Different Slants

Meeting Marsha Michael, Who Solved My Problems in Israel (Part 4)

by Robert M. Katzman © October 31, 2017

 

My landlady, (land-person?), Orly, suggested I meet her friend Marsha Michael whom she felt would be somebody I’d like to talk to. She was right, but for assorted reasons. But with meeting her for dinner, came the Katzman Food Curse. More on that later.

Marsha, a lovely woman who is my contemporary, which is much safer to say than listing a person’s age, like that matters, except to say that we both know who Harry Truman was and why he’d be a better President of the United States today—even though dead—than the insanity we have in there now.

Marsha, besides being a very smart, politically active citizen of Israel by way of New Jersey, meaning any opponents of hers better watch themselves, was very easy to talk to and educated me about a growing protest movement in Israel to end the endless war between Palestine and Israel and create an actual two-state reality.

She is involved in a group called: http://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/

(Read on …)

Joy’s Ashes in Israel:

An Independent Woman

(part 3)

By Robert M. Katzman © October 30, 2017 

Joyce’s Choices:

She chose to marry a Jewish man

She chose to become a Jewish woman

She chose to have Jewish children

She became an excellent Jewish cook

Cloaking herself in the identity she wanted

Even to dying on Sunday, May 14th

Israel’s 69th Independence Day

She chose to lead a Jewish life

Rosh Hashanah//Yom Kippur

Chanukkah//Purim//Passover

New to Joyce’s existence at twenty-five

Were never forced upon her

A life she controlled

(Read on …)

Bob in Israel: Crusader Castles and Caraway Seeds (part 2)

By Robert m. Katzman © October 27, 2017

 I thought the problem was Caraway seeds. I mean finding them in the Promised Land because since I’m cooking eggs in my obscure rented space far from English-speaking people in order to spend as little as possible on food, salt and pepper just didn’t cut it this morning. I decided to find a real, or at least larger grocery store where a range of spices might be available.

About Caraway seeds, in case this sounds odd to you or in case everything I write about seems odd to you, when I was a child on the South Side of Chicago there was a Jewish place on 71^st Street and Jeffery Avenue, near Woolworths and I think north of the train. I was five then, in 1955, and I couldn’t drive yet, so my memories of where things were at that time might be influenced from my being three feet tall.

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman © October 26, 2017

My plan to skillfully and thoughtfully distribute my wife Joy’s ashes where it would mean the most to both of us was going well. Our tall handsome blonde, brown-eyed son David made all the arrangements and connections on the Internet and eased my way, accept for the last one. What was I expecting?

Landing in Tel Aviv, Israel at 4:30 PM and leaving on the morning of Wednesday, October 25, 2017 from Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy awaking at 6 am, and flying east at noon on El Al, it was the last leg of my trip where Joy’s ashes will be sent into the wind from the top of Masada. Never heard of it? It’s usually incorrectly referred to as the Jewish Alamo, but since it happened 2,000 years earlier, the Alamo should really be called the American Masada. Just my opinion. Two Jews died in the Alamo with the other 180 men, not that it makes them any more special. (Read on …)