Different Slants

One of the last back-issue magazine resources in America, this 2012  fourteen minute interview by an incredibly compassionate and talented movie maker, J. T. Bowers, who got it right. Out of two hours of filming, he distilled it down to this short film. But the music…the music is heartbreaking, to me at least. Like filming death in slow motion. Some people can see more than others, and Bowers is gifted that way. I haven’t seen him for years,but maybe he’ll see this and contact me.

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Teaching Jericho About Fire on Thanksgiving Day

by Robert M. Katzman  Thanksgiving Day, 2017

We’re walking on the beach collecting wood

Thanksgiving Day

Pieces of our family are gathering

First time without Grandma in his short life

And my long one

Her shadow follows us

He’s six and doing his best

I’m sixty-seven and want him to know

To know about wood and fire and so much more

I think about Time and that it’s flowing too quickly

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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.

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