Tel Aviv Diary - January 11-15, 2012 Karen Alkalay-Gut

January 11, 2012

See Haaretz today for a review of my book. It's small but profound, just like the book. And I had a cool and profound interview on Galei Zahal today with Zipi Gon Gross that should be broadcasted on Friday afternoon

Ezi's having strong reactions to the neupogen injections and so we watch tv a lot - the dumber the better. Fortunately the day was good for staying in bed. As Chaucer's Pandarus says to Cresyde: `Lord, this is an huge rayn!/ This were a weder for to slepen inne;" He's trying to persuade his niece to go to bed with Troilus so he makes the rainy day look inviting - probably with a great wink.

January 12, 2012

I don't know what kind of survey determined that Tel Aviv is the most gay friendly city in the world. Gay Travel. It is friendly, but as with every thing else in TA, there are problems, such as a little 'incident' in a gay club for teenagers a while back where someone walked in and shot randomly into the room, killing and injuring children. We're a country of extremes, and although we call our homosexuals, "gayim" which means proud ones in Hebrew as well as being the plural of "gay" there are communities that consider homosexuality a deadly sin. Lesbianism is actually okay. who cares what women do as long as they make kids?

It is probably sleeplessness that makes me rant like this. Ezi wakes up from the pain and then I get up, but he is soon snoring again while I have visions of tigers and lions for the rest of the night. They say anyway we don't get enough sleep around here - at least the Jews don't. The Muslims, according to surveys, sleep one hour more per night then the Jews.

January 13, 2012

If you missed the Galei Zahal program today where I spoke about my book today here it is. You have to know Hebrew and its 26 minutes into the program.

The scandal this week in the Knesset when Anastassia Michaeli threw a glass of water into Raleb Majadele's face has made me think about the whole public identity of women in Israel. I mean the pop identity. This morning we watched a debate on tv and Miri Regev was outshouting everyone as usual... most of the women I know are kindhearted and warm but the ones who succeed are loud, nasty, pushy and a little paranoid. It's nice to see one of them get reprimanded by the knesset.

January 14, 2012

But HOW are women supposed to behave in an aggressive almost-post-feminist society? the only answer I can come up with is they should act like human beings. it's not enough but it's all I've got.

January 15, 2012

Ezi arrived in Ichilov at 7:30 for his bone marrow harvesting. His blood count was tested and then he was hooked up to the centrifugal machine whic is something like dialysis for blood. Bone marrow and plasma were extracted and his blood was replaced. Now we were waiting to see if they got enough and we can go home. It's pretty amazing how simple it is becoming to save lives!

And now we're home and all is well. Omer has a new toy - the Gaya stand in the hospital shopping center has all these irresistable educational games, and when we passed by he said, "What is that?" and pointed to a wooden train. Then "What is this?" and pointed to something else. Because he didn't ask for anything, but just inquired about it, I melted. "What do you have for a child of a year and half?" the salesman said, "What can he do? Can he do this puzzle?" "Oh yes, " said his mother. "And this?" "not quite." "Well then," he pulled out one of those fit-the-triangle things and I pulled out my credit card. After offering to hire Omer to sit and play with the toys to show people how much fun they are, he said to me, "We have a saying in Arabic, 'the mother loves, but the grandmother loves more'." Now if anything can open a grandmother's purse wider, that could. But we were in a hurry to get back to Ezi, so one triangle game was enough for today.

To Karen Alkalay-Gut Diary

To Karen Alkalay-Gut home