confirmation

thank you lord for sending me what i needed to hear as i go into another pesach, as i hope to move from slavery to freedom.

oprah (aka new age ministress) in an interview with queen latifa just confirmed the following... and i quote

"32 is when you come into yourself and at 35 you're there."

amen!
dayenu!

nearly as inspiring as this more conventional (or maybe thats relative) pesach message that i read in this highly recommended hagaddah. dr joel ziff, says as follows:

Pesach of liberation from slavery in Egypt, which marks the birth of the
Jewish nation, also serves as a symbol for all the periods of exile and
redemption in Jewish history. As such, the Exodus represents deliverance; not
just from oppression in Egypt, but from all exiles and oppressions in the past,
in the present, and in the future. These events, which mark the turning points
in the development of the Jewish people, are also symbolic of critical points in
our own lives. As it says in the Haggadah, “Each of us is obligated to consider
ourselves as coming out of Egypt”. This transformation, the psychologist says,
is embodied in the passages we transverse as we give birth to ourselves: in
leaving home, in career changes, in marriage, divorce, in birth, sickness,
death, addiction and recovery from trauma.

Life can be overwhelming, sometimes leaving us feeling defeated,
hopeless and depressed -- in many ways feeling as the enslaved Israelites in
Egypt. Viewing our lives through the mirror of the Egyptian experience, we can
grasp onto a positive transformation through the Exodus story.

thats powerful....
get the hagaddah or apparently this book has more of the idea.

happy matza to you all!

good bye ehud

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
there's been no terror, no outright chutzpa, no crazy financial injustice, no unbearable weather.

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
because ehud manor died

every now and again in any country, an icon - maybe a tv star, an author or an artist - passes away and people are really affected. not because this person was a political or religious leader determining the country's fate or direction, but because he/she was an inseperable part of their childhood, their upbringing, their moulding as a person, their very basic cultural reference.

although i've lived in israel for quite a while now, i've grown used to still being an outsider when it comes to these kind of things.
for example:

- i may know that tzipi shavit was *the* children's presenter when israelis my age were young, but her songs will never resonate with me half as much as george, zippy and bungle or even floella benjamin.

- i can sing along with danny sanderson when he performs at a purim work event and hails back to his kaveret days, but i just cant close my eyes and remember where i was when listening to poogy playing on the radio and tv.

- i can laugh at tal brody's terrible israeli accent, even after all these years, but i can't remember the thrill and excitement he brought to the country when he led maccabi to its first ever european cup championship in 1977.

but ehud manor was different.

this is the first time that an israeli cultural icon has died and i think i feel the loss like any other israeli because i really feel like i grew up with ehud manor. and not just because he wrote israel's first eurovision hit abanabi back in 1978 (although i, like any other proud, identifying and self-respecting british jew, do remember that momentous occasion.)

i will miss ehud manor because i owe my knowledge of anything musical and israeli to ehud manor.

just as i can trace my english music tastes back to journeys in the car with my dad listening to 4 seminal tapes; i can trace my education in israeli music to a tape of ehud manor songs recorded for me by a boyfriend on kibbutz back in 1990.

the tape was brit olam - a collection of ehud manor songs sung by an array of israeli music stars including matti caspi, yehudit ravitz, gidi gov to name a few. it was a varied group of songs - some slow, fast, serious, loving, joking - different to what i was used to but i listened to it fervently and as it soon became the soundtrack to my year in israel. and as i pined for israel in my first (rather miserable) year back in england i bought the next cassette in the collection and devoured it even more, together with all the other tapes i had bought by then by israeli artists that that first tape had led me to.

it was simple: ehud manor's music conjured up for me all the smells, sounds, thoughts and feelings that i associated with the country that would become my home just three years later.

later on, i would find out that he was also the huge talent behind many clever hebrew musical translations such as blood brothers, hair - which i saw with same boyfriend in the cinerama in tel aviv (except by that time we were just friends or perhaps more accurately oblivious guy and obsessed women) - and even far more recently chicago. and his talent didnt stop with music. ehud was also responsible for high quality hebrew adaptations of theater including shakespeare, harold pinter and tennessee williams.

ehud manor was one of the few israelis that one would consistently hear good things about. he succeeded in appealing to a broad range of israeli society (another no-mean feat) and he was associated with excellence and modesty, outstanding traits indeed.

through his music ehud helped me begin to understand israeli society. he also represented some of the things that i wished we saw more of in that society.

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
good bye ehud.

matching hairdos

as i've taken an unintentional break from blogging over the last few weeks some part of me feels i owe you -- or maybe me -- some kind of explanation for this abandonment of task.

the truth is, that 'some part' is far tinier than in the past (or this past, or this past) but i was looking for a segueway to get back into things anyway. so here goes....

well actually i don't really have one -- i've been genuinely busy and thus as apparantly blog-directed creative inspiration has not sufficiently outweighed my to do list, ergo lack of post.

that said this may be a good time to confess the one detail that has affected my overall blogging in past months.

i'm seeing someone.
again i only feel a need to admit this: a) now that a decent(ish) amount has past in said venture and b) due to a sense of loyalty to my readership given posts such as this or this.

i'm not going to go into any more detail becaue i honestly dont feel the need or desire to bare all here when thank g-d i have several marvelous friends who have provided more than their fair share of 24/7 counselling services (aka wonderful commening to my f2f blogging).

i am also aware that said someone is more than happy at his lack of mention and cherishes his genuine anonymity on this blog so in the interests of more good things in the future i aim to maintain this status.

i know this is not the juicy stuff that voyeruristic blog readership (hey i'm one of them) hangs about for but sorry c'est la vie.

this is your bone, consider it thrown.

oh ok....... one more thing. but just cos i like you.

as said someone is of american persuasion , he is being slowly exposed to the depths of real british culture, part of which has been an education on the ever rivetting royal family.

so having covered the basics e.g. "will camilla ever be queen?", in light of today's historical events, let me move on and say, that despite recent evidence to the contrary (see pic) the question "are his and hers hairdos a british tradition?", has the same unambiguous answer.

NO!!!