Midnight Despair in the Garden

I am so filled with despair regarding Israel’s prospects. I can’t seem to write poetry. I can barely read it.

I have four step-children, whom I adore, who are good and kind and deserve bright futures. They will all serve in the Israeli army. The first, the dark-haired one with amber eyes and who likes to sleep late and is the only teenage girl I’ve met who doesn’t like Justin Bieber, enters next year. At no point in the last thirty years, has Israel been so isolated. At no point, has its soldiers been so unsafe. I blame Netanyahu and Lieberman, Israel’s current Prime Minister and Foreign Minster, respectively, who together formed alliances with the Israel’s religious Orthodox parties and right-wing to obtain majority in the Knesset (the Orthodox who could care less about the futures of my stepchildren except that their taxes fund their religious schools and pay for their innumerable children).  In return, the government continues to pour money into the coffers of the religious, the right-wing settlers, and those who believe any settlement with the Arabs represents existential suicide.

I also blame the Palestinians who elect rabid fundamentalist leaders who yearn for Israel's destruction. I am realistic enough to know that Israel often felt it had no choice but to react violently when the rockets were being fired, its own people were being slaughtered. But there have been moments of potential compromise. Compromise desired by good people on both sides.

There were so many missed opportunities that a little imagination and compassion could have taken advantage of. They say that many Israeli Arabs cried the night Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was murdered by a Jewish extremist, that many are still crying.

Instead, settlements have expanded 50% since Oslo, Israel is more isolated, Egypt and Turkey who once were partners at least on paper, burn down our embassies. My own father asks, what does Israel want? We have treated the Arabs so long as enemy they have become enemy.

Many Israelis and Jews dismiss Obama, who while perhaps not doing enough in terms of tough love, had Israel’s back even in the worst of times. Didn’t he sit their, his hand under his chin, while Netanyahu lectured him on the error of returning to 1967 borders? Even I couldn’t watch that charade.

Now, I feel, we are in the worst of times again.

There are so many kind, generous, intelligent people here, in Israel. I believe that even the hearts of the right wing are not evil. Why are they being gagged? Why are we letting the fanatics and ignorant decide our fate?

I wish Israel would do something insane. Assuming a Security Council vote is delayed (which it probably will be), and the Palestinians take a vote to the UN General Assembly.  The GA doesn’t have the power to create a sovereign state, but it can upgrade the Palestinians’ current status at the UN from a non-member “observer entity” to a non-member “observer state.” That would give the Palestinians the same status at the world body as the Vatican (not that Catholics don't have a lot of injustice to answer for). That means it could become a member of a variety of UN organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Health Organization. What if Israel voted ‘YES.’ The facts on the ground would not change for anyone, BUT it might force the Palestinians to begin acting like a real country and perhaps recognize Israel’s right to exist, respect borders, step away from terrorism. It might also force real negotiations on both sides, force serious people to take charge. It’s a big ‘if.’


But what if Israel does nothing?

Never-Ending 9/11

New York, September 11, 2001

It’s four days after the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. I guess it’s time to come out from under the covers. Ten years sounds like a long time, and I suppose in ten years, much CAN change. It has, but in many respects, for the worse.

I started a poem four days ago on the morning of the 11^th, watching the CNN coverage of the memorial. My poem began with these lines.

I think it important to know who is being barred from the journey.

I think it crucial to acknowledge that not just anyone can go,

that some will be forced to abandon their unborn daughters

and their guidebooks,

their decapitated Barbie standing sentinel.

The nighlight left lit.

I think it imperative to go ahead and decide

      who will hand out

the pieces of paper,

who will pin the note explaining what took place

to their sleeves.

Cheery, huh? It was not going to be an optimistic or happy poem, more a reflection on how individualistic our society remains, how more individualistic, consumer driven, inward our society has become in these ten years, how afraid we remain.

It’s difficult to remain optimistic when on lives in the Middle East, though even in the wake of 9/11, there were attempts. Many Israelis thought that the demise of the Twin Towers would awaken public sentiment to the threat of fanaticism and fundamentalism. That surely enlightenment ideals would rise up to defend ‘western’ liberalism and freedom, they thought. Instead, America finds itself enmeshed in two wars with no sign of success in either, fundamentalism is on the rise, the ‘Spring’ forecast by protests and revolution in Libya, Egypt, Syria gives way to chaos and increasing anti-Israel rhetoric. The Palestinians, still without a state, will likely take their case for statehood to the UN in two weeks, and Israel finds itself increasingly isolated.

At the same time, I find it difficult to agree with those who yearn for Mubarak’s return to Egypt, that Hassad crush the protests in Syria, who wax nostalgic about Middle East police-state regimes even if the populist democracies (can we call them that) replacing them attack Israel, call for its destruction. I have to believe there is something better, and not just for Israel.

I also believe that the survival and prosperity of Israel is a prerequisite for the prosperity of the US and the promulgation of the values we treasure. As Adam Kirsch writes in Tablet Magazine,

Egyptians attacking the Israeli Embassy,
September 9, 2011

Historically, then, the fate of the Jews is tied to the fate of liberalism; and after Sept. 11, Berman showed, the greatest threat to liberal values came from Islamic fundamentalists, who spoke about Jews in terms borrowed from European fascists. Sayyid Qutb, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, blamed Islam’s problems on Marx and Freud: “[T]he atheistic, materialistic doctrine in our world was advocated by a Jew, and the permissive doctrine which is sometimes called ‘the sexual revolution’ was advocated by a Jew. Indeed, most evil theories which try to destroy all values and all that is sacred to mankind are advocated by Jews.” This, as Berman points out, is not theological anti-Judaism (though Qutb voiced that variety as well) but the kind of anti-modern anti-Semitism that identifies the Jew with social dissolution and rootless individualism. But these are the very same things that, when considered as values rather than vices, we think of as essentially American: freedom of the individual, free thought, pluralism.

Concomitantly, I believe that Israel relations with its neighbors will not improve until the cultivation of democratic and liberal values including respect for other religions, women’s rights, the rights of minorities cannot occur in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, etc. The two are intertwined. This will not be an easy or short process, nor is success certain. In fact, as we have seen, the direction can be backward. But as was pointed out by Armin Rosen in another 9/11-inspired article in Tablet, these same regimes maintained their power in part by using Israel as a scapegoat or target for anger to deflect attention from their own repressive policies. They spread rumors and lies about Israel and their own policies about Israel, even as they maintained civil borders. These regimes had it both ways. I can but hope that as freedom of press and voice develop, as people begin hearing and reading other opinions beyond those fed to them, empathy and understanding may slowly develop. It will take years, decades. It may never happen. But it must.

The poem I started on 9/11 has now reached three pages and it is, surprisingly, becoming something of a love poem. There is also optimism and, at least in one part, a rising tide of community. Here’s one passage:

We were on the one highway leading to Kinneret Lake.

There were so many signs and stop lights,

all of them useless.

Traffic had backed up twenty kilometers.

Slowly word worked back window to window

of a terrible accident.

A few drivers leaned out of their vehicles,

shading their eyes, mouthing words

whose bitterness thickened the August heat, the smog

of the hundred idling engines.

The girl in the backseat looked up from the message

she was typing into her telephone,

Maybe they need help, her blue green eyes,

the sun lightened lashes,

meeting ours in the mirror.

Far ahead, smoke began to rise as one

by one, the people stepped from their cars

began running forward.

I don’t know if this passage will remain in the poem, or if I even trust it.

I guess like most of us, I want to believe in the goodness of people. I guess at some point, I have to. How’s that for an ending to this post?

Why I Write: Because Love is the Opposite of Underwear

Let me explain. You continue doing something, hopefully putting in the thousands of hours to become good at it, because you are obsessed with it, you 'love' it, it never bores you. Whatever it is--writing, playing piano, cooking chocolate cupcakes, origame,... When you become blase about something, when you no longer find it novel, when you stop noticing it, like say cotton underwear or the boyfriend whose favorite song you can't remember--you will never become excellent at it. You just don't have the commitment required. You might as well move on to a new hobby, to a new boyfriend.

Every day I write. Every day I read. It just doesn't feel like a good day if I don't. It's not just a job that I show up for. I could pay the bills some other way. I want to be excellent. I hope that my persistence, my obsession will help get me there. I believe talent and natural ability play their roles in all excellence (I mean I could never be a top sprinter or a ballerina, no matter how many hours I put it though I might be better) but 'grit' as Jonah Lehrer points out are as, perhaps more, important. Granted, you have to have at least some talent. I'm not sure how much I have, but I'm hoping my 'grit' magnifies, amplifies it enough to compensate. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, because I couldn't stop writing poetry even if I wanted to. It's not just an infatuation.

Here's Lehrer's always-fascinating blog in which he talks about 'grit'. It gives me hope that my perspiration will pay off. Anyway, Lehrer's page is worth reading for this as well as other fascinating ideas.

Authenticity of the Expatriate Writer

I’m back in Israel after being gone two months, and am thinking about self-justification. Why write? Why write about this place?

There is the issue of authenticity. I am not Israeli (OK, I have an Israeli passport but that doesn't make me Israeli). I am not Jewish. I barely speak Hebrew. I will never be Israeli, Jewish, and the chances of my Hebrew improving to any significant degree are, well, slim to none. Here, I am the eternal outsider.

Yet, I believe my perspective is, if not unique, unusual.

Exile and expatriation are conditions that have existed since the beginnings of literature. Physical and psychic distance from one’s native country can give writers/artists perspectives they did not have before. Travelers often comment that they see their own country more clearly or gain new respect/disregard for aspects of their country from another. The Roman poet Ovid, exiled away from Rome, and James Joyce, who lived most of his working life outside Ireland, are two notable writerly examples.

So too, I believe, the alienation and dislocation often described by expatriates living for extended periods in foreign countries contributes to the creative process. Not only does the experience provide fodder for the imagination, but also the eye of the outsider is often one more likely to discern the strange and unusual in what to the native appears commonplace. Certainly some of the most interesting descriptions of the US have come from foreign visitors. From the 19^th century, think of Alexis de Tocqueville’s De la democratie Amerique and Charles Dickens’ American Notes. From the 20^th Century, think of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York and Czeslaw Milosz’s Visions from San Francisco Bay.

I only hope my American eye, my poetry, is as discerning as it takes in the Israeli landscape, or at least on my small portion of it. 

I’ll add that I don’t think my poems reflect a perspective that is necessarily accurate, or at least not always. But my poems emanate from experiences uniquely mine and though filtered through the veil of my American upbringing, culture, prejudices, and religion, I have to believe they resonate, feel authentic, to those to whom I write, which largely means other Americans. 

I take comfort from the idea that sometimes the foreign perspective, at first illegitimate, later appears prescient. Milosz Csezlaw, dissident Lithuanian/Polish poet and exiled to California from 1960 wrote on America (always in Polish) widely. In a book of essays published in 1967 and only re-published in English twenty years later, Milosz wrote to his foreign audience: “the fact that America is still a country of the Bible has, and will continue to have, lasting consequences. . . . America is the legitimate heir to the Judeo-Christian civilization. Therefore, it was just and beautiful that the American astronauts flying over the surface of the moon addressed the inhabitants of Earth with an old message, the beginning of the Book of Genesis.” Fifty years ago, the statement inflamed America’s critics, both domestic and foreign, yet how uncomfortably familiar it seems today. 

Bathsheba Transatlantic Reviewed!

I am preparing myself to return to Tel Aviv after being in Manhattan for two months. I am looking forward to a warm sea and the return of long walks with my dog. Friends tell me much is the same (isn't it always?) though the recent demonstrations against the government have caused even our neighborhood to question behavior, curbing back on spending, avoiding expensive restaurants. Though it's unclear whether it's genuine psychic discomfort or evasion. I suppose we'll see if politicians and policies change once the demonstrations die down as they already are, and, more importantly, once new elections are held.

But I had welcome news while I was packing--the wonderful literary magazine The Cafe Review included a lovely thoughtful review of Bathsheba Transatlantic in its Summer 2011 issue. I am so grateful and pleased. The Cafe Review includes some amazing writers and artists, and is always a beautiful compilation. I recommend taking a gander online and subscribing if you can. It's well worth it.

My Middle Class Bubble of Ennui (nothing to do with poetry or not much anyway)

I've been avoiding this blog. I've felt such an enormous sense of ennui, not just about this blog (what does it matter anyway?) but in regards to making an attempt to engage the world at all. When I turn on the news, I feel I am watching some other reality that has nothing to do with mine. Or rather that my reality cannot interact or affect that reality. Two bubbles existing side by side with no overlap...

Which brings me to the reason I felt compelled to post today from my bubble of ennui...


In Israel, the middle class (Yes, that's us!!) are rising up. From their couches and comfortable seats in the cafes, they are protesting the rising cost of housing, the fact that the political system no longer represents any of their interests. It's been all over the Israeli papers and media. An essay by Etgar Keret from tabletmag.org pretty much sums it up. As one protestor from the streets says in the essay:


“The middle class is the easiest group to screw,” Alon, a demonstrator pushing a baby carriage, explained to me, “It’s hardest for them to take to the streets; the poor can go all the way—they have nothing to lose anyway. The rich can hire lawyers and lobbyists and who knows what else. But the middle class is stuck there in the middle: without the economic power required to oil the system, but with just enough to worry about losing what it has. That’s why they’ve been milking us dry for years. But it’s over now.”


Isn't that the way a lot of us feel? We're afraid to risk our dwindling capital by making waves. OR, worse, instead of blaming the government for catering to special interests, wars, corporate and financial institution interests at the expense of the middle class, we resent whatever small resources go to the worse off, the unemployed, the poor, the uneducated, the immigrants. It's a form of scapegoating, to pull  a term from the Old Testament.


As Etger goes on in the essay about the Israeli protests: I could sense something else underlying his words, something that is shared by all the people I spoke to at the demonstration: how alienated they feel from the Knesset that is supposed to represent them. Isreal’s parliament pushes through, on a daily basis, laws favoring the settlers, the ultra-Orthodox, and other groups skilled at lobbying and manipulating it. It has never engaged in any dialogue with the tens of thousands of people who decided one evening to take to the streets.


Substitute US Congress for Knesset, corporate interests, the wealthy, right-wing evangelicals for settlers and ultra-Orthodox and you have the situation in the US.


Etger then asks the same protestor, “What are you hungry for?”


“For a country that is a little less heartless,” he said, and gave his baby, who had just woken up, a bottle. “One that doesn’t try to push only a culture of power and force, but also a culture that values compassion. Being a Jew isn’t just being a settler, you know; being a Jew also means having compassion. I swear. You don’t believe me? Go home and Google it.”


Me too. A little more compassion, a little less heartlessness.

What to do? I don't have a plan but a few things I'm going to do: write my congressman, donate some dollars to Planned Parenthood, plan how to be in the US for the campaign season, and write a poem.

Giving Away Poetry

In general, I like John Gallaher's poetry and music blog. It's almost always thought provoking and, even oftener, liable to raise to a few hackles. The latest from July 22nd didn't disappoint, "It's time for a new publishing model (give it away)"


In it, Gallaher advocates giving away written work for free. Not all work, but some it, a lot of it. He begins by citing another writer named David Pogue who also talks about giving away versions of work online. In Pogue's case, it's books on computers. In Gallaher's case, it's poetry. Here's a quote:


Amazon is set up for a version of this sort of thing (showing excerpts of work), where one can browse a few pages from many books. It’s probably about as far as Amazon can go. But publishers and authors can go further. In the way that music labels give away free samplers of their current releases, and individual artists usually have a few mp3s up for free on their websites, I think publishers and/or authors should post PDFs of a good chunk (if not all) of books of poetry. 


I kind of like the idea of giving away poetry. Perhaps because my book didn't sell so well (though outside the world of Billy Collins and Mary Oliver's whose does?). But I also get how free stuff brings in new participants, or at least because of price, doesn't lock them out. I know I've found quite a few new composers, musicians, largely through free of music. 


The biggest problem, at least for me and probably for others, is that the publishing world brings other benefits--some small recognition, access to marketing and readings, and, if one hopes to use their work as access to other kinds of work, a kind of validation. What would be best is if the publishers agreed to allow a certain portion of the work to be posted as a pdf, given away. I'm not talking about one or two poems, but a big chunk. If the examples Gallaher cited are to be believed, this probably wouldn't negatively affect sales. In fact, it might drives sales of books a bit and perhaps create a larger audience for poetry. In the post, Gallaher says he wants to post his work free online, though by the end admits he's not sure how, or perhaps he got cold feet.  It is kind of scary. Hmmmm