Blinken

 It seems the camera likes Antony Blinken (America's  Secretary of State). I think he knows that, and cooperates with it.  His profile looks good in most of the pictures I've seen so far.

Blinken is jewish, and his wife christian. They met at the White House where they were both working  for the Obama and Clinton administrations.  

At their wedding, the religious service was performed by a rabbi and a priest. (I wonder how that goes...never been to an interfaith  wedding ceremony).

According to his biography he is fluent in French (he lived in France for a period of time, with his Mother and her husband , and went to school there).  He also plays the guitar and sings. 

Not everybody's happy with his guitar playing ('it sucks' , wrote someone). I believe,  that with the kind of job he does, the guitar saves him. ( Currently, he's got Israel and Ukraine on his head, two very tough  'clients' !) .  

Lately, he was seen in a bar in Kyiv,  dressed in jeans and holding a red guitar, performing  onstage together with a local rock band in celebration of some more military help given  by the USA  to Ukraine. 

He combines diplomacy with music, and it probably works for him; the two domains somehow complement each other. (Bill Clinton as I recall, was playing saxophone).

A. Blinken  (web picture)

        

youtube - Blinken rocks in Kyiv

Shortage?! Famine?! Not Likely, But...

 

Whenever I complain about the high prices of food, I'm told to keep quiet as the worst is yet to come. Shortage and even Famine are next.

I already notice shortage, but not of essentials. We still got plenty of bread, milk, eggs, fish, veggies; yet... being a country  based on import, we should worry. Covid and Ukraine are not without global consequences. It is well-known that epidemics and war disrupt both the production and  distribution of food, through damage to production means and transportation routes.

Of course, there are always the usual causes such as population growth and natural calamities ( drought, flooding, cold weather, etc..). We cannot control natural causes,  but we could prevent shortage and famine by trying to prevent war,  fighting epidemics, and especially giving high priority to local production of food.

Our government does little  to encourage local agriculture and industry. It appears, so far, to have supported the importers in their making big money - buying cheap, selling expensive.

I always  check the labels on products - and it makes me sad. Most of them are imported. It's more profitable for the big firms (like our Elite coffee firm) to import  stuff rather than  produce it locally. However, it's not only the cost that matters, but also the food security. There's no such security if the country depends on outer sources. It is a well-known fact, and yet highly ignored.

Anyway, let's hope for no shortage, for sane prices  ,and for increase in local production of food .

Uman Pilgrimage

Uman is a town in central Ukraine, on the banks of the Umanka river. 
During the recent decades, the town has become known for the burial place of the 19th century rabbi Nachman of Breslov , founder of the jewish chassidic Breslov movement.

rabbi Nachman's gravesite in Uman *

The annual pilgrimage of  ultra orthodox israeli members of this movement,  to the above gravesite, is not new to me, but I must admit that until now, I've not  been aware of the alarming numbers.   According to the media, about 80 planes carrying thousands of chassidim, are usually booked  for the  Rosh Hashana (jewish New Year) celebrations in Uman.  

pilgrims praying at Umanka river *

Since we've been flagged as a 'red' country, the coronavirus czar has attempted to stop this year's Rosh Hashana  (sept.18) pilgrimage,  warning that it presents serious danger to both Ukraine and Israel. So far, his appeal has only partial success , because of political interference (or non-interference, it  depends on who and  how one looks at it).

single chassid praying by the Umanka river*

No doubt, the ukrainian town gets rich during the 
celebrations at the rabbi's tomb .  Israel gets poorer.
Our PM  is re-elected with the help of the many thousands of  pilgrims' votes, and as a reward, he bestows upon their political parties in the coalition, very generous budgets and rights.

I'm afraid, that even with another PM and a  new coalition , there'll be no way of going back. If you touch these budgets and rights, you might get blood on the streets.

My conclusion - it's the numbers that count. Demography,  not Democracy, is the key to all.
If you ignore demography (in Israel, the orthodox jews, and the arabs are the ones with large families, and their locations - corona red zones), you might find yourself without a country. . Coronavirus pandemic is not all bad,  as it's an eye- opener.

* web pictures

S I X- at the Woodland of Dorohoi

Six towns, six stone columns, six burning candles, six flower wreaths, six flags, six guests  at the stage of honor.....

the woodland of Dorohoi

On Thursdayׂ (31.5.2018ׁ), 
I attended a commemoration in the 'Forest of the Martyrs'  near Jerusalem, at a spot called 'the woodland of Dorohoi'. Here, there's a six- column stone monument placed around a tree stump, symbol for the six towns of Dorohoi region in north-east Romania, whose jewish communities have undergone persecutions during the Holocaust.

the six-stone columns monument

six flower wreaths

The Dorohoi region during the WW2 period, included six towns, each surrounded by a number of villages: Dorohoi , the bigger town, and five tiny additional towns: Saveni, Mihaileni, Darabani, Herza, Radauti-Prut. My family was originally from Saveni  (so, by the way, was the american  composer of "Popeye the sailor man" ,Samuel Lerner).

horse of the border patrol by the tree, 'paying respects'

the horse rider patrolling.

youngest generation

I wrote about this memorial in the past, and I also mentioned in a previous post the sad fact about my mother being exiled to bloody Ukraine where she lost a baby and a younger sister. Although I was born after the war , I grew up in the shadow of its atrocities with heart broken parents who had lost everything.

Me...contemplating the area

The climax at this event for me is always the prayer of 'El Male Rachamim' (God full of Mercy). If the cantor is one with a good, powerful voice, it gives me the chills, and hot tears fill my eyes. The prayer (holocaust version, there are several) goes like this: 

'God full of Mercy/grant proper rest for the souls of the holy and pure/ who fell at the hands of murderers, whose blood was spilled in camps of destruction in Europe/ who were slain, burned, slaughtered and buried alive with extreme cruelty'.

six  candle flames

The Anniversary...

 

*

On 26 of April, the world marks the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl, Ukraine (26 April 1986).
In the past, I wrote two posts on the subject (if you type Chernobyl in the search box on my sidebar, you'll get to them). At this time of the year, I tend to re-read them; it has become sort of an annual ritual for me. I'm  haunted and even fascinated by the subject. 

(Maybe I'm haunted by Ukraine in general. My Mom, exiled from Roumania to Ukraine during WW2, lost a baby girl and a young sister to famine and brutality there, and the two victims were burried in a mass grave in a region called Moghilev Podolsky. I wanted to go visit the bloody place ,when it became possible, to lit a candle, and say a prayer - but couldn't make it after all).

Anyway, I used to think that after a nuclear event at ground level like that of Chernobyl (unlike Hiroshima  where the bomb exploded in mid air), no living organism will ever survive. Well, I was wrong. Chernobyl area is full of animals and vegetation; there's almost a jungle out there, say  visitors. True, many of them have mutations, life span is probably short, but hey, they live and multiply.

The area, however, remains uninhabited by humans as radiation is very high, and they say it will remain so for thousands of years.(Unlike the bomb detonated in Hiroshima which was 14 pounds only, the reactor at Chernobyl had 180 tonsֱ!! of nuclear fuel).

Whenever I happen to read about the current situation in the 30 km exclusion zone of Chernobyl , I come upon the words 'flourish', 'thrive', 'rule', 'take over' - regarding Nature in general, and animals in particular. Unbelievable! Even scientists are shocked. 
32 years now after the disaster,  animals have greatly increased in numbers and variety, and are doing all right. Nature, it seems, has taken over the place abandoned by humans. 

Is there some kind of message in all this? such as: 'without humans, the world is better', 'Nature doesn't need humans, it's the humans who need Nature', and so on...? I wonder.
(There are some good videos  on the subject worth watching, on Youtube).

*  web picture - Baby Crying - graffiti in the ghost city of Prypiat adjacent to Chernobyl.

Don't be right; Be smart !

I must confess I don't feel comfortable with USA's initiative of imposing sanctions on Russia. For one thing, it could escalate to something very bad for the world.

After all, Russia is not just another country; she's a superpower. It's  insulting to act as if Russia's some kind of naughty child who has to be punished.   Moreover, there was no obvious reason for sanctions,  as there was practically no invasion of Crimea, and no bloodshed. 

All the mistakes, all the wrong moves, including human casualties, were done by Ukrainean nationalists.

The latter have almost asked for trouble. They started to talk  about covering Ukraine's territory with Nato bases. Yes, Nato on the russian doorstep!.  And of course, there were  demonstrations  which brought about the overthrow of president Victor Yanukovich.

All this took place, while Russia was subsidising the gas she was selling to Ukraine and transferring a lot of cash to help its failing economy.

The strategic Crimean peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea,  with its historically significant  cities of Sevastopol and Yalta, was not originally part of Ukraine; it was given to her as a symbolic present in 1954. 
Its inhabitants are mostly russians. There was no need for Putin's soldiers to invade the peninsula,  as its residents  widely opened the borders and the doors to them.

Anyway, it's a regional conflict involving Russia and Ukraine over control of the Crimean Peninsula;  that is, it was - regional , until the americans decided they want some kind of "russian spring" after the so-called arab spring.

Maybe the americans and their western  followers thought they were right with imposing  sanctions.  I hardly think they were smart.