Different Slants

Sleeping With The Bedouins (part 11-a)

By Robert M. Katzman © December 1, 2017

Bedouins, originally badawi in Arabic, are nomadic borderless Arabs of the desert.

I had been to Jordan before, with Rick Munden, in May 2000, where he and I both had bad problems with our feet at the end of our nine days in Israel. We were on our way to Petra, also known at one time as the Rose City because of the color of the mountains, which is now a world famous destination of a Nabataean civilization buried under the red sand for about 2000 years.

Originally a bustling Arab community on the Silk Road to China located in a Roman province, it has incredible temples carved into the soft stone, Roman columns everywhere standing up and lying around like giant carved chips that fell off of a Las Vegas poker game table, a coliseum-like curved and stepped mass of seats facing whatever was entertaining them.

(Read on …)

Copyright June 20, 2016

Hanging on a thin necklace

Around my neck

It’s always there

A silver star

David’s Star

I am never unaware of it

Neither is anyone else

Quiet and discrete

Weighing nothing

But heavy with

Thousands of years

Of a people

The size of a dime

Beautifully carved

Like two interwoven triangles

The six-pointed Star

Never shouts

It murmurs (Read on …)

An American Jew’s Bold New Plan for a Sane, 

Peaceful and Prosperous State of Palestine

(part 9)

© by Robert M. Katzman

Man, I ain’t no dreamer—R. Katzman

Published May 18th, 2007 in honor of my father, Israel, on the seventh anniversary of his death, at age 87. I chose to not update the statistics because they aren’t the point of this article. This is about ideas. About change.

First, some background: My family came to America between 1902 and 1916 from Eastern Europe, where some of my immediate ancestors were murdered during the World War One years and the rest by Hitler later. They were non-combatants. I grew up with grim tales of unending, irrational persecution and in sync with my left-of-center politics beginning in the later Sixties, I wouldn’t wish that kind of terror and life on anyone.

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Note to my readers:

© November 5, 2011,

First written almost exactly six years ago, this was a nostalgic and philosophic reflection about not just traveling, but in Israel in May 2000 with Rick Munden immediately after my father Israel died, and I planted trees for him in Jerusalem. Bet they’re big trees, and shady now. We saw a lot. I probably drove Rick crazy.

This time, I am back in Israel, alone, because of the death of Joyce, wandering aimlessly around the country, wondering what to do. I keep wanting to call her, talk to her, about what amazing place I just saw.  Though I never planned it, ironically, now my title now includes both of them. I hope you connect with it.

I have been many places

Traveling alone

Traveling together

Sometimes both

Together’s better

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Chicago Man Watches Death of Samurais in Israel (part 7)

by Robert M. Katzman © November 8, 2016

Some real life situations are so convolutedly charming that they defy fictionalization. Happened tonight.

Marooned as I am in The Promised Land with a painful foot problem which has stopped any explorations for now, and may now doom my hoped for two-day trip to Petra in Jordan and a night with the Bedouins, I spent the day in my nice apartment overlooking a valley thinking about ambition, ageing and gradually limited horizons.

Surrendering to pain, reluctantly and spending a day in an ancient Biblically historic land with cool November winds blowing through all the windows, and warm sunlight pouring down on a covered veranda, I had to think about how to spend my day.

(Read on …)

Tel Aviv, Israeli Radio and Unexpected Art

(part 5)

by Robert M. Katzman © November 4, 2017

 Driving south from Haifa, Israel, or 20 miles east of that to Tel Aviv on the mid-part of the coast on the Mediterranean Sea, later referred to all whom I asked as, “the Beach” or “the Sea” I had a choice of two ways to go, like long shoestrings hanging over a balcony, because both were parallel and I didn’t know the difference. One was more inland in the skinny country, Highway 6; the other ran along the touristy and industrial west coast, Highway 2. I chose 2.

An unmoving steel highway sizzling in the bright cloudless sun in tiny little chunks, chained together.

Discovered that rush hour in Israel was just like rush hour in Chicago or Los Angeles, except the road was narrower, the cars were tiny and aside from endlessly, robotically doing arithmetic in my head about how far one hundred kilometers really was, in American miles terms, so I had a mental picture of how much gas I had, and at the rate I was moving, would I ever get there?

Then there’s the radio. Israeli radio.

(Read on …)