shabbat shalom 15.04.09

From: Linda Whittaker Email: olsvig2000@yahoo.com
To: Linda Olsvig-Whittaker Email: Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il
Thu, April 15, 2010 10:26:16 AM

Hi everyone,

It's the post-Passover holiday season in Israel, with commemoration of the Holocaust this week, and next week Remembrance Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, immediately followed by Israel Independence Day. (That is always a gut-wrenching transition from mourning to rejoicing in a few hours, but it always drives home the fact that Israeli nationhood came with a heavy price.)

Holocaust Remembrance Day (or more correctly Remembrance Day for Heroes and Martyrs of the Shoah) is another very traumatic day. Our director had been in the habit of bringing us all to Ya VaShem, which I find too difficult to bear. It literally makes me sick in less than an hour. But in the last couple years the orientation has changed. Last year was a trip to Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz founded by Holocaust survivors. This year it was to Givat Haviva, the Kibbutz Artzi Federation learning center.

Rooted in HaShomer HaZair, the Zionist Young Guards, Kibbutz Artzi is the most socialist of the kibbutz streams, and has the socialist traits of optimism and humanist values, which makes the Holocaust museum much more tolerable. It's more about life, both in the ghetto and in the camps, and emphasizes courage and cooperation, as you would expect from socialists. There is still much darkness, but there are always at least little points of light in the darkness to give inspiration rather than despair. They even had us singing Yiddish songs of the old times.....I think they are right. Remember the past in a way that guides you to make the present and future better, not to be a masochist. I always liked Kibbutz Artzi; in another time I would have been tempted to join them.....

At home, my cats are doing well. Homer, the blind and deaf cat, has fully recovered his healthy pink color rather than the jaundice he had, and is eating like a horse, and is active again I have to watch that he doesn't get out of the house. I have another ratbag of an old street tomcat who came to me very sick, and has spent the last two weeks sleeping in a basket in the back room. He's better too, although I have seldom seen such a beat up old cat. Don't know whether he will live or die, but if he dies, at least it will be in comfort on a soft fleece blanket in a safe room. That's better than most street cats get.

With spring at its peak, I have become a bit lazy. For months I was sick and never comfortable, so I worked but not efficiently. Now I can work efficiently, which leaves me with spare time in which I am simply enjoying life. My garden is pleasant and I can take my breakfast and supper there again (and will, until it gets cool again in November). Roses are in bloom and there is also the sweet and sour smell of the maquis shrubs in bloom around my house, with their yellow legume flowers. The lemon tree in the kitchen garden is full of ripe fruit. The orange and strawberry seasons are past, and the melon season is just beginning. The late spring flowers like wild hollyhock are in full bloom on the roadsides, tall pink spears with their palm-sized blossoms. The sun is warming and not yet harsh. It's a beautiful time of year well designed for being lazy and comfortable - unless you are a farmer!

Now is the "Counting of the Omer", the fifty days between Passover and Shavuot (Pentecost), when the first of the grain harvest was offered in the temple. We still follow the seasons here, and the barley and wheat are steadily ripening and turning golden in the fields. Shavuot is in May, and brings the spring festivals to an end. In my case, that will include a concert in Abu Gosh, more or less traditional by now.

Let's see, what else is worth mentioning....former Jeruslaem mayor Lupolianski was just arrested by our police for taking some 3 million shekels in bribes. I was a bit gleeful about this because the guy is literally a thug; he made threatening phone calls to my pastor's wife in his youth and didn't seem to get any more honest over time. Hope they nail him to the wall and leave him there. The last mayor, Olmert, is also under investigation for financial misdeeds. The current one seems like Mr. Clean; let's hope. Jerusalem is one of the poorest cities in Israel, and graft sure doesn't help.

My Dutch student David Jobse finished most of his field sampling and will be going back to Holland at the end of the month. Meanwhile I have to make another trip to the Negev to see the last of his field work. After that, there will be all summer to work up the findings. I also have another Dutch student coming, this time to work in the north. These graduate students (both on M.Sc. studies) do a lot to brighten my work. Unless we go to war again, I am hoping I will have a steady supply of them coming from Holland. They do good work and seem to like it here.

Guess that's all for tonight.

shabbat shalom,
Linda

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