Stop This War Now! Lebanon, Cairo, Revisited...

I've just found this important message in my e-mail.

In 1993, he was the Director of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo, Egypt. I was researching for my "Noffey Haneffesh" - encounters with international women writers telling the story of Childhood Emotional and Spiritual Landscapes.

For a full week he put his entire staff at my assistance, in in our endeavors to meet with Egyptian women writers. A most warm, special person.
Here come his words of wisdom, uttered almost two weeks ago.

Our politicians choose to cover their ears and sadly enough, are able, as so often in history, to delude a majority of fools scared into blind submission.



End this War Now

To: Every Concerned Person
From: Emanuel Marx

Armies are trained to destroy enemies and conquer their territory. An army that runs out of control will find and fight more and more external and internal enemies, always in pursuit of an elusive victory.

That has happened to the Israeli Army on several occasions. Whenever it was allowed free rein, its campaigns ended in humanitarian disasters. Just now we are witnessing another instance: while the campaign against the Hizballah terrorist organization did not save the Israeli civilian population from rocket attacks, it rapidly turned into an assault on the Lebanese civilian population. Within days it deteriorated into a humanitarian catastrophe. Half a million innocent Lebanese civilians lost their homes and became refugees.

The Israeli Government must reassume control of the Army and stop the fighting immediately. Negotiations will surely achieve better outcomes.

July 21, 2006

(Emanuel Marx is a professor of Social Anthropology at Tel Aviv University.
He is a jubilee year (1998) Israel Prize laureate.)

About Me in Hebrew

נולדתי ברומניה.

בתוכנית "קפה תיאטרון", שאל נועם סמל, "מהי המולדת שלך?"
היינו ארבעה מתארחים אצלו.
רמי סערי אמר שבשבילו, השפה היא המולדת.
אני לא יכולה לומר שהשפה היא המולדת כי מתחת לעברית, שבה אני כותבת, מתנגנת השפה הרומנית. שפת אגדות ושירה.
שמעתי את עצמי אומרת, "המולדת שלי היא משפטי נירנברג."
דודי היה מושיב אותי על הברכיים שלו ומבקש שאקרא מן העיתון את הדיווח היומי מנירנברג.
וגם: המולדת היא לשון התנ"ך. הפשטות. התימצות. עושר האמירות שחבויות בין מלה למלה.

ב-1962 התפרסם ספר הביכורים - לילדים. "מי ראה את מיקי."
על הנוראות שבאו לי עמו סיפרתי בראיון עם עופרי אילני.
את הסיפור הראשון פרסמתי ב-1970, ברבעון "קשת".
ב-1973 יצא הספר השני: "כעין תשובה".
ב-1989, ראה אור הספר השלישי: "דפים ורודים."
לקח רק משהו כמו חמש-עשרה שנים.
בספטמבר 2002 ראה אור ספרי הרביעי: "סודות".
פרוזה. נכתב על פני שלושים שנה.
בתחילת יוני 2003 יצא אל העולם הספר החמישי: "נופי הנפש."
שלא כקודמיו, הוא ספרות תעודה.
שיחות עם סופרות בינלאומיות על ילדות פגועה, שזורות בין דפי היומן האימפרסיוניסטי שלי.
על הספר הזה עבדתי עשר שנים.

מאז דצמבר 2000 אני עובדת על הספר השישי. מקווה להשלים אותו עד תחילת 2006.
מלבדו עומדים בתור שבעה ספרים נוספים. ייקח לי בין שבעים למאתיים ועשר שנים, ואשלים גם אותם.

טוב שיש בלוג, מקום בו ניתן לכתוב במנות קטנות יותר.
בספטמבר 2002, עם צאת "סודות", עלה גם האתר הרב לשוני.

חצי שנה קודם לכן תחקרתי את האינטרנט לאורך ולרוחב. גיליתי אתרים של מעצבים יצירתיים מאד שהפכו את התחום לאמנות בזכות עצמה. מהם השכלתי.
האתר מתארח חופשי בצד עיתון אינטרנטי שאני תורמת לו מדי פעם. אלא שיש הגבלה: לא יכולה לעדכן לעתים תכופות.

לכן הקמתי בלוג עברי.

בהביטי מן הצד, אני עשר פעמים ביום אומרת, לא די לך באלה?!
מה עוד? אופנסיבת בלוגים?

כן. הבלוג הדעתן, מסתבר, יש לו כוח להפוך אותך מאזרח ילד לבעל/ת בית על החיים כאן. את זה השכילו להבין בעולם.

מה עוד את זוממת?
מתהווה בלוג רב לשוני. בזכות אנשים מופלאים מפה ומשם.

יש עוד?

בלוג רדיו באודיאו. בלוג וידאו ביו-טיוב. בלוג ממאדים.

כל החיים לפניי.

עד כמה שזה תלוי בי.

Lebanon and the Anthem: The Cult of Glory

Yet Charity is blissfully present - which gives way to hope.
Or is it the reason the Cult of Martyrdom seeks to overcome the Cult of Charity?
My heart goes to the people of Lebanon. Like us, like all people on this anguished Earth, they deserve a sane life.

All for the country, for the glory, for the flag
From the beginning of centuries, our pencil and sword
Our field and mountains are making the men
Our word and work on the way of perfection
All for the country, for the glory for the flag

Young and old at the voice of the country
Lions of forest at the time of violation
Our east is its heart forever Lebanon
Its God protects it all over the time
All for the country, for the glory for the flag

Its sea, its land, are the pearl of the two orients
Its symbol, its charity, fill up the two poles
Its name is its triumph since the time of our grandfathers
Its glory is its cedars, its symbol is for the end of epochs
All for the country, for the glory for the flag

Iran: The Cult Of Martyrdom is our Doom

The Flag and the Anthem, the words and the image, all directed to move our senses toward the prevailing mottif: You are but a tool in the hands of The-Power-Driven, who swirl your heart into the false, manipulating message:

Martyrdom Is Bliss. Life Is Hell.

Hence, to prove it they'll do everything in their power to create this hell on Earth - for you:


Three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white

Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge of the red band:



Upwards on the horizon rises the Eastern Sun,
The sight of the true Religion.
Bahman - the brilliance of our Faith.
Your message, O Imam, of independence and freedom
is imprinted on our souls.
O Martyrs! The time of your cries of pain rings in our ears.
Enduring, continuing, eternal,
The Islamic Republic of Iran.

War, Israel, Lebanon, Hizballa, The Other Side of the Moon?

Oh, how tired I am, and not just owing to the late hour - past 01:00!
Reading through Raja's report from Beirut and the multitude of comments brought me to see behind the clouds of war and all the Hizballa mighty presentations of innocent patriotism: there is an intention there, so I detect, to create an atmosphere of despair and, wait and see! soon we'll have demonstrations of calls to Syria to drop by and save Lebanon from its weak goverment.

Yet, since we are not just on the same moon but actually mirroring each other - I fear the day such a call will spread here, to bring about a strong leader.

Meanwhile our civilian Ministers, play hostages to our generals.

All in all, the boys games go on ad infinitum.

Or until we step in and stop them for awhile.

Raise the Black Flag, people. Let's have some rest of all these stupid games of war.

Critical Love

1.
Luckily, my books are appreciated by the reviewers.
Yet, as we all know, quite often reviewers write on books they dislike.
Hard to understand: why waste time on a book you consider unworthy?
2.
Reviews of the appreciated are most of the time serious, even profound.
Reviews of books abhorred are mostly ridiculing or cynical.
Amusing indeed they are, and especially satisfying the popular desire for Blood.
Which of the two attracts more readers?
Which of the two is more demanding, Time-wise?
3.
It is common wisdom nowadays that in order to write a book, all some need is just a computer and a noisy publisher.
A real flood.
Hence, it is said that reviews alerting us are essential. Otherwise, left alone, how could we discern?
4.
Years ago - by chance at the annual Hebrew Book Fair in Tel-Aviv - I noticed a man standing in a corner of the square, next to a basket in which lay three cocker-spaniel puppies.

I took one out, just to stroke it gently.
Do you think I ever put it back?
No.
I bought it.
I was not familiar with those species. Had never heard of them before.
That's how books buy my heart*.





* a Hebrew expression.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read it in Russian; in Polish;in Hungarian; in Hebrew; in Farsi;

Thanking Laila

Thanks, Laila for your words.
Unlike some of the commentors, your dignified attitude is quite touching.

I'm back home from a few hours of holiday gift shopping. All along I was thinking, with a trembling heart, here we are and there they are, so close by and yet all this aimless suffering. There is no justification for all those power fights, bringing disaster on the innocents in an endless circle of mindless cruelty.

Thank you for being.

In Hebrew Laila means, Night. So persistent is the feeling that Night itself closes upon us. Yet your words, paradoxically, point to the opposite, give hope, crossing above walls of concrete and fire. I have close friends on the other side of the wall, in farms and kibutzim, mothers trembling for their own innocent babies.

It's time for us to get up and issue an order to those leaders playing ping-pong with our lives: Stop all power games. Enough is enough.

Pass On! Pass On!

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