65 An Old Page

On my bicycle trip on Saturday I sat down to rest on a bench under a beautiful tree in the Ramat Hanadiv National Park. I drank some water, took a bite of my energy snack, reached into my little back-pack to take out a small book "The Judgment and Other Stories" and read the story entitled "An Old Page". In three pages Kafka creates an ominous feeling of the collapse of civilization because of wild nomads that had invaded and reached the square in front of the Emperor's palace and no one dared to confront them.

While reading I was reminded of Coetzee's book "Waiting for the Barbarians" wherein the feeling of disintegration and fear of the barbarians is spread over many depressing pages. And suddenly it occurred to me that Coetzee's book is in some way an extension of Kafka's brief story.

I also thought that today we are celebrating the state's sixtieth anniversary and a dark cloud hovers over the head of our leader. He himself sits withdrawn in his official residence and does not come out and speak to us about the holiday. It seems that the fear of the nomads in Kafka's story and of the barbarians in Coetzee's novel has been turned by us into fear of ourselves. For we, or our elected leaders, or our new financial idols – and not nomads or barbarians – gallop in the city square and trample over the masses.

But on the holiday I shall wave the flag and sweep away the evil spirit. I shall call the good winds that moved the branches of the tree under which I read the old page and I shall think of the good there is and still will be in the future.

64 The Cheese of Safed

On Friday I payed a visit to Ha'Meiri dairy in Safed and saw the 'boutique' family dairy. I heard stories about Safed and about how cheese is made, was taken to the cellar and saw the Safed cheeses rest in straw baskets encased in salt, and bought wonderful cheeses to take home.

After everyone had finished buying cheeses only we remained, and we found it interesting to walk through the rooms of the house and look at the pictures on the walls. And then Meir Hameiri arrived. We told him that during the tour that his son Yaniv had given us, he mentioned many of his father's stories and Meir decided to take us to his archives in which he chronicles the history of the people of Safed of 1948.

The building in which the dairy is located, which formerly was also the family home, is situated on the western edge of the city, above the cemetery slope and opposite the Miron mountain. The house served as a front outpost in the War of Independence and also as a hiding place for 'Etzel' arms. During the shelling by the 'Arab Salvation Army' the house was destroyed and after the war was again restored.

When we were just about to leave after having heard countless stories, we asked Meir about the cemetery of Safed. He said that he is the synagogue's treasurer and since today was Friday of the first of the month, he was about to bring to the holy man of the synagogue, Rabbi Maveritch, the slips of paper with the wishes that the worshippers had trusted him with. 'Follow me' he said and got into his car. We followed him to the cemetery. When we arrived Meir told us how he had discovered the cave in which Avraham Dov Maveritch is buried and how with his bare hands he dug and disclosed the grave.

On the way to the cave we passed the grave of Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of 'Shulchan Aruch'. After visiting the cave and going a short distance further up the mountain we came to the grave of Rabbi Yitzchak Lurie (the Ari). I realized that unintentionally I had come to Safed to visit the graves of holy men.

But now, seated before a plate of cheese, I neither think about the stories of the elder of Safed nor about the graves of holy men. I am satisfied with myself for having taken the trouble of going to Safed for the taste of home-made cheese – cheese that was made by hand and was waiting for me in a straw basket.

63 Pesach in the Kibbutz 1966

Pesach of the 1960s was a gigantic pageant. More than half of the kibbutz members and most of the children participated to some extend in the preparations and the performances. It was the biggest kibbutz holiday. The choir in which people between the ages of 16 and 66 sang, held daily rehearsals for more than a month on holiday songs; the children rehearsed the ceremony of bringing the sheaves of grain for the 'Omer'; those who were going to read parts of the Kibbutz Haggadah rehearsed the correct pronunciation of the text with one of the experienced kibbutz members; and those children who's turn it was to dance the Had Gadyah were in seventh heaven (and so were their proud parents).

An atmosphere of collective excitement characterized the kibbutz in the days before the holidays and for all those 'performers', the singers, dancers, actors and readers, it was a month of intensive cultural activity. While writing these words I am reminded of the beautiful sentences that Igael Burshtein wrote about John Huston's film "The Dead" which was based on James Joyce's story: 'The story takes us back to Ireland in the early 20^th century and to the people who lived an active cultural life to the utmost: they sang, danced, embroidered, played musical instruments, gave speeches, etc'. In some way the sixties in the kibbutz resembled this description. Active participation in cultural activities was considered of great value and almost everyone either played an instrument, acted or sang in the choir – and all this activity peaked on holidays, especially in the big Pesach production.

Almost a month before the evening of the holiday a large stage was built in the dinning hall. Daily routine was disrupted and everything concentrated around the big event that was in the offing. The final rehearsals on the stage were a leap from one emotional high to another, and the evening of the holiday was so exciting as to be almost unbearable.

After the Seder was over, we would remove the long tables and benches from the dinning room and dance in circles until exhaustion. After that we would sit on the edges of the stage around Uzi's accordion and sing without end, until dawn.

In the picture we dance the story of the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt (though according to the costumes and the movements we look more like the Egyptians). I am on the right, in the middle is Menachem, behind us, if I am not mistaken is Ehud and on the left is Oren. I don't know who the dancer in the back is.

62 The Recital

On Saturday evening, two days after the end of the 12^th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, I went to Haifa to hear the winners perform. The planned event seemed almost monstrous: three recitals, each one an hour long, with two half hour long intermissions. That is to say, a four hour marathon. I only heard of the recital Saturday noon at a family get-together and decided that I would get there during the first intermission and hear the last two recitals. That way I succeeded in hearing the two contestants who were awarded second prize (as is known, no first prize was given).

Years ago, when the Rubinstein competition was still a brilliant novelty, I would follow all the stages of the competition with great interest. I would listen to the recitals on the radio and free myself for a day or two in which I would sit in the Tel Aviv Museum and listen for hours to the contestants. Everything aroused my enthusiasm: the excited audience, the nervous contestants pounding away at the piano, the judges scrutinized by the audience that noted every raised eyebrow or movement of a pen. Of course I also went to the final rounds in the Mann Auditorium and eagerly awaited the judges' decision.

This year I hardly followed the competition. I didn't listen to the radio broadcasts and even missed the TV broadcast of the final concert. Nevertheless I couldn't ignore the event completely and so it happened that before the final stage, I saw and heard live on a television program one minute of the playing of Ching-Yun Hu, and a famous young composer who sat in the studio, called her "a competition horse". I understood that she was also the audience's favorite, and suddenly I began to have doubts about her. My doubts turned out to be right.

Ching-Yun Hu, who is seen here in a blurred picture that I managed to snap with my cell phone camera, played the way it is usual to play in competitions, like an athlete, fast, strong and exact. I couldn't get interested in her playing. I didn't feel that she was trying to express something and her tone also lacked brilliance and beauty: as if she doesn't have time to devote to tonal quality as such.

The surprise that was awaiting me in Haifa was the playing of Roman Rabinovich. I feared that he had been advanced because he is an Israeli (afraid that the judges would insist on giving the prize to an Israeli because of the country's sixtieth anniversary), but from the first note I understood that a mature and serious artist was sitting on the stage. Without superfluous gestures and grimaces he creates an excellent sound and his posture at the piano gives the feeling of calm and seriousness. As more of the composition is heard, the competition and the noise surrounding it are forgotten. Roman succeeds in creating a barrier between the surrounding commotion and the main thing happening at this moment – when he and the piano meet opposite us in a world that is only music.

61 The Crossroads Commercial Palace

The Crossroads Shopping Center attracts a multitude of people. Sometimes it seems that it serves as a sort of Town Square for the neighboring villages. On Saturdays crowds mill about as if buying was a ritual. Those heading for the center are not concerned only with shopping. Youths sit on little patches of lawn next to the road, children play in the playground next to the parking lot and ride on the little electric train near the pizzeria.

Families cross the shopping center from one end to the other, some of them hurrying from store to store, but others stroll nonchalantly as if they are on the boardwalk. In the lot in front of the supermarket – which is shown in the picture – puppies are sold on Saturdays and people gather in front of the ATM machine on the right. On Saturdays there isn't a single available cart between the iron rails near the ATM and when one becomes available it is immediately snatched up by a new customer.

I took this picture in the middle of the week. Everything is calm and one can observe the entrance to the supermarket leisurely. The ninety degrees angle of the roof that protects from the summer sun and winter rain creates – with the help of the illumination – the effect of a lighted pyramid. "Get out of the dark and come into the light" the shopping center whispers to us. But the rising triangle also resembles a huge shark which is about to swallow us.

Behind the glass doors of the supermarket the light becomes brighter and it blurs the details in the picture. That is the heart of the "palace", a consumer heaven spread out on shelves filled with everything one might desire and soft music drifts over the price tags. The large pictures above the heaven's gates remind one of the other periods of this place and a time that has passed never to return – Moments of the history of the nearby Kibbutz Gan Shmuel that was established in 1922 and who are the present owners of this supermarket. Very few people lift their eyes to this lost ideal

60 The Shadow

Here I stand on a sunny winter day and glance at the image of brilliance that the white, fine gravel at my feet, returns. Next to me a tree casts its shadow diagonally. In the early afternoon the shadow becomes longer, but it is still possible to recognize in it the original figure. As in a distorting mirror, the feet seem large and the head small. The bag hanging from my right creates an asymmetric impression that can be interpreted in a thousand different ways. The left hand is bent and is only partly seen. The right hand holds the cell phone camera at eye level. It looks short and strange. Fat at the beginning and thin at the end.

Little, dry brown leaves are scattered over the gravel. Also a few cigarette butts. The light is brighter on the upper part of the picture, as if the source of the light is coming from somewhere behind the head, or with a little imagination, as if I am looking into the light in the depth of the picture. The leaves around the head seem to paint a curve around the shadow. As if they had arranged themselves in that way due to an electrical field that the image creates.

The soft shadow of the foliage in the upper left hand corner seems like the shadow that emphasizes the sharp contours of the tree trunk and the image in the middle of the picture. The laws of perspective have accustomed us to see the little head as an object that is far away, but if we ignore them, for example by partly closing an eye or observing from a distance, the image contracts and new possibilities are provided.

The shadow both reveals and hides at the same time. It leaves much room for the imagination. It is possible to see many things in this picture of an individual raising his hand to his head.

59 The Mazda Sinking - The Driver Unharmed

Thursday morning, while I was brushing my teeth, my cell phone rang. At that hour it could only be my wife. No doubt she remembered something she forgot to tell me before she left for work. While driving, everyone calls everyone. You are waiting for the traffic light to change and see other drivers holding lengthy conversations with people unseen.

But no, that wasn't the case. This time it was something different. "I had an accident", says my wife. "I am ok. Nothing happened to me, but the car is in a ditch. I am standing in the pouring rain and waiting for the tow truck. I have already ordered one. Come and keep me company until it arrives". I got ready quickly and went. On the way from Gan Shmuel to Hadera, next to the turn to Kfar Yuliana, close to the strange, elongated square that marks the entrance to the city, I saw our car stuck in the mud. The water had already entered the car and reached the front seats. Indeed, nothing had happened to my wife. Luck. She lost control suddenly and started sliding (on the evening news I heard mention that all the cars of this model were recalled for the correction of a production error that was liable to cause loss of control). Opposite her a bus was approaching dangerously close. In attempting to avoid him, she turned in the direction of Kfar Yuliana, slid, went off the road to the left in front of the bus and fell into the ditch.

Everything happened slowly, she says, almost like a slow motion movie. The car struck a mound of earth in front of the ditch and almost stopped, but then, slowly the front part slid down and the car slipped into the water.

We waited about an hour before the tow truck arrived. We stood in the pouring rain. In the meantime a police car and an ambulance arrived. Drivers who saw the accident had apparently notified them. There was no need for them. The ambulance team saw that no one was injured and went on its way. The police waited until the tow truck had picked up the Mazda and left. Two hours after the accident we were in the garage. One more hour and we were home. Everything happened quickly. Now all that remained were the procedures – assessment and insurance. The water caused serious damage. The car was a total loss.

But this evening when the news on the television spoke of the defect that was discovered in all the cars of this model, my wife became very excited. Is it possible that that was the cause for what had happened? Tomorrow we shall try to find out, if we can. The car is already in the hands of the insurance company.