welcome home computer

Debra and Silvia were away for 10 days in the states for Debra's parents' glamorous and wonderful 45th anniversary party. While she was there, she took our computer in for some warranty work which took about an hour in the states and would have taken several days here in Israel. So that left me at home, liberated from the tyranny of our Macintosh. It was amazing to realize how much time I had when I was no longer spending it on the computer, and how productive I was without the time suck and distractions provided by the world wide web. And, of course, yesterday our new computer arrived, which meant I've spend a lot of the past day setting it up and transferring information from the old machine to the new (the utility to do this for me didn't work).

And now I'm back to being connected to the web and, for the most part, it's relatively depressing. I had taken most of the week off from reading papers, and now that I've tuned in, it seems that Natanyahu is going to form a very right wing coalition government that, according to a report today, will make no mention of a Palestinian state and make no moves towards the creation of one. oy.

Debra looked up as I read this news aloud and said it's a reason to leave, but I think of it as a reason to stay. At least while I'm here I get to vote and have a small say in what's going on.

I just came across this article in the Jerusalem post about the new Antisemitism. Makes me realize, again, that the haters in the world have lumped together the Jews of the world with Israel and hold every Jew responsible for all of Israel's actions (which are always thoughts to be bad ones). I guess if I'm going to be held accountable for something, I should at least have a say in what's going on here whether through voting or protesting, or maybe just through living here and talking to people.

But on the hopeful side, Lieberman (the right wing guy) has been demanding civil marriage and a lessening of conversion standards, which would be major coups for those of us who support religious pluralism here. So we may have a right wing government that actually does some good for the nation, though I suspect I'm just dreaming and that Natanyahu is going to be for Israel as Bush was for the US - actively destructive.

Interestingly, Bradley Burston, one of my favorite columnists here, just wrote an interesting piece in which he states that Israel voted for Natanyahu because they believe he's the best "divorce" lawyer to get them through this messy divorce with the Palestinians. Only 7 seats in a 120 seat knesset still favor a greater Israel (Israel plus the west bank), which is to say, there might be some hope yet.

On the home front, it was amazing to watch Miriam become more independent in the absence of her older sister, and it was wonderful to see the two of them be so happy to see each other that they were having a hard time falling asleep because they just wanted to play with each other.

And, it is, of course, wonderful that we are all together again. It was a lonely 10 days and it's been really great to have the craziness of a full house again.