A Personal/Open Letter to Naz Shah

Dear Ms Shah,

You don't know me and I only read about you in the Guardian article that stated your opinions regarding Israel and Israelis, and the subsequent turn of events. Still since you showed such interest in the future of my country and its people I would like to tell you a little about my past, it is a typical Jewish story

The last time my father saw his parents and his brother was in 1934, when he was 21 year old. He had worked for a Jewish firm in Berlin, and as the Nazis were putting a pressure of everything Jewish, the firm was transferred to Tel Aviv, my father moved there as well. This is how my father was the only one from his family to be saved from the Nazis.

My mother came to Tel Aviv, at the age of 17 with her family, they were Zionists and were granted certificates to immigrate to Israel because my grandfather had a job waiting, and his children were all under 18.

At that time, the 1930s, my country was under a  British Mandate (it got the mandate to rule that area in the early 1920s and it lasted till 1948) Immigration was banned, but some certificates were granted, my parents were the lucky ones. 

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-personalopen-letter-to-naz-shah/

Lord of the Flies Is Here: Israel 2015

In the past month I have been feeling like  I live in a dystopia, but until this morning when I read in Haaretz Zeeva Achi Meir's letter to the editor, I wasn't sure  which one it was.

The title of the letter is “Zabotinski and Abba (Abba is also the first name of Achi Meir’s dad) are ashamed of Netanyahu and his friends.”

It starts with the writer’s concern regarding the erroneous and dangerous leadership of the right. She refers specifically to the sons of the revisionists. It ends with the statement that the founders of the revisionist party would have objected to the way things are in Israeli society, and would have fought with all their might against the blindness, callousness and lack of humanity of the prime minister and his confederates. They betray their parents’ legacy and are leading the Israeli society, and the state of Israel, from a mere disaster to the catastrophe of its loss (in moral and existential terms).

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israelhttp://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lord-of-the-flies-is-here-israel-2015/

Blood, Toil, Tears, And Sweat? No, Just Luck

Several months after the Likud party had won the historic election in 1977, we left Israel. A year later, upon our return to Tel Aviv, we didn’t recognize the place: inflation was rampant and the whole life centered around it.

We needed to find an apartment to rent but prices were high and were set in dollars. When we finally found an affordable place, each month we paid a little more than the previous month. Once, in the middle of the year, when the dollar had reached yet another height, we had to beg our land lady, not to raise the rent yet again. That land lady, a girl in her mid twenties, just like us, sympathized with our plight and agreed.

Those few young people who inherited apartments, like our land lady, were especially lucky. Pleas keep reading int the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/blood-toil-tears-and-sweat-no-just-luck/