Thanks for Nothing

I was going to write this a few days ago but I am trying to control my dismay at particular groups. Once again there were protests against the police and army replete with yellow stars and shouts of Nazi. This, as they were distributing food and trying to keep people safe. I have come to the conclusion that they should be given everything they ask for. Open their cities, remove the roadblocks, let them go to shul and Yeshiva. The only caveat is that since they are only 12-15% of the population, that is the percentage of ICU beds that should be allocated to them.

You know I am in a generous mood. Lets give them 25% of the beds. It might cause a problem since they now are using more than  twice that but perhaps their Rabbis, through their Das Torah , can decide who really needs the respirator and who doesn't. Then when this is all over and their community has 2 -3 times more deaths than they should have proportionally gotten, they can thank their leaders for saving those who did not get sick.

Three cities, Modiin Ilit, Bet Shemesh and Elad EACH have more cases than all of Tel Aviv. If you add the populations of these three cities together you would get less than 1/2 the population of Tel Aviv

I really don't get it at all. You would think that when you see your friends and neighbors dying that you would want to listen to the experts and be on the side of caution. I understand the difficulties. Families are not supposed to spend 6 weeks cooped up together and in most cases , in small apartments. I guess that each person needs to calculate  what is more important. That is OK as long as it doesn't hurt the rest of us.

Taking an outsize proportion of hospital resources is one of those things that can potentially hurt the rest of us.

I am fortunate enough to have room so that I can hide from everyone if I so choose, which I do often. I haven't really left my house in 6 weeks. A bit of shopping here and there. An occasional walk but mostly I stay at home. I am lucky to have my family with me but to be honest I never thought I would have deal with toilet training again. It is something I did not miss but get to go through again.

Now that's luck.

Yesterday was Holocaust remembrance day. It is usually a unique experience as the entire country just stops where they are and stands still for 2 min. This year we did it in our house which was  not as meaningful, especially when staring at a pair of training potties.

It was upsetting to read of the many acts of antisemitism all over the world. One that stood out was BDS disrupting a memorial service taking place on Zoom with obscenities. On the flip side of that, my friend at Reservists on Duty sent me a post showing how a BDS resolution at UC Irvine in California was overturned after 8 years. It seems that the student council realized that BDS promoted, with it's anti-semitic view of Israel, acts of violence and intimidation against Jewish students on campus.

Better late than never

On the political front, Bibi proved once again that he is the undisputed master of the game of thrones  ( I am still bingeing it ) . He somehow got his political rival , Benny Ganz, to give up all his campaign promises for essentially some ministries and the promise of becoming Prime Minister in 18 months.

Lets see how that works out for him.

Benny Ganz said that he did it for the good of the country.

Thanks.

This will be the most top heavy government in the history of the state. There will be over 30 ministers and the budget for them will exceed 1 Billion NIS ( about 286 million in real money).

Good going Benny

Lastly, I have been trying very hard to improve my Hebrew since I moved here. One of the harder things to learn is idioms and slang. I just learned a good one, פיל פחות ירושה לילדים. It literally means , less inheritance for the kids. Essentially you have a good time now, spend all your money, and leave your kids nothing.  I have always told my kids that is what they should expect but now I know how to say it in Hebrew.

Very cool.