So this is the new blog space. Welcome. The magnificent Dr.Blogger set it up for me while I was in Toronto; he tried valiantly to explain all its aspects to tech-challenged me while we sat in his office, but it'll take me awhile to figure everything out. So consider the current layout a work in progress. (I've promised Joey that I'll be bugging him a lot. He, genial soul that he is, assured me that I could bug him as much as I liked).
This blog does not allow anonymous comments, but it's easy to sign up for a reader's account. Just click on the link at the top of the left sidebar. There is also a link to the commenting rules on the upper right sidebar.
I got back to Tel Aviv a couple of days ago and since landing have been alternately running around and sleeping off the jetlag. I know that a lot of people are waiting for the long-promised Big Post about what happened in London and in fact I've been running it around my head for a long time. There is a lot to say, and also a lot that I have promised not to say - because after all, it was a private talk. So I have decided to compromise by writing a story, called My Zionist Hero. It'll be posted in the next day or two.
Meanwhile, here are some photos from Toronto: Me and Adina
Me freezing while a madwoman jogs in the snow behind me.
Joey displaying a Chrismukah tree ornament. It was purchased in honour of his gorgeous Jewish bride Wendy. I took this photo just before a bunch of us, including Elana and husband (otherwise known as The Dude), headed off to observe a time-honoured Jewish-Asian culinary tradition - DIM SUM.
Dim Sum
Which we consumed at a restaurant in the Asia Pacific Mall (and you thought it was Hong Kong, huh?)
I need to resolve a few technical problems before resuming blogging. I have an appointment with Dr. Blogger tomorrow afternoon, in his office. Let's see what he can do, shall we?
Ech, I am sorry for the long delay in updating this blog. I have so much to write, but I'm not at home right now (hint regarding location: the local temperature is minus 14 Celsius and I'm DYING, people); and finding time and place to blog is difficult.
I need to recover from the fever/snuffles/barking cough that have robbed me of a voice and made my head feel all woolly, then find a quiet place to sit and commune with my beloved laptop. It will take a day or two.
Meanwhile, just a few tidbits: 1. The London GVO conference was an amazing experience. I met some wonderful people, and the whole experience spoke to every idealistic-but-please-not-saccharine-sweet bone in my body. You can read a bit about it here, and various bloggers' and journalists' impressions here.
2. Here's an article about the conference that was posted on The Guardian's Web site. Scroll down to read my pithy pontificating.
3. The Flickr page for photos taken at the conference is here. Here's one of me speaking at the conference; and another taken following a group interview at the BBC radio studio.
Once I told Hadas that there are more good people than bad in the world. Here are some good people who touched my life over the past week:
When Allison heard that I couldn't afford a hotel in London, she found someone to host me. When that someone had to back out at the last minute, another friend stepped in and called her husband's friends in Stockwell. One day later, two complete strangers welcomed me warmly into their small apartment. They fed me single malt whiskey, offered me a warm bed with clean sheets, gave me a key and told me to make myself at home.
When Dina saw that my conversation with Haitham might continue past the time of the last train back to Stockwell, she told me that I should simply knock on her door at the Hilton. Don't bother calling, she said. Just come. And so I did - at 1.30 a.m. Dina greeted me with sympathetic conversation, a comfy bed and a "my room is your room" attitude. She and I had met for the first time that day.
Judy invited me for lunch in the members' restaurant at the Tate Modern. We sat next to a window overlooking the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral, and we had one of those lovely, mutually satisfying, stimulating conversations. That was the first time I met Judy, too.
Some bloggers (1, 2, 3) stepped up to bat for me at a time when I was pretty anguished, and I thank them both so, so much for their support.
I'm attending a conference of GVO contributors and editors.
Last night, following a memorable Lebanese meal, a Palestinian and an Israeli spent two hours talking while walking very, very slowly from Edgeware Road to Paddington. They had a frank and sometimes emotional conversation. It was difficult - and it was also cathartic. There are many issues still to be resolved and the dialogue will continue.
More details will follow.
Meanwhile: Please, please do not feed the trolls. Resist the temptation! Let them hear the echo of their words. If they have a conscience, they will feel shame. If they do not, then it is impossible to reason with them - so why bother?
When I first arrived in Beirut I thought Lebanese drivers must be among theworst in the world. They don’t stop at red lights. They drive the wrong way down one-ways. Seat belts are verboten, and the concept of lanes is utterly alien. Speed limits? No way. Traffic circles are unbelievable clusterfucks. Stop signs are suggestions that translate into “slow down just a tad if it’s not too much trouble."
Then I read, over at Lebanese blogger Mustapha's place, that the Beirut municipality is planning to take action: they're going to install cameras over traffic lights to catch red light jumpers. According to Mustapha, there are two kinds of Lebanese - those who are proud rule breakers and those who are infuriated by the rule breakers. Just out of curiosity, he says, which camp do you belong to? The commenters didn't hesitate to let him know.
Not that I'm into schadenfreude or anything, but suddenly I'm feeling a little less inclined to rant about Israeli drivers.
During one of the group workshops for Israeli and Palestinian journalists in Amman, the facilitators asked us to talk about professional dilemmas. We split up into national groups and chose three people from each group to make a brief presentation about representative dilemmas each had experienced. Then we came back into one large group to listen to the stories and discuss our reactions.
One of the Palestinian journalists, a cameraman who works for an international Arab television new station, told the following story:
During the IDF invasion of the West Bank in 2002, the cameraman happened to be filming a street scene when a group of militants (Islamic Jihad? Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade? I can't remember which one) grabbed a teenage boy they accused of collaborating with the Israelis. They stuffed him into a car and sped off to a nearby refugee camp. The cameraman jumped into his own car and followed them. It was quite dark by then, so he managed to stay out of sight.
Once in the refugee camp, the militants stopped in an open lot. They dragged the boy, whose hands were by then tied behind his back, out of the car, forced him onto his knees and prepared to shoot him.
The cameraman was filming the entire incident from behind a pile of rubble.
The boy was crying. He begged the militants to allow him one phone call; he wanted to call his mother to tell her he loved her.
The militants refused and prepared to shoot the boy in the back of the head. Just as they aimed their guns, the crying boy screamed out, "Mom, I love you!"
Then they shot him.
So here was the dilemma the cameraman faced. If he broadcast that footage, he would have to live with the knowledge that the mother of the dead boy had seen it. She would never be able to forget the image of her crying son, pleading to be allowed to tell his mother that he loved her just before he died. She would never forget the image of those masked armed men, of seeing her son's lifeless body flop sideways to the ground.
The cameraman, who had several children and a wife to support, would also have to worry about the militants hunting him down and shooting him for broadcasting the footage.
On the other hand, if the cameraman did not broadcast the footage, he would be hiding the truth about summary executions from the public.
So what would you do? And what do you think the cameraman did?
Sarah's post about lessons in ethics brought back an old memory.
It happened in a supermarket when I was about 5 years old, and it was one of those ostensibly innocuous incidents that makes an indelible impression on a child. Trailing behind my mother, who was pushing a cart with one hand and holding a list of things to purchase with the other, I reached into an open barrel of candy sold according to weight and took a single wrapped sweet. My mother caught me just as I was about to remove the cellophane wrapper and commanded me to return it at once.
"But Mummy, I only took one," I wheedled.
"And what if every person who shopped here took one candy?" she responded. "Think about how many that would be."
Years later, while taking a required undergraduate course in philosophy at Columbia, I wondered if Mom was a Kantian and didn't even know it.
I love interviewing politicians. I don't usually do so on my own initiative, because political analysis is not my field. I prefer human interest stories - and politicians can be great human interest stories; the problem is that few people want to publish articles about The Person. They want articles about what The Person said.
Sometimes I accompany foreign journalists in order to guide, translate and fill in information gaps, and a few times Gal and I went together to Gaza and the West Bank so that he could interview various Palestinian Authority officials for his newspaper, which has a right-wing mandate (although Gal is a classic pragmatic centrist whose attitude is tempered by healthy cynicism of the "plague on both your houses" variety).
Gal, the politics junkie who knows the name and history of every Palestinian politician, militant or activist you can think of, asks the nuts and bolts questions; he lets me ask the soft-but-treacherous questions. He says we complement each other, and I know that he's taught me a lot. He also tells great stories. But as soon as he sees my eyes light up after he recounts another great tale he warns me, "Don't you dare write about what I just told you!" (Me, wheedling: Oh please! He: Are you kidding?! Do you want to burn all my connections?)
I often find myself wishing that I could write more about what the politicians are really like. And it's such a dilemna, because on the one hand it would be great if more people had an accurate picture of who our leaders really are; but on the other hand if you expose all the cynical details then you can bet that that politician will never give you another interview - which means you're kind of screwed.
Once I interviewed a well-known Israeli politician for a puff piece. I was warned by my editor not to blow the interview by asking any tough questions, because the point was to get some nice sunny quotes about a certain sector of the Israeli economy for an advertising supplement. This particular politician has a reputation for being an unusually cultured and soft-spoken man with an impressive education and family background, but that's all I'm gonna say.
Since the politician is a Very Important and Busy Man, his assistant said that he wouldn't have time for a face-to-face interview. Instead, she arranged for us to speak via phone while he was being driven from one appointment to another. I was granted 15 minutes.
I started by introducing myself and explaining the purpose of the article, but he cut me off before I could finish. Speaking in English, he said brusquely, "Look, you're wasting my time. You're writing the article for an English-language publication so just speak to me in English."
Then he said: "Don't forget to write that I have a doctorate from [Very Important American University]. And do you know about my family? Do you know who my father is? Don't forget to put that in the article too."
Then he began to speak about the sector of the economy he was responsible for, claiming that it was on the cusp of a huge development.
"Really?" I said. "Can you give me any numbers? How much have sales increased over the past quarter, for example?"
"What do you think I am?" he yelled. "A salesman? How should I know how much sales have increased?"
Then, without missing a beat, he started to yell at his driver.
"No, you manyak [asshole]! What are you doing?! I told you to go right, not left!"
Okay, everyone's all excited about the huge fiberglass bulls that have been installed all up and down Rothschild Boulevard to mark the 70th anniversary of the Tel Aviv stock exchange. (the photo of Superbull was shamelessly lifted from Savtadotty's Flickr account, where you can see a full range of bull photos).
I confess, I was pretty entranced too. Rothschild is right around the corner from my apartment, and I love strolling up and down the lovely, tree-and-bench-lined boulevard under any circumstances. The bulls, each created by a different artist, were a huge added bonus.
Until today. This Saturday hordes of families with adorable-but-noisy children swarmed into my neighbourhood, taking advantage of the perfect warm weekend weather to make a day-trip from the 'burbs to The Big City. I felt terribly posessive: what were these strangers doing to my lovely boulevard? Where was my sabbath peace? Oh dear, not a single free bench for sitting, hanging out with friends and reading. They were all occupied by weary parents.
I know, I shouldn't be such a cow about the bulls. But I really missed my Saturday peace and quiet today.
P.S.This week's GVO post is up. Click here to read.
So this friend of mine from abroad comes to Tel Aviv for a holiday. We meet for coffee and gossip; over the second cappuccino she tells me that she has been "between boyfriends" for way too long and she's got to break this prolonged dry spell before she loses it completely.
I nod sympathetically and murmur some platitudes about how when you least expect it you meet someone great and stuff like that.
A couple of days later she calls me to announce that - hallelujah! - the dry spell has indeed broken.
Fabulous! I say enthusiastically. Where did you meet him and what was he like?
Well, she says, I was just sitting in a cafe when a nice-looking guy started talking to me. He complimented me about something, we had a long conversation, and I'm not sure how but a couple of hours later we ended up at his apartment and things just went from there. It wasn't amazing - actually I think he goes both ways - but he was sweet and basically just what I needed.
Really? I say. What was his name?
Ariel, she answers.
Um, wait, I say. Does he live in a small studio apartment near the beach?
Well, not right on the beach - but close by.
And did he tell you that he lives mostly in the South of Spain, where he and his mother run some kind of a business?
Um, you're scaring me now, she says.
Um, don't be scared. But yes, it's the same guy.
No!
Yes.
And even more than that, I tell her, When I told my friend Shelly about him the day after, it turned out that he'd followed the exact same script with our friend Michal.
No!
I swear.
I'm in shock.
Well, yeah...
(Cue gales of female laughter).
Later I meet a journalist friend at a cafe to discuss an article we wanted to write together. Listen, I tell her, you won't believe this crazy story.
She listens calmly and says, "Oh yeah, I know him. He followed the same script with me too. I don't think he actually works - just trolls Tel Aviv and picks up girls every day. But he's kind of sweet and totally harmless. I figure he's doing a service. He should think about charging for it."
