The Alphabet

 

Whatever we learn, or at least some of it, goes with us; it never gets completely lost.  I've realized that when visiting Moscow, a few years ago.

In the higher grade of elementary school, in communist Romania,  we started  to learn russian  as a second language. It was  difficult for us, native speakers of a romance language (romanian) because of  russian's Cyrillic script as opposed to the Latin script.   Besides, our teacher was young and inexperienced, so the teaching was not very productive.

teacher of russian holding bouquet of flowers (my head touching it).

Years later, I managed to remember only a few random russian words,  but I did remember well  the alphabet. The knowledge of the alphabet was of tremendous help to me in two places in Moscow: the stunning Metro (reading the names of the stations), and the famous Novodevichi cemetery where all the 'Who's Who' of Russia were buried (reading the names on the headstones).

T-shirt with the map of the metro stations. It's made of fine cotton,
 

(The signs  everywhere in the city were in russian only, which made it very difficult for a tourist without a guide or group to find his way around).

After visiting the tombstones of politicians (Khruschev, Yeltsin), of writers (Chechkov, Gogol), composers (Shostakovitch), ballet dancer (Galina Ulanova), wives of Stalin and Gurbachev (Nadhezda, Raisa), violonist (David Oistreich), opera singer (Shaleapin) and others, I approached a small group of tourists in a corner I was about to explore on my own.

Yeltsin's  headstone; it catches the eye with its unusual shape and colors.

 

ballet dancer Galina Ulanova's tombstone

It turned out, the group I approached  was  israeli . While listening to the guide's explanations  (in hebrew),  I got the strange feeling he didn't know any russian. I was probably right, as he pointed to a headstone and said ;'here liesTupolev' (aircraft designer, the designer of the famous Tupolev  russian military bombers). 'No, I found myself intervening, Tupolev  lies next; have a look at the name on the stone'. There was silence in the air, and I felt badly about it.

Obviously, the guide could  not read russian.  I could....due to those rather boring russian lessons in elementary school. lol.

 

 

 

 

The Disaster at Meron (29 .4.2021)

 

45 people crushed to death, over 150 injured , at an overcrowded  Lag ba Omer event at Mt. Meron in northern Israel, near the city of Safed (Tzfat).

The event is meant to commemorate the passing date of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (RASHBI, for short), an ancient scholar, author of the basic text of the Kabbalah. It is done in and around his tomb, with people asking for salvation, lighting bonfires and candles, and displaying a lot of joy through music and dances.

entrance to tomb

 

bonfire

I feel sad, very sad. I can't say, though, I"m very surprised. This festival of light and joy at the tomb of RASHBI  , takes place every year; it is a miracle that it ends ,relatively, without casualties, considering  all those thousands of  ultra-orthodox jews invading the narrow , underdeveloped , mountain area. 

This year there was no miracle. There were heartbreaking scenes of people slipping and falling on top of one another , of stampede , of hopeless rescue attempts.

I'm against this kind of mass events. First of all, I believe the deceased rabbi is entitled to sleep in peace his eternal sleep without  any disturbance from the outside world.

Secondly, I think those who've given permission and money ׂ('coalition' money, I presume) to this mass gathering, especially now, with the corona virus playing 'hide and seek' with us, should be heavily punished.

I'm very much afraid it's just the beginning of the disaster. Who knows if and how many of the thousands of surviving participants have contracted the virus . 

The day of tomorrow (Sunday) is declared national day of mourning.