that was that. I should try it again now that Youngest is older. I think she’ll appreciate it. She's the only one who loves lighting the Shabbat candles with me.

Anyway, a belated Shabbat Shalom and I hope you are all enjoying Tu b'Shvat (even if you're not Jewish it's a good opportunity to look around and enjoy nature). And, of course, Hag Same'ach (a happy holiday) to all the trees.

Update: Ah, John to the rescue. Primula.

Update 2: Our Sis says I should be ashamed of myself - primula is the posh(=scientific) name for the primrose. Oh well, she was the one who took biology in high school. I am quite happy looking at a flower and saying "Isn't that a lovely flower?" I have no interest in knowing what it's called. I'm not completely ignorant though, I can tell the difference between an anemone and a poppy.

Lynn has a nice Tu b'Shvat post.
posted by Imshin 12:11

This gives a rather distorted impression.
It's meant to be countries I've visited.


create your own visited country map
(Click for bigger image)

But if I’ve been to, like, three of the United States on the East Coast, during a fortnight when I was fourteen, it doesn't mean I’ve been to all of the United States, including Alaska. And what’s that group of islands north of Scandinavia? I’m pretty sure I've never been there.

I'd be interested in seeing Jonathan's map.

Via Silflay Hraka
posted by Imshin 21:00

Here we go.
Anti-Sharon Graffiti was painted last night on the glass windows of Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv.

Ruminating further about the Gaza thing, I’m feeling a bit uneasy. Yes, we want to get out of that hellhole, but is this the time? Says Zev, on Allison’s comments:

Perhaps we should leave Gaza someday; I certainly have no brief for staying there. However, to leave under the present circumstances would be a disaster. It would signal to the Palestinians that terror works, and would encourage them to continue in their murderous ways.
What the government should be doing is hitting the terrorists with everything it has, without worrying about what the world will think and without worrying about so-called "innocents." A government's first duty is to defend its citizens; Israel has been remiss in this. They should stop retaliating, and get proactive. Once we've won the war, that will be the time to talk about pulling out of Gaza. Not before.

What can I say? He’s right too.

Think about the logistics, think about tearful soldier girls dragging screaming and struggling women out of their homes, while jubilant Palestinians celebrate on the surrounding sand dunes. Does this sound healthy to you?
posted by Imshin 17:17

Well, well, well!
While I was struggling to stay awake in those sleepy after-lunch hours during which work should not be allowed, things were happening. Luckily for us, Allison was wide awake and not missing a trick. So Sharon has announced that he intends to move most of the Jews out of the Gaza Strip. Seventeen settlements he says. He doesn’t say when this is going to happen and you have to ask yourself how long he’s going to last in power what with all these corruption allegations. Will he have time to do it?

I’m in favor, but only on the condition that they do it right, so it’s not seen as giving in to terror.

Have I ever told you about the time I did reserve duty in the Gaza Strip? I don’t think I have.

It was the summer of ’87, just a few months before the Intifada started. During my bout there, I finally got the demographic problem.

Rafah horrified me. I’d never seen so many people in my life, just standing about, hanging around, in the streets and alleyways. It looked like prison. And to make things worse, the town was cut in half by a border. Half the town was in Israel, the other half in Egypt. The Egyptian side didn’t look any better than the Israeli side, by the way. We drove along the border in a jeep. I believe you can’t do that today, unless you’re in a heavily armed vehicle, and even then it’s very dangerous. That’s the border they tunnel under to smuggle arms in.

Gaza City shocked me. What a hole! I was used to the West Bank and was particularly partial to Ramallah, which I used to think was a very beautiful city. I haven’t been there for many years, so I don’t know what it looks like today, and I’m not going to check it out. I could very well get lynched. But in the old days, I used to love those big stone houses with their lovely big windows. There was a proud, affluent feel to Ramallah.

Gaza and Rafah looked nothing like that. Gaza and Rafah looked like what I imagined the poorest parts of Africa to be like. I came back a strong supporter of the Peace Now camp.

I also came back with a decided dislike for the Jewish religious settlers I encountered and for what I experienced as the weird, sterile, pretty little Jewish island they were trying to build there, right in the middle of a sea of wretchedness and intense hostility, as if it didn’t exist, as if the area was completely uninhabited, and not one of the most densely populated, miserable, poverty-stricken cesspools in the world.

One day, we had the afternoon off, and we went to the beach - a Jewish holiday resort that was being built at the time by Palestinian workers, near Neve Dekalim. It was very eerie. We were completely on our own there, a handful of soldiers, armed to the teeth. A strange kind of recreation indeed. It felt horrible.

Years later, I remember my satisfaction watching on TV about the development in Gaza City under the PA. They showed modern high-rise apartment buildings, they showed restaurants on the seafront, they showed families enjoying themselves on the beach. The people looked more satisfied. I thought it was great.

But apparently only rich American-Palestinian entrepreneurs and Arafat’s cronies could afford such luxuries. The rest of Gaza was just the same as always, poor and miserable, only now, unlike before, because of the crazy increase in terrorism coming out of PA areas, most of the men were no longer allowed to go to work inside Israel. So in fact, in spite of the appearance of an improvement, things were actually far worse. Ordinary Gazans certainly weren’t seeing any of the money that was being poured in.

* * * * *

As far as I know, we have no ancient historic connections to the Gaza Strip. In biblical times it was home to our archenemies, the Philistines. Even today, only about 7500 Jews want to live there, and as many soldiers have to risk their lives defending them.

Yes, I wholeheartedly support getting out of there. But not like we got out of Lebanon. Not in a way that could be interpreted as a reward for terrorism. Not if it is interpreted as weakness and serves to feed the sick Palestinian propensity for murder and mayhem. We have to be very careful how we go about this.

Update: More discussion about this - The Head Heeb, Segacs's, Brian Ulrich.
posted by Imshin 20:28

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, R.T., THE BEST BROTHER.
posted by Imshin 06:14

I’m still reading the full report of recommendations of the Orr Commission that investigated the riots of Israeli Arabs in October 2000. I’m up to the part describing the social and economic background that is seen by the commission as one of the causes of the riots. It’s a pity I don’t have it in English, because I’m sure Jonathan and Diane would find it interesting. There is a very detailed and interesting rundown of the inequality of Israeli Arabs, but nothing about mixed marriages so far, Diane, although there is a passage about inequality in allocation of funds by the Ministry for Religious Affairs, that (until very, very recently) was responsible for marriages (don’t shoot, I’m only the messenger). Since I hear this ministry is currently being liquidated, and was widely regarded as mainly a funnel through which various religious politicians allocated handouts to non-productive ultra-religious groups affiliated to them, anyway, I rather see it as a good thing that there was inequality here. The Arabs can be proud of not taking part in that particular corrupt undertaking. I think that if anyone checked, they’d probably find that secular Jews were also discriminated against by this ministry. Good riddance to it.

But inequality there was and is. Some of it is unjustifiable; some is understandable, but still hard to accept. Reading about it is making me think more about the Turkish-Greek solution. Maybe in the long run there will be no solution besides separation of both peoples, a large segment of Israeli Arabs included. This could be made possible by swapping large Jewish settlement concentrations on the border between the Territories and pre-’67 Israel, with large Israeli Arab town concentrations (Taybeh, Tira, Umm el-Fahm, etc.) also near the Green Line. I don’t see how anything else can work. The problem, of course, is that Israeli Arabs don’t want to be part of the Palestinian entity, and who can blame them? They may have it bad compared to the Jews in Israel, but they still have it infinitely better than Arabs in any Arab countries, not to mention the PA. One can only dream that one day a decent Palestinian leadership will miraculously appear and lead its people to prosperity and happiness, and Israeli Arabs will actually want to be a part of that. Hopefully, this will come to pass before pigs learn to fly. Neither Arabs nor Jews eat pigs so maybe we have a chance.

Update: Jonathan has posted some very interesting thoughts about affirmative action in Israel.
posted by Imshin 16:57

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