BITS AND PIECES PART 2

I loved this sign at the Hebrew University, its a great metaphor for something, certainly not the Israeli political system. This dichotomy between the intellectual elite represented by the fabulous university system, brilliant opinion pieces in the paper and shelves and shelves of books and journals on the one hand and the complete bankruptcy, corruption, and overall misjudgments of the politicians is really something else. The latest news is that the Labor Party which used to be the backbone of the socialist Kibbutz system and one of the world's premier Social Democratic parties has decided to join the Netanayhu right wing government which also includes a racist, super secular party and an ultra-orthodox religious party. The middle of the road, peace party of Tzipi Livni has been left out of the equation. To pull this off, the cabinet has been expanded to 28 members from 17, Labor will get positions that supposedly help the working class like agriculture, the religious party will get departments to protect (expand) settlements and pay huge subsidies for extra children and Yeshiva education, Lieberman (anti-Arab/Russian) party will get foreign affairs and that leaves almost nothing for the ruling Likud party except maybe the Finance Ministry. This would be like McCain getting fewer votes than Obama, and then forming a government in which Sarah Palin's people would get 40% of the cabinet positions, Joe Lieberman's people would get 35%, Ron Paul would get 15%, Dennis Kucinich would get 10%, McCain would get 5% and Obama would get nothing. So there is a strong private industry/capitalistic fiscal policy, a no-two-state/no negotiations Palestinian policy, a welfare system for the Ultra-orthodox supporters and maybe civil marriages and easy religious conversions for Russian immigrants.
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Boys Day Out: The city is awash in young, studious and horny Yeshiva students. Its like Yentl on crack. Recently a group of 100 IDF soldiers walked out of a talent show because a female solder started to sing a patriotic song. Here's the deal: there is a special program for especially gung-ho Yeshiva students where 50% of the time they study Torah and 50% of the time they get to go and fight Arabs. This is experimental because all Yeshiva students are exempt from military service as are Israel Arabs, but obviously for different reasons. So it is forbidden for an ultra-orthodox male to listen to a female singing. Its a kind of Greek Siren thing where if they hear a woman's singing voice they can't concentrate on God's word or in this case, military instructions. Vardit tells me that when she goes to an ultra's house to test the hearing of a special needs kid, she has to ask permission if she can sing a song and if it is granted the father may have to leave the room. Weird (have I used that word before?)

Marathon Day: Today was the great Jerusalem 1/2 Marathon Race which wound its way through all the traditional holy sites. The route passed right under my bedroom window so I had a great view. The first guy through was a normal looking white guy (not a good sign), the second guy through was wearing a Jewish kippa on his head (really not a good sign) and the third person was a cute, Jewish, Sabra looking woman. My first thought was, "where are the Ethiopians and Kenyans?" What if they sponsored a Marathon race and no Ethiopians or Kenyans participated, can that still be called a "marathon?" Actually, there were a couple of good distance runers who came over in the celebrated Operation Solomon in which 14,500 Ethiopian Jews were rescued and brought to Israel. Just as the American Olympic track team is predominantly black, so too some day the Israeli team might comprise Ethiopian long-distance runners and Russian weight lifters all courtesy of the immigration policy.