The Red Balloon

What's a classic film? I think I found out yesterday when we took 6 of our Israeli grandkids between 7 and 11 to see "The Red Balloon." The book had been on our coffee table for a few months after my sister and I saw it and she bought it for the kids. It contains images from the original film, and almost entirely, except for the red balloon, in the grey tones of a poor gritty Paris neighborhood. I spied a one time only showing at 11AM on the last day of the Pesach vacation. So off we went to a small viewing room in the Jerusalem Theater complex to see 34 minutes of enchantment, conceived by Albert Lamorisse 52 years ago. So there we were, Max and me, seeing it again with the pleasure of return and six Hebrew-reading sabras reading subtitles and transfixed by Pascal Lamorisse, young son of the writer/director, who discovers and tames a gorgeous red balloon to be his loyal friend. I should not say more, but it wouldn't matter. Because knowing every word and moment of the tale diminishes nothing.

And when we left the theater, young women greeted each of us with a gift of a big red balloon on a stick.

Endlessly Discovering Jerusalem

Pesach vacation this week for kids so time for thinking of new things to do with them. Yesterday, there were all sorts of possibilities from Seguay tours to guided walks to open-sided covered vehicles. Seguays, in case you haven't seen them, are powered wheel-based platforms on which you stand holding on the handlebars and directing it with slight body movements. They are stable, easy to master and fairly slow but marvelous for moving around on roads or sidewalks while the cars are jammed up. Now it is a tour option with guide. We, that is, Max and I and Itay and Alex our eldest grandchildren from Tel Aviv, and Daniel and 4 of his kids decided on a tour thru a 400 meter section of an ancient Hasmonean water tunnel that carried water from two springs south of Bethlehem to the Temple Mt. The system depended on a 300 foot difference in altitude between the southern springs and the Temple Mount. In order to accomplish this completely by gravity the engineers more than 2,000 years ago had to design a serpentine rockcut system that preserved a constant small gradient. On a very hot day such as it was yesterday--close to 90 degrees--walking for some half hour in a cool tunnel, dark and narrow though it was, was a pleasure. As many times as we have walked in this area over the years we never knew about this long stretch of walkable preserved tunnel. It is only opened by pre-arrangement with guides. All this was followed by swimming in our neighborhood pool and a BBQ by Max and me with contributions by Wendy and Saul for 15 of us in our shaggy but poetic garden garden.

Jerusalem before Shabbat and Pesach kick in

You've got to know that almost everything I do day to day and need is within 10 minutes in one direction or the other. So today I walked to my hairdresser who on Friday works out of the basement room of the Kelmans, he the rabbi of Kol Haneshama Reform synagogue. Sam reduces prices on Fridays because conditions are a bit primitive and you have to wash your own hair over the bathroom sink. The hair story is incidental to Sam musing about all the different ways his clients deal with Pesach and how he himself manages to overcome the oppression he experienced as a boy with a demanding and unbending father. Then another woman arrived having an agitated conversation on her cell phone with her daughter who decided not to come to the planned seder at a friend's house. Obviously disturbed about this rebellion she resisted Sam's attempt to start a conversation about her agitation. He offered that it was best to ignore the daughter's decision. Woman in chair said there was more to it than that and so it ended.

Max phoned to alert me to the chametz burning (symbolic burning of forbidden grain products that you can't eat during the week of Pesach) that Saul's family was about to do in the park opposite their house. While rushing to be present at the fire-making that kids always love--they are 12, 9 and 7--I passed the chametz burning on the abandoned railroad tracks between Baka and the German colony where a friend from our former shul in DC was hanging out on the edge of the smoke with people for whom this is an annual event, at least as important for the conversations as for the ritual. All along were small clumps of charred newspaper and pieces of soon-to-be- forbidden bread. And those who weren't burning were rushing around buying gifts for hosts, last minute I-may-need-this before Monday (the end of shabbat and Pesach in Israel while outside it is Tuesday)items. Neighbors were loading up their van to drive to his mother's town in the north for the seder.

You don't have to know much or be particularly observant to realize that something unusual is going on today. Judaism for a few hours exposes itself on the street.

Honoring Sayef Bisan Who Died for Israel

Staff Sergeant Sayef Bisan, 21, from the Druze village of Jat in western Galilee, was killed at the Kissufim crossing to Gaza by Palestinian terrorists on April 6. Sayef was serving in an elite reconnaissance unit, Egoz, of the Golani Brigade. His father served in the IDF; his brother is a combat officer. His Uncle said that Sayef was raised in a Zionist home, brought up to love his country. "We raise our children," he said, "to contribute to this country which we are part of."

We must praise and support these loyal Druze families whose sons stand side by side with Jewish Israelis in defense of our land and theirs. Making this effort is especially required at a time when the loyalty to Israel of some Druze and Bedouin and Israeli Arabs is uncertain. The next time we are in Western Galilee I want to stop at Jat to meet the Sayef family and tell them we honor them. Such a family, and perhaps the entire village, is a model of the way Jews and others lived before Palestinian hatred of Jews was fed to their children. Those days were not perfect, but they offered hope of coexistence without barrier fences against terror.

Depression and Uplift

I can't call myself a blogger until I begin to feel compelled by the process.
Yesterday, I spilled a lot of thoughts with Eve and Jack Menes after the piano recital of Ching-Yun Hu, co-winner of this year's' Rubinstein awards. We all just returned a couple of weeks ago from the US so we could talk about the Obama-Hillary spectacle and our hopes for McCain. But the triggers for my depression and uplift were two news pieces from the Jerusalem Post. One spoke about some U.S. congregations that are arguing over how to revise the prayer for the State of Israel. Why?--discomfort with the messianic language of the "first flowering of the redemption," feeling insulted as diaspora Jews by the "ingathering of the exiles," and being exquisitely sensitive to our enemies by not wanting to pray that the Israel Defense Forces will achieve "victory." This is a sickness of confidence in the quality of the Jewish people, a dismal lack of pride, a divorce from our ancient history. All this is addressed by the about to be released two disc DVD narrated by UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, with his chosen music throughout, affirming the awe-inspiring history of the Jewish people (read David Horovitz in the Jerus Post April 4). I'm ready to send the DVD to friends and family in the US who are not likely to stand up against the daily onslaught of hatred and diminishment of who we are.
We will cure ourselves--the signs are there, but, oh, so many Jews hold us back.