This week has gone really fast. Part of this was because things actually happened: after three elections in a year a government has finally been formed. A really terrible government, which according to the coalition agreement will allow Netanyahu to basically do as he pleases, despite being accused of corruption, fraud and breach of trust, with a date already set for his trial to start (postponed due to Corona, but probably will begin on the new time). This was announced just before the beginning of Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day, where Bibi had the colossal nerve to compare the Shoah to the Covid-19 pandemic and say "this time we spotted the danger in time." As if no one had seen the danger of Nazism even before the Final Solution was put into motion, as if had he been around then, history would have been different. This cheapening of the memory of the six million disgusts me.
To say nothing of having a lot of my vote in the last elections stolen - 2 of the 3 parties that ran together on the Meretz ticket have broken away and joined the coalition. I have nothing really to say about Orly Levy-Abekasis, the daughter of a former very senior Likud MK and minister, who was never really happy to be forced into running with Meretz (nor was I very happy to vote for her), but I am hugely disappointed in Amir Peretz and Itzik Shmoli, who represent the tattered remnants of the historical Labour party that established the state. It's very depressing, especially given that today's paper said that the latter two have agreed to accept annexation of the Occupied Territories (the so-called "deal of the century") within the framework of the coalition agreement. What a disaster awaits us, to say nothing of the economic crisis that will be exacerbated by 36 ministers, each with their own staff and bureaux. My parents are probably wondering if they should not have just stayed in South Africa.
On to happier things: on Wednesday, I apparently walked over 7 km going to my annual gynaecologist check-up. The doctor's office is in an office tower at the Jerusalem mall, and I decided, rather than driving there and being turned around by the changes caused by the continuing roadworks (about the only thing still going on, at least they took advantage of most people being at home), to take the bus. Wednesday was the first day of new relaxations in the restrictions, and almost all bus lines were back running. Not many people took the bus, and it was one of the few places where everyone was wearing masks properly - except for the driver, but he's not facing the passengers and no one can come near him, anyway. I got lost in the mall parking lot both coming and going, but managed to get to the doctor on time. The secretary is getting a lot of exercise getting up and calling people in - there are several doctors with rooms in that complex, and now everyone has to sit 2 m apart (and sign a declaration saying they've not been ill for the past 14 days), so she can't just call to a name, she has to get up and stand in the middle of the room. Everything went smoothly otherwise, although stopping at the neighbourhood grocery store on the way home was quite scary: so many people with a mask just slung under their chin, not covering their mouth and nose, even when actually talking to other people. I among convinced that in a fortnight we will all be back inside, with severe restrictions once again, because there will be a second wave.
Work has been going really well this week. Lots of advances in the Mamilla project, and I've just received what is hopefully the final version of the Alexandria book to go through. AND a couple of articles I edited have been paid for on the spot. On Friday afternoon, there was an international Zoominar for scholars of the Mongol Empire and Mamluk Sultanate, and it was really great seeing lots of friends I haven't seen in so long. I was very impressed by the Americans, who got up at 6 and 7 a.m. to attend, as well as the Chinese and Mongolian scholars, who mostly didn't have video on because of infrastructure issues, but were still there anyway. It was also a lot of fun hearing a medieval lecture, which I haven't heard for even longer than I've not seen people. The research group I'm part of are all very nice, but the 19th and 20th century are just less interesting to me than the 12th-15th.
We watched a LOT of movies this week and the last. No wonder I made great progress on G's birthday present - leggings with dragon spikes, also with yarn from my late MIL's stash. It is true that knit 2, purl 2, is very mindless, but 2 25cm tubes in just over a week is good going ... This week our movie-watching had a kind of theme of misfits: Ida, about a Polish novice who discovers she is the daughter of a Jewish family killed by the family that his them; The Shape of Water, about a mute woman who falls in love with an amphibian man; and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - self-explanatory, I should think. I must say that I finished watching the movie probably even more confused that I was five minutes in. I think it's easier to follow the plot line in books, because there at least you're told whose speaking, and you don't need to remember what the characters look like! Last weekend we saw Amadeus (I hated Tom Hulce, ADC was fascinated by Salieri's pâttiserie), Born on the 4th of July and Interview with the Vampire (even though I don't really like Tom Cruise). These were all S's choices, but this weekend we watched movies without him, as he has a paper to write for school (instead a history test), and spent all day Saturday doing research. On Thursday his class ended the week by making lasagne together - his homeroom teacher is clearly determined that if nothing else, the children come out of lockdown knowing their way around a kitchen.
Stay safe, healthy and serene, everyone!
Sunday 26 April 2020
Monday 20 April 2020
Week 5 - April 13-19, 2020
As I write this, it is already the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, which really puts the confinements and restrictions of life during coronavirus into proportion.
Pesach has come and gone. I was successful in buying eggs and matzo - so much so that I gave a packet to M, who had run out (I was only able to buy a 1kg box, much more than we needed). We ate matzo brei (French toast made with matzo) on Wednesday morning, and said goodbye to it for another year. We had spaghetti aglio olio for supper, and over the weekend ADC made biscuits, moufletas and granola (also yoghurt, breakfast yesterday was fantastic). Moufletas are a kind of fried yeast dough, traditionally made by North African Jews to celebrate the end of Passover and eaten with butter and honey. This is definitely not our personal ethnic tradition - we're as Ashkenazi as they come - but ADC grew up eating those made by neighbours in Beersheba and has been wanting to try making them for a long time. They were very neutral tasting, and after breakfast (where some of us ate them with maple syrup; I'm sure there are moufletas eaten that way in Montreal every way), when we did not finish them, we had them with cheese and spring onions for a late lunch.
We had extra family Zoom meetings this week - not just on the evening of the last day of Pesach and on Friday/Saturday night, but also on Z's birthday. It got to be a bit much... there's not that much you can say, when you're not going anywhere. Happily, I finished a black and white striped scarf for Z, a Juventus fan, in time to show it to him on his birthday. I also finally finished a cardigan for myself, also striped, in various shades of purple, just in time for the first spring heatwave. (My cardigan is merino wool, whereas Z's scarf is acrylic from stash inherited from my late MIL.) I've now begun leggings with dragon's spikes for G, whose 4th birthday is on May 8, also using inherited stash - Z, who turned 9, at least is very appreciative of this. This also means that I do have something new for the ADC family Zoom talks every week! I'm still continuing LR's top, which is a lovely cotton/silk blend, but as her birthday was back in December, this is late anyway and has no deadline. Once I finish G's present I'll go back to that full time.
Of course, "full time" does not include the time spent doing actual work that I get paid for. Despite last week being officially semi-holiday, I actually got a lot done, editing the final (I hope) version of RE's book on affluence and collapse in pre-modern civilisations, including the footnotes. The bibliography still needs to be properly sorted out, but that will wait until he answers my questions. The book is very interesting, and timely, too - although the theme is the influence of short-term climate changes and their domino effects (famine, mass migration, intolerance and war), it's obvious that the current situation with the coronavirus is a wake-up call as to how fragile the veneer of affluence and civilisation is.
An exciting things that happened over the weekend was A's return to GH. It's not clear how's gap year volunteering will continue exactly, as most things there have closed - although the international high school's eleventh grade are still there, it's not clear that A and his group are needed. Meanwhile, he is stepping up to the plate and is regarded by the people in charge as the de facto leader of the group. The latest announcement was that he was trying to organise volunteer work in agriculture, so that they all had something useful to do (not clear to me how much enthusiasm there is on the part of the rest, but clearly A has his priorities straight). He makes me so proud! E is alone again, but since the second exciting thing was the announcement that many restrictions will be lifted from the 19th, hopefully she'll be able to go back to work and see other people a bit more now.
The lifted restrictions also mean that ADC is able to go back to the lab. There can only be up to 5 people in the lab at a time, wearing masks and observing 2 m distance, so he and his technician have organised shifts, and the students are coming in as much as they can (some of them have small children who have not gone back to their pre-corona frameworks yet). On Sunday ADC taught from A's room for the last time, and in the afternoon he packed everything up (including the milkweed bugs, who apparently did not enjoy their time there) and took it back to Givat Ram. I wonder when I will go back ... libraries will probably be the last places to re-open on campus.
Meanwhile, as the weather has warmed up, I'm making the most of our balcony and spending as much time as I can working there, in the fresh air. However, since I've been getting up relatively late, by the time I've exercised, showered and had breakfast, the chair there has always been in the shade. Yesterday there was a group meeting at 9 a..m, and I found myself sitting in direct sunlight. This had the unexpected result of my MacBook Air overheating and shutting down in the middle of a Zoom meeting! I informed the group of the situation and promised to be back asap. When I plugged the computer back into the electricity, and rejoined everyone, they turned out to have thought it was hilarious and asked me if I'd opened up the bonnet to pour water on the MacBook's engine, as people do on cars on the way up to Jerusalem every summer. I was actually quite worried at first, thinking that the computer might be seriously affected, but all's well that ends well.
Pesach has come and gone. I was successful in buying eggs and matzo - so much so that I gave a packet to M, who had run out (I was only able to buy a 1kg box, much more than we needed). We ate matzo brei (French toast made with matzo) on Wednesday morning, and said goodbye to it for another year. We had spaghetti aglio olio for supper, and over the weekend ADC made biscuits, moufletas and granola (also yoghurt, breakfast yesterday was fantastic). Moufletas are a kind of fried yeast dough, traditionally made by North African Jews to celebrate the end of Passover and eaten with butter and honey. This is definitely not our personal ethnic tradition - we're as Ashkenazi as they come - but ADC grew up eating those made by neighbours in Beersheba and has been wanting to try making them for a long time. They were very neutral tasting, and after breakfast (where some of us ate them with maple syrup; I'm sure there are moufletas eaten that way in Montreal every way), when we did not finish them, we had them with cheese and spring onions for a late lunch.
We had extra family Zoom meetings this week - not just on the evening of the last day of Pesach and on Friday/Saturday night, but also on Z's birthday. It got to be a bit much... there's not that much you can say, when you're not going anywhere. Happily, I finished a black and white striped scarf for Z, a Juventus fan, in time to show it to him on his birthday. I also finally finished a cardigan for myself, also striped, in various shades of purple, just in time for the first spring heatwave. (My cardigan is merino wool, whereas Z's scarf is acrylic from stash inherited from my late MIL.) I've now begun leggings with dragon's spikes for G, whose 4th birthday is on May 8, also using inherited stash - Z, who turned 9, at least is very appreciative of this. This also means that I do have something new for the ADC family Zoom talks every week! I'm still continuing LR's top, which is a lovely cotton/silk blend, but as her birthday was back in December, this is late anyway and has no deadline. Once I finish G's present I'll go back to that full time.
Of course, "full time" does not include the time spent doing actual work that I get paid for. Despite last week being officially semi-holiday, I actually got a lot done, editing the final (I hope) version of RE's book on affluence and collapse in pre-modern civilisations, including the footnotes. The bibliography still needs to be properly sorted out, but that will wait until he answers my questions. The book is very interesting, and timely, too - although the theme is the influence of short-term climate changes and their domino effects (famine, mass migration, intolerance and war), it's obvious that the current situation with the coronavirus is a wake-up call as to how fragile the veneer of affluence and civilisation is.
An exciting things that happened over the weekend was A's return to GH. It's not clear how's gap year volunteering will continue exactly, as most things there have closed - although the international high school's eleventh grade are still there, it's not clear that A and his group are needed. Meanwhile, he is stepping up to the plate and is regarded by the people in charge as the de facto leader of the group. The latest announcement was that he was trying to organise volunteer work in agriculture, so that they all had something useful to do (not clear to me how much enthusiasm there is on the part of the rest, but clearly A has his priorities straight). He makes me so proud! E is alone again, but since the second exciting thing was the announcement that many restrictions will be lifted from the 19th, hopefully she'll be able to go back to work and see other people a bit more now.
The lifted restrictions also mean that ADC is able to go back to the lab. There can only be up to 5 people in the lab at a time, wearing masks and observing 2 m distance, so he and his technician have organised shifts, and the students are coming in as much as they can (some of them have small children who have not gone back to their pre-corona frameworks yet). On Sunday ADC taught from A's room for the last time, and in the afternoon he packed everything up (including the milkweed bugs, who apparently did not enjoy their time there) and took it back to Givat Ram. I wonder when I will go back ... libraries will probably be the last places to re-open on campus.
Meanwhile, as the weather has warmed up, I'm making the most of our balcony and spending as much time as I can working there, in the fresh air. However, since I've been getting up relatively late, by the time I've exercised, showered and had breakfast, the chair there has always been in the shade. Yesterday there was a group meeting at 9 a..m, and I found myself sitting in direct sunlight. This had the unexpected result of my MacBook Air overheating and shutting down in the middle of a Zoom meeting! I informed the group of the situation and promised to be back asap. When I plugged the computer back into the electricity, and rejoined everyone, they turned out to have thought it was hilarious and asked me if I'd opened up the bonnet to pour water on the MacBook's engine, as people do on cars on the way up to Jerusalem every summer. I was actually quite worried at first, thinking that the computer might be seriously affected, but all's well that ends well.
Sunday 12 April 2020
Week 4 - April 6-12, 2020
This week was more interesting than usual. First of all, last Monday ADC and I had the tremendous adventure of going to someone else's house!! This was for the equally exciting purpose for signing a contract for the urban renewal of our building. It was constructed in the 50s, in a hurry, and is one of very few buildings in Jerusalem not faced with stone - and it is literally crumbling. The three entrances have a total of 23 flats, and the location is fantastic, on a fairly large plot of land that it not well utilised at the moment - so it's ideal for urban renewal.
Anyway, we went off, masked and carrying a large bottle of alcohol, to the lawyer's house, which serendipitously is in our neighbourhood. We sat in his garden, keeping the correct distance and using new pens from the box, and spent half an hour signing the contract. In about 3 years, we will have a lovely new home - no matter what happens to the housing market due to Corona. It's only taken about 8 years of ups and downs and changes of lawyers and contractors to get to this point ...
Wednesday night was the Seder, marking the start of Passover. Even stricter curfews than usual were in place, to make sure that people did not travel to spend the evening with the extended family as they normally would. My father reported a police checkpoint at the bottom of their road, which is just on the edge of Kfar Saba towards Hod Hasharon. This was the first Seder without my mother-in-law M, who died very suddenly in December. His side of the family got together on Zoom, using ADC's university account so as not to be cut off, and we had a really lovely Seder. The pre-meal part was just over an hour, and Y's children R and Z read very nicely (G, his youngest, will be four next month and is the only very small child there). We stayed connected during the meal and compared food - and Seder plates. We put an orange instead of the zro'a (we didn't have anything else, since the meat course was beef), and used celery and rocket from the balcony pot plants for the kappas and major, as we didn't have horseradish. The rocket was actually very peppery and played the part of the bitter herbs very well. ADC made excellent charoset, that I'm still eating on matza for breakfast - compared to tasting a bit ceremonially at the Seder and no more. We even managed to continue with the post-Seder songs (both the traditional Jewish ones and Negro spirituals, many of which refer to the Exodus of course), despite the lag on Zoom. The fact that all of us had drunk (at least) four glasses of wine by that time certainly helped...
Earlier on, my family had also had a mass Zoom meeting, not just the Israeli branch but the Cape Town and Berlin ones - unbelievable to think that we were all together in Budapest for the Seder a year ago, while M was studying at Central European University. So much has changed since then - not least that we had planned to visit K in Berlin a month ago. MR played Ma Nishtana and Simḥa Raba on the oboe, which was lovely (especially once everyone else muted themselves, so that there was no echo). It was really good to talk to everyone, and amazing to see how similar A and K (first cousins once removed) look with their hair pulled back; although that might be a matter of camera angle, too.
Because of the holiday, we've been working a bit less (although I continue to be swamped, with people sending articles and book chapters almost daily). ADC and I have binge-watched "Unorthodox" on Netflix, and enjoyed it very much. The Satmar hassidim really do live in a different reality. I found some of the characters over-stereotypical (like the Israeli violinist in
Berlin), but overall, it was excellently done. We've also watched The Third Man, Dr No. and There Will Be Blood. With all that TV/film watching, I finished a black and white striped scarf for Z (a Juventus fan) well in time for his birthday tomorrow, 110 cm knitted in less than a week. I made it using yarn that I inherited from my MIL, so Z will feel that he has a present both from us and from Savta Yum.
Tomorrow, I will get up early and go shopping. ADC couldn't find eggs or matza when he went to the grocery store during his lunch break today, so I'll see if going first thing (i.e., before ten) makes a difference.
Monday 6 April 2020
Week 3 - March 30-April 5, 2020
Days have not yet started running in to each other, as I read of around the web, because I am in the interesting situation of having almost more work than I can deal with, while unemployment has passed 25%. The three large projects I am involved in editing have all reached their almost final stage at the same time, probably because the people doing the writing have had nothing to distract them (or have been using writing to distract themselves) for the past few weeks. One of the the projects is a book on fragility, or how easily human civilisation can be affected by external, non-human sources. The focus of the book is climate changes and their influence on history, but it is ironic that the final stages of writing should be taking place during a global pandemic.
On Tuesday the group meeting discussed the hidden scripts of infrapolitics and invisible resistance by subalterns to the elite. As we discussed this, I thought of the ways people are resisting the corona-related limitations that seem to them to be ridiculous (like the 100m limit). Most people are very law-abiding, though—to the extent that I'm a bit worried about S. Since the new restrictions, he has barely been outside, and he hasn't seen his friends. More than that, he hasn't even been exercising in the lounge. He's kind of turning in on himself, and I'm glad he's still watching movies with us. On Saturday night we watched the 1922 silent film Nosferatu—deservedly a classic of the vampire genre, but that I hadn't realised also involved plague, making it much more topical than expected.
The most exciting event of the past week for ADC was actually leaving Jerusalem and spending almost a full day travelling throughout the countryside. A's gap year volunteer work has sent him and the rest of the group home for the Passover break, and E, ADC's sister, suggested that instead of joining us in a small flat, he join her in a large house with a garden. Since up to now A has been living on a campus and still been able to walk around freely, although not to leave, on the one hand, and ADC is using his bedroom at home as a study/classroom, this suited us very well - although we are sorry not to see A in the flash for a while yet, this is probably the best solution for everyone. E will not be alone at the Seder, and our lives will be a little less cramped with three rather than four residents.
This past week we experienced the first heatwave of the spring. It was lovely sitting and working on the balcony until my laptop gave out and demanded more electricity. Unfortunately another cold spell begins tonight, so I probably won't be able to so this again for a while. ADC can still enjoy watching a family of jays that has settled in a tree across the road, though. According to him, the bird life of the neighbourhood has changed since the lockdown began, and the invasive parakeets are far fewer. Watching from the balcony today, he actually saw three cats identify a car as belonging to lady who feeds feral cats and line up on the pavement to greet her. One of the cats tried to attack a bird while waiting for food—which is precisely why feral cats should not be fed, in my opinion. Either adopt a cat, or bring it to be humanely killed, rather than let it wander free to kill other wildlife that it doesn't need for food (not blaming the cat, of course, but the people).
The family Zoom meetings of the weekend reiterated the generation gap—it was quite amazing how we had the same conversation about connecting both video and audio with my mother at six p.m. and with my BIL's MIL at seven. Despite the irritation in the moment, it's worth it, though (although not enough to sit through an entire meal together, as my BIL apparently does). We will see how the Seder goes on Wednesday.
Happy Passover and Easter to those celebrating, until I write again.
On Tuesday the group meeting discussed the hidden scripts of infrapolitics and invisible resistance by subalterns to the elite. As we discussed this, I thought of the ways people are resisting the corona-related limitations that seem to them to be ridiculous (like the 100m limit). Most people are very law-abiding, though—to the extent that I'm a bit worried about S. Since the new restrictions, he has barely been outside, and he hasn't seen his friends. More than that, he hasn't even been exercising in the lounge. He's kind of turning in on himself, and I'm glad he's still watching movies with us. On Saturday night we watched the 1922 silent film Nosferatu—deservedly a classic of the vampire genre, but that I hadn't realised also involved plague, making it much more topical than expected.
The most exciting event of the past week for ADC was actually leaving Jerusalem and spending almost a full day travelling throughout the countryside. A's gap year volunteer work has sent him and the rest of the group home for the Passover break, and E, ADC's sister, suggested that instead of joining us in a small flat, he join her in a large house with a garden. Since up to now A has been living on a campus and still been able to walk around freely, although not to leave, on the one hand, and ADC is using his bedroom at home as a study/classroom, this suited us very well - although we are sorry not to see A in the flash for a while yet, this is probably the best solution for everyone. E will not be alone at the Seder, and our lives will be a little less cramped with three rather than four residents.
This past week we experienced the first heatwave of the spring. It was lovely sitting and working on the balcony until my laptop gave out and demanded more electricity. Unfortunately another cold spell begins tonight, so I probably won't be able to so this again for a while. ADC can still enjoy watching a family of jays that has settled in a tree across the road, though. According to him, the bird life of the neighbourhood has changed since the lockdown began, and the invasive parakeets are far fewer. Watching from the balcony today, he actually saw three cats identify a car as belonging to lady who feeds feral cats and line up on the pavement to greet her. One of the cats tried to attack a bird while waiting for food—which is precisely why feral cats should not be fed, in my opinion. Either adopt a cat, or bring it to be humanely killed, rather than let it wander free to kill other wildlife that it doesn't need for food (not blaming the cat, of course, but the people).
The family Zoom meetings of the weekend reiterated the generation gap—it was quite amazing how we had the same conversation about connecting both video and audio with my mother at six p.m. and with my BIL's MIL at seven. Despite the irritation in the moment, it's worth it, though (although not enough to sit through an entire meal together, as my BIL apparently does). We will see how the Seder goes on Wednesday.
Happy Passover and Easter to those celebrating, until I write again.
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