Der Herd
Our life has reached a high level of sophistication nowadays. We find it hard to recognise (but we often don't want to) the simple, artless things of our life. Although our public life has become a clutter where we risk losing ourselves and our identity in a senseless cult of image and appearence, our private life is the only shelter we can count on, where we can find three elements: rest from our turbulent life, affection from our family and above all cover from the indiscretions and the assiduous judgement of other people. What is comparable to the satisfaction of the man who find himself master of his space, once back in home!
Today I couldn't enter my house. I had forgotten my keys. Waiting five hours under the Januar's chill, until my parents would have come back to home, I realized what a beautiful and fantastic thing a house is, and having experienced an infinitesimal fraction of what a homeless person spend everyday, I understood the intense desire and indispensable need of a roof over my head. Because where you can find a place to spend the night otherwise? I didn't find it.
שׁא שׁטילShh! Silence! Be very quiet!
The rabbi starts to dance again
Shh! Silence! Don't stop him!
The rabbi is already starting
And as the rabbi starts to dance
The whole world begins to twirl
Let's accompany him!
Traditional Hebrew song
Of course, pessimism is fashionable nowadays. It almost seems a good label for those who aren't eager to do anything.
12.28.2005
A Poem on Shtetl (jewish ghetto)
Here I wrote a poem by yidishn poet Moshe Nadir, and a (modest) attempt of translation:
ןריצאתשׁ 'מ ֻו ןטראד
dortn vu m'geyt shpazirn (There, where people go walking)
a land vu m'geyt nit shpazirn, vu m'trinkt nit keyn vein.
dass lend fun eysn un shtal, gun gelt un technik.
dass land, vu der, voss ken speyen veyter vi ale andere,
vert derklert alss tshempion un m'trogt im unter di hent.
ich bench aheym.
dortn geyt men shpazirn mit a religieser pinktlechkeyt.
dortn veynt dass ganze shtetl as m'shtarbt
oder men fort avek keyn amerika,
un dortn freyt sichdass ganze shtetl
as m'hot chassene oder m'gevintin der loterey.
dortn seynen di blumen kleyn un hobn keyn nemennit,
un di velder seynen groyss.
un di liebe? shtil is si.
un ful mit der farb fun blut.
sumer. di sseder seynen mid.
demolt vart men bissvanen ess sezt sich di sun
un m'geyt shpazirn. zuessn is nit keyn ssach
honik mi broyt for di kinder,milch for di dervaksene,
ober shpazirn geyen ale.
in yeder trit is a groyssn kunst, a vissenshaft.
dortn hot dass leben stil, un ru, un gemitlichkeyt,
un asoy fil leydike zeyt - m'bodt sich in zeyt!
dortn as men cheybt of doss chitl far a dame,
tutmen ess asoy grintlech un pamelech,
as men kenganz leycht iberleyenen
dem namen fun der firme un der numer funem chitl.
um apilu di eltern yidn, chssidim, shpazirn zumbrunem,
mit krugn in di hent,
un mit dem chlumfun kalt vasser oyf di breyte, berdike penimer.
ich benk noch dem land,
vu shpazirn geyn is a kunst un nit keyn arbeit.
ich bench noch di niderikedecher,
noch di hoyche himlen, noch der erd funblote un sney, un stoyb,
voss is doch a ssachveycher vi di erd fun steyn un eysn.
ich kum fun a shpazirn fun zentral park.
m'kukt oyfmir vi oyf an oysslender,
veil ich gey pamelech,ernst un mit a shtekn.
A land where people don't go for walkings, where people don't drink wine. The land of iron and steel, of money and tecnique. The land where who can spit farther than any other is declared champion, and is held in the hand's palm. I'm homesick. There people go for walkings with a religious punctuality. There the whole ghetto cries when somebody dies or leaves for America, and there the whole ghetto rejoice when somebody got married or wins the lottery. There flowers seem so small, and they even haven't a name, and the fields are so vaste. And love? It's silent. And colourful, of the spring's colours. Summer. The orchards are full. So people waits until the sun sets and go for walkings. There isn't that much to eat - honey and bread for the children, and milk for the grown-ups. And everyone goes for walkings. The life has style there, and peace, and it's easy. And so much leisure - people bath everytime! When you take your hat off, youm make it with so much elegance, that the lady in front of you could read the name of the firm and the serial numer of the hat! And even the old Jews, the Cassidim, walk by the fountain, with the jug in their hands, and with the secret desire of the cool water on their bearded faces. I am homesick of the land where going for walkings was an art, and never a job. I am homesick of the low roofs, the high skies, the land of mud and snow, and dust (much softer tha the stone and iron's ground). I come from a walking in Central Park. They look at me like I was a foreigner, because I walk slowly, and with a stick.That world is over. Forever. It was replaced by the moder Israel the "Great Israel", glittering, united, with its powerful governement and army. To demonstrate that Jews have regained their lost country, their power. But what is left of two millennia of the Jewish Diaspora's history? Should it be Holocaust's fault? Without any doubt. But where are the Jews who teach Yiddish to their children nowadays, who rebuild the destroyed synagogues? Maybe it's better so. To forget centuries of humiliations, sufferences, persecutions. But isn't modern Israel somehow an artificial State? I'm glad of its existence, sure. But if I lived half a century ago, I would have preferred to stay in the "land of iron and steel", the States. Why? Because it's really a lack of common sense, political dignity and legitimacy what the Israeli government has had over the past fifty years to the Palestinian Arabs.
A turbulent week has just taken place, and we all know what happened. Nonetheless, maybe we didn't watched only reprehensible events of violence, illegitimatecy, negligence and lack of a democratic attitude. This year it is different, as a new process has occurred. The students of the Liceo Parini (at least those who tried to enter the school during the seizure, and I think they can by right represent the majority) didn't disregarded the events of their school, taking advantage of the situation, but claimed their right to studing and using their structures (which are owned by them not less than by the Collective's students); they reminded how a real democracy should work, by giving their support to a truly effective initiative (as I defined it, like most of the students did), the co-conduct of the school, approved by the majority of the students through an authorized vote, in a very different way from the Collective's members, who, notwithstanding their lack of approval between the students, proved once again their contemptuosness and their absence of political maturity and reliability. Of course this year, due to the Collective's choice of adopting extremely arrogant and aggressive methods, a reaction was natural, in order to restore legality. But maybe we are really annoyed of this situation, of the Collective's students who occupy and
take possetion of places that should be used in common with everyone , who spend their night there and unsettle our school, preventing the students from entering the school and having their classes the next morning. But these people discredited themselves, with their uppish and manifestly anti-democratic attitude, and have lost their reputation and approval amongst the students, although this doesn't seem to concern them.
