Tel Aviv
24 December 2009
Christmas Eve. And what do Jews do? First a movie and then dinner. Though we will forsake the traditional Chinese food (Liz says that that's for Christmas Day itself, not the Eve, but the Day will also be Erev Shabbat and I know there's a pargit back in the freezer waiting to be sacrificed). Besides, we spend most of the year an easy ride into New York's China Town, so Chinese is just not high on our "to eat" list when we hit Tel Aviv.
The movie is in the Lev (Heart), 6 theaters on the top floor of Dizengoff Mall. As we made our way through the mall's multiple levels to the box office we noticed that the mall was quiet and not too crowded. The movie was the Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man." If you are a MOT and have not seen this yet you should stop reading now and run, do not walk, run, to a theater. Especially if you, like me, hit bar mitzvah, puberty, drugs and rock'n'roll in the 1960s.
The Coens have taken all of the neurotic Jewish culture in which we wallowed (for them it's the midwest but they could have set the film in Long Island or Northern New Jersey without changing any of it), added a wonderful prologue in a shtetl (done entirely in Yiddush with English and Hebrew subtitles - thanks G-d we still got Fyvush Finkel). The writing and acting is spot-on perfect.
The film is a comedy like Waiting for Godot is a comedy, with a Jewish audience laughing at all the right places. The rest of you may need a Jewish friend for some translation but, given how the Jews have controlled your media for so many years, you may get it on your own. The film just won't be the shot to the kishkes that it is for MOTs, who will recognize their Rabbis, their children and themselves up on the screen.
As we left the theater, Liz suggested we eat dinner at Bistrot Djoul, for which she just happened to have an eLuna discount coupon. (eLuna is a website listing kosher restaurants all over the country with reviews, menus and discount coupons good most times but not during the Businessmen's Lunch, the ultimate early bird special.) A French bistro where I can eat the meat. You do not have to ask me twice. I whipped out the cell phone and reserved a table for 30 minutes later.
We made our way down through the mall, out onto Dizengoff Street and began walking north. We stopped to wait for a light and then it hit us. The mall is open, all the street level stores along Dizengoff are open but we have not heard any Christmas music or seen any Christmas decorations or Christmas sale signs. We stop and drink that in.
Last time we went out to eat it was for simple fare. Tonight we're going from the simple to the sublime. I've written before about how the French are the latest immigrant wave to come to Israel. Unlike earlier immigrant waves this one is mostly affluent with lots of Euros to spend. The bad news is that this drives up housing prices. The good news is that French Jews need certain essentials of life such as kosher bistros, patisseries and wines worthy of discerning palates. And so we found ourselves at 64 Ben Yehuda, just south of Frishmann, to indulge ourselves at a bistro where they have most definitely mastered the art of French cooking.
The restaurant is itself an emigre, a family business transplanted from Paris by owner Julia Berreby but using a home grown chef, Eyal Amrousi. Its a small place with outdoor tables (as you would expect in Paris and Tel Aviv), a small main floor and tables upstairs. The decor is simple and the atmosphere, right down to most of the patrons, French. Except the music which on this night was American soul. Liz thought Edith Piaf would have been more appropriate and I agreed but becasue I am a big fan of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles I was willing to put up with the culture clash.
We had the Tournedos Rossini, steak and goose liver. The liver was a thin slice, not the portion you get at other restaurants, but very delicately seasoned and grilled. The steak was of the melt in your mouth variety. Djoul sacrifices some quantity for very high quality. The chicken breast, moist and tastefully cooked with herbs and spices, was delicious. Djoul's sauteed potatoes are rare among the species - cooked enough but not greasy. Salad comes with, what else, freshly made French dressing. We had glasses of a very nice beaujolais nouveau.
Desserts in kosher meat restaurants are always problematic. Let's face it. What makes any dessert worth clogging an artery for, especially French desserts, is butter and cream, lots and lots of butter and cream. Faking one's way to vanilla ice cream (on top of an apple tart) or a chocolate mousse is, in most places, more sciene than art. Djoul gets closer to the artistic.
But back to the steak. It's always about the steak. Someone once told me that you could not get a good steak in Israel. I have made it my life's journey to prove him wrong. Once again, I win. Djoul's steak is right up there with Goshen. Goshen, at 37 Nahalat Binyamin, ages its beef before cooking, something you get used to in NYC but not in TLV. The result is marvelous. Djoul's steak is as good.
And so, we head back into the night for what is now a very short walk back to our apartment. Israel, so many restaurants, so little time.
Read more!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Celebrity Sighting
On an elevator at Ben Gurion Airport, I notice a really nice hardshell guitar case sitting atop a luggage cart. As someone with a personal interest in guitar cases that can withstand air travel (my 45 year old Gibson is tired of being left home alone), I was focused entirely on the case. I say to Liz, that's a really nice guitar case. It's owner, tall guy, gray hair, about my age, says, thank you.
So I ask him if he puts it into luggage or carries it on. He says it works both ways. And then Liz says, do you know who this is? It's David Broza. I took my short little span of attention off the guitar case and really looked at it's owner and, sure enough, it was David Broza (internationally known Israeli singer, songwriter who speaks American English due to living in New Jersey for a nuymber of years and who currently plays a very expensive, probably custom made, Spanish guitar, which was no doubt inside the case).
The elevator stops, the doors open, I almost get off on the wrong floor (Liz stops me). David Broza is rolling his luggage cart out and I, feeling like a total idiot, manage to stammer, love your work. And he says thanks, again, and goes off into the terminal, followed closely by a strikingly beautiful woman rolling her luggage cart. Its good to be a guitar hero. Read more!
So I ask him if he puts it into luggage or carries it on. He says it works both ways. And then Liz says, do you know who this is? It's David Broza. I took my short little span of attention off the guitar case and really looked at it's owner and, sure enough, it was David Broza (internationally known Israeli singer, songwriter who speaks American English due to living in New Jersey for a nuymber of years and who currently plays a very expensive, probably custom made, Spanish guitar, which was no doubt inside the case).
The elevator stops, the doors open, I almost get off on the wrong floor (Liz stops me). David Broza is rolling his luggage cart out and I, feeling like a total idiot, manage to stammer, love your work. And he says thanks, again, and goes off into the terminal, followed closely by a strikingly beautiful woman rolling her luggage cart. Its good to be a guitar hero. Read more!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Simple Fare
The mass expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in retaliation for Israel having the audacity to win the 1948 war was a great tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people. It also presented both a tremendous challenge and a tremendous opportunity to the Zionists who, with limited resources, found themselves having to resettle the refuges. I am one of those who think that while any peace deal must include reparations for Palestinians expelled from Israel to compensate for lost property and pay for resettlement, the same should be true for Jews thrown out of numerous Arab countries.
However, the nakba for Mizrachi Jews also provided Israel with a plethora of culinary delights. Tucked into Tel Aviv and other cities and towns in Israel are eateries, both large and grand and small and unpretentious (we, of course, prefer the latter) serving dishes just like your Grandmother would make. If, of course, your Grandmother came from Libya, Yemen, Morocco, Syria or some other sun and fun spot in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula or points East.
Liz and I recently revisited one such establishment and followed our noses to find a new one. Both are in Tel Aviv, both are inexpensive and, for those who care, both are kosher.
Tucked into a corner shop in the Yemenite Quarter is Simon's Soup (מרק שמון). We timed our arrival for mid-afternoon to finish shopping and avoid the lunch rush while still making certain to get there well before the posted 4pm closing time (the staff will close whenever the soup runs out or they just decide that enough is enough). This got us an outside table on the corner of the recently repaved (with bricks not blacktop) Yehyeh Kapah and Malan Streets. So we sat in the warm sun, breathing the mix of soup spices and kerosene wafting from Simon's kitchen with the occasional dollop of carbon monoxide from the vehicles passing by.
The Quarter's streets were first built in the days when vehicular traffic consisted mostly of donkey carts and camels. So Liz, who sat with her back to the street so as not to have to look straight into the sun, barely budged when the motor scooter zipped past. My view, with the restaurant to my back, was to watch the scooter go from my right to my left. Then, as if on some cue from a silent film director, a taxicab rolled past in the opposite direction, barely squeezing between Liz and the diner sitting at a table on the opposite side of Kapah Street.
A few minutes later, a small truck, coming this time from my right, pulled to a stop so the driver could consider the proximity of his side view mirror to Liz' head. I don't know what was happening on the other side of the truck but when it finally moved away I did notice that the diner sitting opposite Liz had moved her chair as far to the side of her table as she could. And, just when we were done being bemused at the first truck, along came the second, even larger, truck, inching its way between the tables, giving us lots of time to read the advertisement for fish, fruits and vegetables painted onto its side. Liz asked to be reminded, the next time we get this table (and there will be a next time), to sit on the Malan side to give the trucks more room. Malan has concrete columns intended to block cars and trucks from driving through a pair of restaurants on their way up to the shuk, while still giving easy access to scooters and pedestrians.
Simon's menu is straight forward. You order the soup. ((They also put out some bread (the variety and freshness of which depends on the time of day and day of the week), hilbeh (a gelatinous substance made from fenugreek that can be put in the soup or spread on the bread) and the ever present harif for those who like things very very hot.)) The soup is red and has all sorts of spices, a variety of chopped veggies and a chunk of potato. What you really order is the slab of meat that will sit in your soup. You can choose something cut off a cow such as steak (listed on the menu simply as "meat"), head, leg or udder or a chicken (usually dark meat, but you never know).
Liz, being more adventurous than I, has been working her way through the menu. (Last winter, she discovered what the Hebrew word בז (pronounced "Biz", rhymes with "Liz") on the menu meant when our waitress, convinced that we did not understand when she said "teets", grabbed her own breasts and said "these". Liz insisted that I use the more polite and anatomically correct term "udder" in this blog.) This time she ordered the head soup. And that's what she got, pieces of cow head including some tongue which was cooked to perfection. The restaurant removed things like skull bone, teeth and eyeballs before serving the soup. I haven't a clue if that was true before they cooked the soup. If you walk around the meat stalls in any shuk you can see a variety of heads from an assortment of domesticated animals, teeth, tongue and all, for sale and draw your own conclusions. Or ask your Yemenite Grandmother how she does it.
I had the steak. And, as always, just as you've made your way through a bowl of soup that is a meal in itself, the waiter comes out with a pot and asks if you want more soup. Say yes and you get your bowl refilled but test the soup first. The new batch is very hot, fresh off the kerosene stove.
A couple of days later, Liz and I found ourselves with errands that needed doing. She needed to get to her hairdresser's to schedule a session in time for next week's wedding (hopefully with Udi, her favorite stylist) and I needed to find one of those round batteries, this one to fit the bathroom scale. So we went for a walk, at first along the beach (I think I've mentioned the beach) and then inland to Ben Yehuda Street above Arlozorov, our old neighborhood, to reach Avi Malka and the really good housewares and hardware store (I don't know the name, I just know its on the east side of Ben Yehuda just north of Arlozorov).
Missions successfully accomplished (though Udi has moved to another establishment), Liz suggested we have a late lunch (or early dinner) at a new place that opened next to the Deborah Hotel, just north of Gordon on Ben Yehuda. Liz, in earlier trips to this part of town, was attracted to Odelia (אודלה) by the smell and by the fact that it always seemed to be crowded. Odelia offers Tripolitan food, either at its tables or for take away. Once again, just like Grandma would make, but this time you'll need a Grandma from Libya. Unlike Simon's Soup, which is off the beaten tourist track, Odelia is right in the center of Tel Aviv's hotel/restaurant strip. The Deborah Hotel is used by Birthright Israel, among other major tour groups. But today the place was filled with locals who know a good, inexpensive meal when they smell one.
Tripolitan food is serious workers' food. You start with a base of starch. There are about a dozen variations on humous. Every entree comes with a choice of couscous, rice or mejedara (spiced rice and lentils). Onto this the chef dumps whatever mix of veggies with meat or fish you have ordered. We (that is to say Liz) ordered the mafrum (מפרום - mystery meat baked on a layer of potato or eggplant but she knew that I would want to satiate my meat and potato Jones) and Chraime (חריימי - a fish cooked in a spicy red sauce). The mafrum had to come on the classic couscous because it had to. I asked for mejedara under the fish because I really like mejedara but the waitress told me to have the rice since the fish would be spicy enough. I went with her instruction (suggestion is just too weak a word to describe conversations with Hebrew speakers) and she was right. The rice soaked up the fish sauce and the spice level was just right. I'll get the mejedara under chicken kabob on the next trip.
Until now our favorite Tripolitan food has been found at Gueta in Jaffa. Gueta is still a place you must try (last time we were there the owner still displayed the large poster of his Grandmother who appears to be chained to a stove). But Odelia is of equally high quality and, for us, an easy walk from the apartment. Liz asked whose mafrum I liked better. I said I could not easily answer that question. Both are delicious though Odelia's is less greasy. However, to really be fair, we have no choice other than multiple tastings, alternating between the two restaurants, before attempting to answer a question of such moment. After all, as in all things Jewish, it's how you make the journey and not it's completion, that counts.
Read more!
However, the nakba for Mizrachi Jews also provided Israel with a plethora of culinary delights. Tucked into Tel Aviv and other cities and towns in Israel are eateries, both large and grand and small and unpretentious (we, of course, prefer the latter) serving dishes just like your Grandmother would make. If, of course, your Grandmother came from Libya, Yemen, Morocco, Syria or some other sun and fun spot in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula or points East.
Liz and I recently revisited one such establishment and followed our noses to find a new one. Both are in Tel Aviv, both are inexpensive and, for those who care, both are kosher.
Tucked into a corner shop in the Yemenite Quarter is Simon's Soup (מרק שמון). We timed our arrival for mid-afternoon to finish shopping and avoid the lunch rush while still making certain to get there well before the posted 4pm closing time (the staff will close whenever the soup runs out or they just decide that enough is enough). This got us an outside table on the corner of the recently repaved (with bricks not blacktop) Yehyeh Kapah and Malan Streets. So we sat in the warm sun, breathing the mix of soup spices and kerosene wafting from Simon's kitchen with the occasional dollop of carbon monoxide from the vehicles passing by.
The Quarter's streets were first built in the days when vehicular traffic consisted mostly of donkey carts and camels. So Liz, who sat with her back to the street so as not to have to look straight into the sun, barely budged when the motor scooter zipped past. My view, with the restaurant to my back, was to watch the scooter go from my right to my left. Then, as if on some cue from a silent film director, a taxicab rolled past in the opposite direction, barely squeezing between Liz and the diner sitting at a table on the opposite side of Kapah Street.
A few minutes later, a small truck, coming this time from my right, pulled to a stop so the driver could consider the proximity of his side view mirror to Liz' head. I don't know what was happening on the other side of the truck but when it finally moved away I did notice that the diner sitting opposite Liz had moved her chair as far to the side of her table as she could. And, just when we were done being bemused at the first truck, along came the second, even larger, truck, inching its way between the tables, giving us lots of time to read the advertisement for fish, fruits and vegetables painted onto its side. Liz asked to be reminded, the next time we get this table (and there will be a next time), to sit on the Malan side to give the trucks more room. Malan has concrete columns intended to block cars and trucks from driving through a pair of restaurants on their way up to the shuk, while still giving easy access to scooters and pedestrians.
Simon's menu is straight forward. You order the soup. ((They also put out some bread (the variety and freshness of which depends on the time of day and day of the week), hilbeh (a gelatinous substance made from fenugreek that can be put in the soup or spread on the bread) and the ever present harif for those who like things very very hot.)) The soup is red and has all sorts of spices, a variety of chopped veggies and a chunk of potato. What you really order is the slab of meat that will sit in your soup. You can choose something cut off a cow such as steak (listed on the menu simply as "meat"), head, leg or udder or a chicken (usually dark meat, but you never know).
Liz, being more adventurous than I, has been working her way through the menu. (Last winter, she discovered what the Hebrew word בז (pronounced "Biz", rhymes with "Liz") on the menu meant when our waitress, convinced that we did not understand when she said "teets", grabbed her own breasts and said "these". Liz insisted that I use the more polite and anatomically correct term "udder" in this blog.) This time she ordered the head soup. And that's what she got, pieces of cow head including some tongue which was cooked to perfection. The restaurant removed things like skull bone, teeth and eyeballs before serving the soup. I haven't a clue if that was true before they cooked the soup. If you walk around the meat stalls in any shuk you can see a variety of heads from an assortment of domesticated animals, teeth, tongue and all, for sale and draw your own conclusions. Or ask your Yemenite Grandmother how she does it.
I had the steak. And, as always, just as you've made your way through a bowl of soup that is a meal in itself, the waiter comes out with a pot and asks if you want more soup. Say yes and you get your bowl refilled but test the soup first. The new batch is very hot, fresh off the kerosene stove.
A couple of days later, Liz and I found ourselves with errands that needed doing. She needed to get to her hairdresser's to schedule a session in time for next week's wedding (hopefully with Udi, her favorite stylist) and I needed to find one of those round batteries, this one to fit the bathroom scale. So we went for a walk, at first along the beach (I think I've mentioned the beach) and then inland to Ben Yehuda Street above Arlozorov, our old neighborhood, to reach Avi Malka and the really good housewares and hardware store (I don't know the name, I just know its on the east side of Ben Yehuda just north of Arlozorov).
Missions successfully accomplished (though Udi has moved to another establishment), Liz suggested we have a late lunch (or early dinner) at a new place that opened next to the Deborah Hotel, just north of Gordon on Ben Yehuda. Liz, in earlier trips to this part of town, was attracted to Odelia (אודלה) by the smell and by the fact that it always seemed to be crowded. Odelia offers Tripolitan food, either at its tables or for take away. Once again, just like Grandma would make, but this time you'll need a Grandma from Libya. Unlike Simon's Soup, which is off the beaten tourist track, Odelia is right in the center of Tel Aviv's hotel/restaurant strip. The Deborah Hotel is used by Birthright Israel, among other major tour groups. But today the place was filled with locals who know a good, inexpensive meal when they smell one.
Tripolitan food is serious workers' food. You start with a base of starch. There are about a dozen variations on humous. Every entree comes with a choice of couscous, rice or mejedara (spiced rice and lentils). Onto this the chef dumps whatever mix of veggies with meat or fish you have ordered. We (that is to say Liz) ordered the mafrum (מפרום - mystery meat baked on a layer of potato or eggplant but she knew that I would want to satiate my meat and potato Jones) and Chraime (חריימי - a fish cooked in a spicy red sauce). The mafrum had to come on the classic couscous because it had to. I asked for mejedara under the fish because I really like mejedara but the waitress told me to have the rice since the fish would be spicy enough. I went with her instruction (suggestion is just too weak a word to describe conversations with Hebrew speakers) and she was right. The rice soaked up the fish sauce and the spice level was just right. I'll get the mejedara under chicken kabob on the next trip.
Until now our favorite Tripolitan food has been found at Gueta in Jaffa. Gueta is still a place you must try (last time we were there the owner still displayed the large poster of his Grandmother who appears to be chained to a stove). But Odelia is of equally high quality and, for us, an easy walk from the apartment. Liz asked whose mafrum I liked better. I said I could not easily answer that question. Both are delicious though Odelia's is less greasy. However, to really be fair, we have no choice other than multiple tastings, alternating between the two restaurants, before attempting to answer a question of such moment. After all, as in all things Jewish, it's how you make the journey and not it's completion, that counts.
Read more!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
More Stuff I Can't Make Up
Today's news reports are just full of things that I could not make up. No matter how snarky I'm feeling.
First, we have the Moldovan Orthodox Church, one of whose priests led a mob chanting anti-Semitic slogans in tearing down a public Menorah erected by the Jewish community in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau (no, this is not an old Mission Impossible rerun). Obviously inspired by the spirit of Christmas, the Church leaders said that the "cult" should have erected its Menorah at a Holocaust memorial and not in a public square of historical importance to Moldovans.
Next, it seems that the US Congress, the SEC and now the New York Times is shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling going on on Wall Street. The Times has finally picked up the story, which I think began either in Rolling Stone or one of the blogs, that Goldman Sachs and other banks, but Goldman in particular, had created and sold collateral debt obligations to customers which securities could only increase in value if the real estate market continued to rise in value. At the same time it seems that Goldman, among others, had concluded that the real estate bubble was about to burst and began shorting the very same CDOs they were selling to their customers. Goldman et al made fortunes, the customers lost big time, the credit markets collapsed and you know the rest.
Third, as one Jewish observer has put it, we may have gotten Jimmy Carter back but lost Garrison Keillor. I'm not so sure. Carter issued the sort of apology that you get from someone who knows he's in trouble but is not quite ready to confess to his misdeeds. But, hey, it was a start. Today we learn that Carter's grandson (are Amy and I really that old?) is running for the Georgia State Senate in a district loaded with a significant Jewish presence. What a coincidence.
Garrison Keillor, meanwhile, is being raked over the coals for an otherwise innocuous rant about how Christmas in America is being secularized (and he figured this out when?), in which he goes off on cheesy Christmas music written by Jews. This, to some, makes Keillor the anti-Semite of the week. Personally, I think that pumping Irving Berlin tunes into malls is the Jews' revenge on the Christians for anti-Semitism. Given that we were inflicted with pogroms, cheesy Christmas music is a wimpy form of retaliation but, like Carter's apology, it's a start. Keillor's problem is he figured it out and wrote about it without first turning into a snarky Jewish blogger.
Of course, we could state the obvious, which is that anyone seeking a spiritual Christmas will find it at home and in church and should simply stay the hell out of the malls. Even better, let Keillor and the rest of the "War Against Christmas" crowd come to Israel for the holiday.
And, finally, there is the report, based on recently released Israeli government documents, that Maale Adumim, a West Bank settlement located about half way between Jerusalem and Jericho, and the area between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem (known as E-1) were intended to be annexed as part of Jerusalem back in 1975, when the community was first being planned. Yes, you fans of Labor, that's two years before a Likud-led coalition gets a majority in the Knesset. Oh gee, what a surprise. Read more!
First, we have the Moldovan Orthodox Church, one of whose priests led a mob chanting anti-Semitic slogans in tearing down a public Menorah erected by the Jewish community in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau (no, this is not an old Mission Impossible rerun). Obviously inspired by the spirit of Christmas, the Church leaders said that the "cult" should have erected its Menorah at a Holocaust memorial and not in a public square of historical importance to Moldovans.
Next, it seems that the US Congress, the SEC and now the New York Times is shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling going on on Wall Street. The Times has finally picked up the story, which I think began either in Rolling Stone or one of the blogs, that Goldman Sachs and other banks, but Goldman in particular, had created and sold collateral debt obligations to customers which securities could only increase in value if the real estate market continued to rise in value. At the same time it seems that Goldman, among others, had concluded that the real estate bubble was about to burst and began shorting the very same CDOs they were selling to their customers. Goldman et al made fortunes, the customers lost big time, the credit markets collapsed and you know the rest.
Third, as one Jewish observer has put it, we may have gotten Jimmy Carter back but lost Garrison Keillor. I'm not so sure. Carter issued the sort of apology that you get from someone who knows he's in trouble but is not quite ready to confess to his misdeeds. But, hey, it was a start. Today we learn that Carter's grandson (are Amy and I really that old?) is running for the Georgia State Senate in a district loaded with a significant Jewish presence. What a coincidence.
Garrison Keillor, meanwhile, is being raked over the coals for an otherwise innocuous rant about how Christmas in America is being secularized (and he figured this out when?), in which he goes off on cheesy Christmas music written by Jews. This, to some, makes Keillor the anti-Semite of the week. Personally, I think that pumping Irving Berlin tunes into malls is the Jews' revenge on the Christians for anti-Semitism. Given that we were inflicted with pogroms, cheesy Christmas music is a wimpy form of retaliation but, like Carter's apology, it's a start. Keillor's problem is he figured it out and wrote about it without first turning into a snarky Jewish blogger.
Of course, we could state the obvious, which is that anyone seeking a spiritual Christmas will find it at home and in church and should simply stay the hell out of the malls. Even better, let Keillor and the rest of the "War Against Christmas" crowd come to Israel for the holiday.
And, finally, there is the report, based on recently released Israeli government documents, that Maale Adumim, a West Bank settlement located about half way between Jerusalem and Jericho, and the area between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem (known as E-1) were intended to be annexed as part of Jerusalem back in 1975, when the community was first being planned. Yes, you fans of Labor, that's two years before a Likud-led coalition gets a majority in the Knesset. Oh gee, what a surprise. Read more!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
2010 - A Good Year To Die - Unless You're Gilad Shalit
Tel Aviv
23 December 2009
2010 is a good year to die. At least it is if you are subject to the US Internal Revenue Code and have a taxable estate. Why? In 2010, the estate tax and its evil spawn, the generation skipping tax, completely disappear for one year. (Trust me, if you don't have an estate worth more than $3.5 million and grandchildren to whom you want to give very large gifts you don't want me to explain the GST. If you do then you've already hired good tax counsel and don't need me to tell you about the GST but you are definitely picking up the check when we next have lunch.) In 2011, the estate tax and GST rise again, as from the dead, like a movie's bad guy who just won't die in the last reel. And, like the bad guy who comes back but short a limb, the two taxes come back with a much lower exempted amount. In sum, unless Congress changes the law, if you die and/or make gifts to grandchildren in 2009 you can exempt up to $3.5 million from the two taxes, in 2010 you get a free ride and in 2011 the exemption drops to a mere $1.5 million or so. As they say in the trade, this leaves us with numerous planning opportunities, especially if you can time someone's death.
And so, as I write this, good tax attorneys are faced with the somewhat ghoulish but necessary task of telling people who hold the health care proxy of a parent or grandparent on life support that, to best effect their loved one's wishes regarding the estate (which is lawyer talk for keeping the money out of the hands of the government), they might want to consider spending one last New Year's Eve with mom or grandpa, before pulling the plug. Absent a change in the law, which Congress keeps promising but failing to do, the conversation during the last week of 2010 will be even more ghoulish as pulling dad's or grandma's plug before the new year begins leaves more money for the grieving loved ones.
This sounds pretty cold but death is something that can't be avoided. The only questions are who and when and what are the consequences. Which brings us to Gilad Shalit.
The current debate raging in Israel makes the estate tax and GST conundrum look like fun and games. The Israelis are not talking about money, they're talking about lives. Their lives and the lives of their children. Lives already lost and those that may be lost in the future. As of this writing, the Israeli Prime Minister has allowed his negotiators to send, through a German mediator, Israel's response to what Hamas has described as its last demands (they may say "offer" but these are not people interested in bargaining or who really give a damn about human life). The media reports that Israel is ready to agree to release about 1000 Palestinian prisoners in return for the safe return of Shalit. This includes about 100 convicted murderers who have no regrets or remorse and are (if past experience holds true) very likely to just go back to terrorism once they are set free. Israel is asking that the worst of the worst be exiled, either to Gaza from the West Bank or out of the territories to other countries. Hamas has said it will take a few days to consider a reply. And so we wait.
The arguments for and against the deal are all correct. In arguing against this deal many have pointed out that freed terrorists go back to terrorism, and Jews die. Hamas is demanding freedom for men who are not just good soldiers but leaders of Hamas and similar groups. If denied the opportunity to go back to blowing people up in Israel or the West Bank, they'll blow people up wherever they can. While everyone fears for the safety of Gilad Shalit (what happens to him if no deal is made?) those opposed to a deal see it as merely substituting one victim for other victims.
Furthermore, every terrorist group will have further proof that Israel will pay a huge price for the return of an Israeli. What other conclusion could they draw if Bibi Netanyahu, a man who made a political career out of being tough on terrorism, gives in to Hamas' demands? Doing the Shalit deal will inspire further attempts at kidnapping Israeli soldiers and civilians and, sooner or later, one or more will succeed.
Finally, doing the deal will give Hamas a significant political victory. Palestinians will dance in the streets, cheering the group who drove Israel to its knees, honoring their returning heroes and calling for the next wave of "resistance." The deal will set in concrete Hamas' rule in Gaza and give them a good chance of taking over in the West Bank should Abu Mazen ever be so foolish as to allow free elections.
And on the other side of the debate, we have an entire country run by for and about Jews, who value human life above all. Jews who do not raise their children to be martyrs. A majority of the Israeli public seems willing to pay any price to bring Shalit home. For his Mother's sake. And because those being asked are Jewish parents who want to know that their children would also be ransomed if taken captive. The bottom line is that every life is precious and, even if the price is terrible and risks more deaths, that life has got to be saved. Israel does not leave soldiers behind on the field and should not do so now.
Those who want Shalit home by doing the deal will tell you that Hamas, Hezbullah and their ilk will try to kill or kidnap Jews, whether or not Gilad comes home. So we may as well bring Gilad home. The weight of the survival of Israel should not be put on his narrow shoulders.
As for Hamas' political victory from the deal, Israelis arguing for the deal will tell you that Hamas will have its moment in the sun but then, a few months from now, with no end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza in sight and no reconciliation with the PLO, it will be a matter of "what has Hamas done for us lately."
Israel does not handle this sort of crisis like other nations. (Of course, most other nations don't have their citizens routinely subject to acts of terrorism.) Before responding to Hamas, Bibi and his closest aides met with all the military, intelligence and political leaders you'd expect a Prime Minister to consult with. But they also met with Shalit's parents. (An easy meeting to arrange since the Shalits and their supporters have been camped out in front of the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem for close to a year now.) They also met with the survivors of the victims of those who might now be freed and with the leaders of a group representing the parents, spouses and children of Israelis murdered by terrorists set free in earlier deals. The press reports that the Prime Minister spent most of the meetings just listening to the real people who will be affected in very real ways by whatever he decides to do.
Will the deal get done? No one knows for sure. Hamas is run by at least four different factions (the political and military wings in Gaza, the political wing in Damascus and the prisoners who are the very subject of the negotiations). One of the reasons that a deal has not yet been made is that every time the parties get close, one or more of the Hamas factions finds an excuse to back away. My own theory is that some of the Hamas leadership is reluctant to make the deal because giving up Shalit means giving up power. (Yeah, I know this sounds like the behavior of a 4 year old but remember, we are dealing here with politicians and religious zealots, so what's the difference?) Maybe they've figured out that any victory will be fleeting (see above). For it's part, the Israeli government is very badly divided on the deal and there's no guarantee that a "Yes but" reply from Hamas would generate a positive Israeli response.
Whatever happens, the "resistance" will continue. And, either angered by the lack of a deal or encouraged by the making of a deal, someone is going to go out and express his inner terrorist by killing a Jew. And then Bibi is going to have to deal with the consequences which will likely include explaining to the victim's Mother why he made the deal, or didn't make the deal, that led to the death of her child. Which is why I think Bibi will find a way to bring Gilad home. Given his low opinion of the Palestinian leadership, he's going to conclude (if he hasn't already) that no matter what he does a Jew will die, so he'll at least take the opportunity and save Gilad Shalit.
And so Bibi, like our tax attorney, is faced with the prospect of timing someone's death. The big difference is that the tax attorney knows who is going to die, knows that that death is unavoidable and has helped the soon-to-be-deceased plan for the consequences. Bibi gets to decide without knowing the ultimate outcome and has to deal with the consequences as they arise. Personally, I'd rather be the tax attorney.
Read more!
23 December 2009
2010 is a good year to die. At least it is if you are subject to the US Internal Revenue Code and have a taxable estate. Why? In 2010, the estate tax and its evil spawn, the generation skipping tax, completely disappear for one year. (Trust me, if you don't have an estate worth more than $3.5 million and grandchildren to whom you want to give very large gifts you don't want me to explain the GST. If you do then you've already hired good tax counsel and don't need me to tell you about the GST but you are definitely picking up the check when we next have lunch.) In 2011, the estate tax and GST rise again, as from the dead, like a movie's bad guy who just won't die in the last reel. And, like the bad guy who comes back but short a limb, the two taxes come back with a much lower exempted amount. In sum, unless Congress changes the law, if you die and/or make gifts to grandchildren in 2009 you can exempt up to $3.5 million from the two taxes, in 2010 you get a free ride and in 2011 the exemption drops to a mere $1.5 million or so. As they say in the trade, this leaves us with numerous planning opportunities, especially if you can time someone's death.
And so, as I write this, good tax attorneys are faced with the somewhat ghoulish but necessary task of telling people who hold the health care proxy of a parent or grandparent on life support that, to best effect their loved one's wishes regarding the estate (which is lawyer talk for keeping the money out of the hands of the government), they might want to consider spending one last New Year's Eve with mom or grandpa, before pulling the plug. Absent a change in the law, which Congress keeps promising but failing to do, the conversation during the last week of 2010 will be even more ghoulish as pulling dad's or grandma's plug before the new year begins leaves more money for the grieving loved ones.
This sounds pretty cold but death is something that can't be avoided. The only questions are who and when and what are the consequences. Which brings us to Gilad Shalit.
The current debate raging in Israel makes the estate tax and GST conundrum look like fun and games. The Israelis are not talking about money, they're talking about lives. Their lives and the lives of their children. Lives already lost and those that may be lost in the future. As of this writing, the Israeli Prime Minister has allowed his negotiators to send, through a German mediator, Israel's response to what Hamas has described as its last demands (they may say "offer" but these are not people interested in bargaining or who really give a damn about human life). The media reports that Israel is ready to agree to release about 1000 Palestinian prisoners in return for the safe return of Shalit. This includes about 100 convicted murderers who have no regrets or remorse and are (if past experience holds true) very likely to just go back to terrorism once they are set free. Israel is asking that the worst of the worst be exiled, either to Gaza from the West Bank or out of the territories to other countries. Hamas has said it will take a few days to consider a reply. And so we wait.
The arguments for and against the deal are all correct. In arguing against this deal many have pointed out that freed terrorists go back to terrorism, and Jews die. Hamas is demanding freedom for men who are not just good soldiers but leaders of Hamas and similar groups. If denied the opportunity to go back to blowing people up in Israel or the West Bank, they'll blow people up wherever they can. While everyone fears for the safety of Gilad Shalit (what happens to him if no deal is made?) those opposed to a deal see it as merely substituting one victim for other victims.
Furthermore, every terrorist group will have further proof that Israel will pay a huge price for the return of an Israeli. What other conclusion could they draw if Bibi Netanyahu, a man who made a political career out of being tough on terrorism, gives in to Hamas' demands? Doing the Shalit deal will inspire further attempts at kidnapping Israeli soldiers and civilians and, sooner or later, one or more will succeed.
Finally, doing the deal will give Hamas a significant political victory. Palestinians will dance in the streets, cheering the group who drove Israel to its knees, honoring their returning heroes and calling for the next wave of "resistance." The deal will set in concrete Hamas' rule in Gaza and give them a good chance of taking over in the West Bank should Abu Mazen ever be so foolish as to allow free elections.
And on the other side of the debate, we have an entire country run by for and about Jews, who value human life above all. Jews who do not raise their children to be martyrs. A majority of the Israeli public seems willing to pay any price to bring Shalit home. For his Mother's sake. And because those being asked are Jewish parents who want to know that their children would also be ransomed if taken captive. The bottom line is that every life is precious and, even if the price is terrible and risks more deaths, that life has got to be saved. Israel does not leave soldiers behind on the field and should not do so now.
Those who want Shalit home by doing the deal will tell you that Hamas, Hezbullah and their ilk will try to kill or kidnap Jews, whether or not Gilad comes home. So we may as well bring Gilad home. The weight of the survival of Israel should not be put on his narrow shoulders.
As for Hamas' political victory from the deal, Israelis arguing for the deal will tell you that Hamas will have its moment in the sun but then, a few months from now, with no end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza in sight and no reconciliation with the PLO, it will be a matter of "what has Hamas done for us lately."
Israel does not handle this sort of crisis like other nations. (Of course, most other nations don't have their citizens routinely subject to acts of terrorism.) Before responding to Hamas, Bibi and his closest aides met with all the military, intelligence and political leaders you'd expect a Prime Minister to consult with. But they also met with Shalit's parents. (An easy meeting to arrange since the Shalits and their supporters have been camped out in front of the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem for close to a year now.) They also met with the survivors of the victims of those who might now be freed and with the leaders of a group representing the parents, spouses and children of Israelis murdered by terrorists set free in earlier deals. The press reports that the Prime Minister spent most of the meetings just listening to the real people who will be affected in very real ways by whatever he decides to do.
Will the deal get done? No one knows for sure. Hamas is run by at least four different factions (the political and military wings in Gaza, the political wing in Damascus and the prisoners who are the very subject of the negotiations). One of the reasons that a deal has not yet been made is that every time the parties get close, one or more of the Hamas factions finds an excuse to back away. My own theory is that some of the Hamas leadership is reluctant to make the deal because giving up Shalit means giving up power. (Yeah, I know this sounds like the behavior of a 4 year old but remember, we are dealing here with politicians and religious zealots, so what's the difference?) Maybe they've figured out that any victory will be fleeting (see above). For it's part, the Israeli government is very badly divided on the deal and there's no guarantee that a "Yes but" reply from Hamas would generate a positive Israeli response.
Whatever happens, the "resistance" will continue. And, either angered by the lack of a deal or encouraged by the making of a deal, someone is going to go out and express his inner terrorist by killing a Jew. And then Bibi is going to have to deal with the consequences which will likely include explaining to the victim's Mother why he made the deal, or didn't make the deal, that led to the death of her child. Which is why I think Bibi will find a way to bring Gilad home. Given his low opinion of the Palestinian leadership, he's going to conclude (if he hasn't already) that no matter what he does a Jew will die, so he'll at least take the opportunity and save Gilad Shalit.
And so Bibi, like our tax attorney, is faced with the prospect of timing someone's death. The big difference is that the tax attorney knows who is going to die, knows that that death is unavoidable and has helped the soon-to-be-deceased plan for the consequences. Bibi gets to decide without knowing the ultimate outcome and has to deal with the consequences as they arise. Personally, I'd rather be the tax attorney.
Read more!
Friday, December 11, 2009
On The Road In Appalachis - Part 3 - Getting There Is Half The Fun
It's one thing to say you'll be at the elementary school in McRoberts, Kentucky at 8am on Monday, November 9, 2009. Its quite another to actually get there. My first instinct was to just get in the car on November 8 and drive. But I was told that it would be better for us to fly and rent a car. Just this once, I turned out to be right (and I will be the first to admit how rare an event that is).
McRoberts is one of those places to which you cannot get from here. We had to fly on US Airways, which us northeasterners know as the successor to such stellar enterprises as Mohawk and Allegheny. The nearest serious airport to McRoberts is in Charleston, West Virginia, to which one flies from Newark by changing planes in Charlotte, North Carolina (where Naomi, Liz and I were to meet up with Ranya). From Charleston we planned to drive a rented car two hours to Whitesburg, Kentucky, the Letcher County seat, leaving us about 30 minutes southwest of McRoberts.
Why bypass McRoberts to go on to Whitesburg? Whitesburg has the only motels close to McRoberts. The crown jewel of these is the Super 8 next to the truck stop. In addition to checking into our home away from home we would be joined by Vinny Green and Debby Singer, Jewish educators from California who, in all their spare time, work on Ranya's distributions. At least, that was the plan.
There's a reason US Airways is more remembered for emergency landings in the Hudson River than on-time performance. Our flight from Newark to Charlotte went well enough given the rough weather. We even met up with Ranya as planned. But when we got to the gate for the Charleston flight we were told that it had been canceled. No reason. No warning. Just canceled. But, not to worry, US Airways has programmed its computer to automatically find alternative flights for passengers they have just stranded. I guess they got tired of doing this by hand. Our new boarding passes were printed and ready when we arrived at the gate. One small problem. We were booked on a flight the next day.
Now, while I'm sure that Charlotte is a real happening place on a Sunday night, we could not fail to reach McRoberts as scheduled. Naomi explained to a Customer Service Representative that we were on a humanitarian mission. The CSR offered us a late flight the same day that would, with only one stop, get us to Charleston around 10 pm (after the car rental counter closes). Even if we could get a car we'd get to Whitesburg after midnight. This would leave us with enough time to get four hours' sleep before driving the last leg into McRoberts. No thanks. When we were 19 or 20 road trips could be done with little to no sleep. But that was 40 years ago. Today, my traveling companions and I need things like sleep and showers to function. So, Naomi decided to rent a car and drive to Whitesburg, cutting our travel time down from over 12 hours to about 4.
Appalachia is among the poorest parts of the country but it is also among the most beautiful. Our drive from Charlotte skirted the southwestern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains and took us into the Cumberland Mountains with their closely spaced ridge lines. The narrow, wooded valleys between the mountain tops are known as hollows, pronounced "hahllers", which is a really accurate description of the topography. There are those who think that replacing coal with tourism would both preserve Appalachia's natural beauty and provide a serious number of long-term jobs for the locals (something coal long-ago ceased doing).
If you've never driven through this area, do yourself a favor and get it on your itinerary. You'll need to lower your expectations about cuisine and hotels, for now, but the scenery alone is worth the trip. Except for the strip mines opened by blowing off mountain tops, which we'll get to in Part 4. You can drive into the hahllers but be careful. Our hosts warned us that we might be met by a resident with a shotgun. Moonshine and meth labs are material to the local economy and the proprietors do not take kindly to strangers. And there are some folks who just don't care for tourists gawking at them. If they liked crowds, they'd move down out of the hahller into the valley.
After a pleasant ride in good company (I'm leaving out the gossip, to protect the guilty), we finally arrived at the Super 8 where we were joined by Vinnie and Debby. The next morning we would make our way to McRoberts.
[To Be Continued]
Read more!
McRoberts is one of those places to which you cannot get from here. We had to fly on US Airways, which us northeasterners know as the successor to such stellar enterprises as Mohawk and Allegheny. The nearest serious airport to McRoberts is in Charleston, West Virginia, to which one flies from Newark by changing planes in Charlotte, North Carolina (where Naomi, Liz and I were to meet up with Ranya). From Charleston we planned to drive a rented car two hours to Whitesburg, Kentucky, the Letcher County seat, leaving us about 30 minutes southwest of McRoberts.
Why bypass McRoberts to go on to Whitesburg? Whitesburg has the only motels close to McRoberts. The crown jewel of these is the Super 8 next to the truck stop. In addition to checking into our home away from home we would be joined by Vinny Green and Debby Singer, Jewish educators from California who, in all their spare time, work on Ranya's distributions. At least, that was the plan.
There's a reason US Airways is more remembered for emergency landings in the Hudson River than on-time performance. Our flight from Newark to Charlotte went well enough given the rough weather. We even met up with Ranya as planned. But when we got to the gate for the Charleston flight we were told that it had been canceled. No reason. No warning. Just canceled. But, not to worry, US Airways has programmed its computer to automatically find alternative flights for passengers they have just stranded. I guess they got tired of doing this by hand. Our new boarding passes were printed and ready when we arrived at the gate. One small problem. We were booked on a flight the next day.
Now, while I'm sure that Charlotte is a real happening place on a Sunday night, we could not fail to reach McRoberts as scheduled. Naomi explained to a Customer Service Representative that we were on a humanitarian mission. The CSR offered us a late flight the same day that would, with only one stop, get us to Charleston around 10 pm (after the car rental counter closes). Even if we could get a car we'd get to Whitesburg after midnight. This would leave us with enough time to get four hours' sleep before driving the last leg into McRoberts. No thanks. When we were 19 or 20 road trips could be done with little to no sleep. But that was 40 years ago. Today, my traveling companions and I need things like sleep and showers to function. So, Naomi decided to rent a car and drive to Whitesburg, cutting our travel time down from over 12 hours to about 4.
Appalachia is among the poorest parts of the country but it is also among the most beautiful. Our drive from Charlotte skirted the southwestern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains and took us into the Cumberland Mountains with their closely spaced ridge lines. The narrow, wooded valleys between the mountain tops are known as hollows, pronounced "hahllers", which is a really accurate description of the topography. There are those who think that replacing coal with tourism would both preserve Appalachia's natural beauty and provide a serious number of long-term jobs for the locals (something coal long-ago ceased doing).
If you've never driven through this area, do yourself a favor and get it on your itinerary. You'll need to lower your expectations about cuisine and hotels, for now, but the scenery alone is worth the trip. Except for the strip mines opened by blowing off mountain tops, which we'll get to in Part 4. You can drive into the hahllers but be careful. Our hosts warned us that we might be met by a resident with a shotgun. Moonshine and meth labs are material to the local economy and the proprietors do not take kindly to strangers. And there are some folks who just don't care for tourists gawking at them. If they liked crowds, they'd move down out of the hahller into the valley.
After a pleasant ride in good company (I'm leaving out the gossip, to protect the guilty), we finally arrived at the Super 8 where we were joined by Vinnie and Debby. The next morning we would make our way to McRoberts.
[To Be Continued]
Read more!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
On The Road In Appalachia - Part 2 - Ranya the Shoe Lady
Uncle Bernie would have loved Ranya Kelly. Ranya once described herself to me as an ordinary suburban housewife, leading an ordinary life and not making much of a contribution to the world around her when, in 1991, she went to a mall and had what I can only describe as an epiphany. Ranya noticed a dumpster filled to overflowing with hundreds of shoe boxes. The next thing she remembers is dumpster-diving for boxes of what turned out to be new shoes. Ranya asked the shoe store about the shoes and was told that, at the end of a season, the shoe store simply threw out unsold inventory. And, no, they didn't mind at all if Ranya wanted to take their overstock and give it away to poor people. And so, Ranya Kelly, suburban housewife, became Ranya the Shoe Lady.
Ranya began working to develope networks of shoe stores and organizations serving shoeless people. She also discovered that it wasn't just shoes that were being thrown out. As word of her new-found life work spread, Ranya, receiving requests for help from all over, went national. Today, the Redistribution Center, Inc., Ranya Kelly, Founder and President, gathers and distributes millions of dollars worth of food, clothing, building supplies, toys, furniture, household goods, school and office supplies and, of course, shoes (Ranya long ago abandoned all hope of ever going out of the shoe business.)
Somewhere along the line Ranya met the Jews. One of the stereotypes of the Jewish world is that we all know each other and, working through various formal and informal organizations, networks and extended families, provide for the needs of our less-fortunate brethren (while, of course, doing business without much regard for things like borders). While most sterotypes arise from mindless prejudice, this one does have some truth to it. After a couple of centuries of living in ghettoes, exiled from our homeland, we learned to provide for ourselves. The Jews have gotten pretty good at moving money, goods and services around to help one another. But it's more than that. Central to the Jewish tradition are three things - study of Torah, prayer and acts of loving kindness. The latter is ingrained in us from an early age. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, is obligated to do tzedakah (roughly translated as, "charity"). If you've got nothing yourself, you give a penny or you provide volunteer labor. If you've got a million bucks to spare you may as well ante up now because the Federation will find you. The obligation to do good works goes beyond fellow Jews. We have obligations not just to our brethren but also to to "the stranger within our gates", which is to say anyone in need. In the United States, this tradition has led an affluent community to direct its efforts toward any number of community-based organizations, without regard to religious affiliation.
For Ranya and the Jews, it was love at first sight. She found numerous kindred spirits, to say nothing of more sources of donations and targets for distributions. She also became a sought-after speaker at conferences and synagogue programs, delivering her message that what she does can be replicated in other communities. All you need to do is ask around and be ready for some creative dumpster-diving. Having been adopted by the Jews, Ranya met Naomi Eisenberger
Naomi is the Executive Director of the Good People Fund (having held the same position with a predecessor organization). The Good People Fund raises money for small groups and people in the US and Israel who work, usually on shoe-string budgets using volunteer labor, to do some good in this world. The Fund, which is small by US charitable organization standards, works mostly with community-based organizations for whom a $10,000 grant is a major gift. Naomi's Fund also makes donor-advised gifts to organizations approved by its Board. Naomi runs the Fund out of her New Jersey home with the occasional road trip to vet potential grant recipients or get involved in projects. Naomi has known Ranya for years and both directs cash donations to the Distribution Center and connects Ranya with local groups who could use her help.
Liz recently began to volunteer to help Naomi, handling some administrative tasks and helping to edit communications. The two are kindred spirits in that they have the talent to bring together people who, working together, can make a real difference in the lives of people who could use a break. Yes, dear reader, this is going to be one more tale of my wife doing good while I show up in time to eat.
Naomi has been working with an Appalachia-based organization called Family-to-Family and, through them, was introduced to people from a community center in McRoberts, Kentucky. McRoberts was a coal company town until the 1950s when the industry began to wind down and switch from deep tunnel mining to strip mining. Today any mining in the area involves blowing off the tops of mountains, spewing debris into local streams and creating lakes of sludge from the water and solid waste left over from refining coal. This leaves places like McRoberts with few jobs but lots of polluted drinking water and the occasional flood from a sludge lake. The coal companies and the politicians they own will tell you that all of this is safe. I'm not sure than someone whose land has been covered by a sludge flood would agree.
Economically-speaking, McRoberts is poor. The per capita income is about half that of the state average. Drug abuse is rampant (this is oxycontin country). Lots of people need clothing and basic household goods. These needs only increase in the winter as kerosene heaters burn down the houses they were supposed to just heat. But McRoberts is rich in its sense of community. Rich in people willing to help each other as best they can. People in McRoberts may. like Israelis, know that things can always get worse but, like Israelis, that doesn't stop them from getting on with their lives. And that's what got them onto Naomi's radar screen.
Naomi suggested to community representatives a distribution of needed items trucked in by Ranya the Shoe Lady. Naomi knew this could be done. But Naomi's audience consisted of people who have heard lots of promises from lots of outsiders that were never fulfilled. So when this Jewish lady from New Jersey (and, trust me, this is not a common sight in McRoberts) promised that someone known as Ranya the Shoe Lady from Denver would deliver enough clothing, shoes and hosehold goods to help dozens of families, the locals were understandably skeptical. Nevertheless, they agreed to the distribution, setting a date, lining up a location and identifying volunteers to do the heavy lifting. Naomi called in some of her own regular helpers and asked Liz if we would like to help out. And that's what got me on the road to McRoberts.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Read more!
Ranya began working to develope networks of shoe stores and organizations serving shoeless people. She also discovered that it wasn't just shoes that were being thrown out. As word of her new-found life work spread, Ranya, receiving requests for help from all over, went national. Today, the Redistribution Center, Inc., Ranya Kelly, Founder and President, gathers and distributes millions of dollars worth of food, clothing, building supplies, toys, furniture, household goods, school and office supplies and, of course, shoes (Ranya long ago abandoned all hope of ever going out of the shoe business.)
Somewhere along the line Ranya met the Jews. One of the stereotypes of the Jewish world is that we all know each other and, working through various formal and informal organizations, networks and extended families, provide for the needs of our less-fortunate brethren (while, of course, doing business without much regard for things like borders). While most sterotypes arise from mindless prejudice, this one does have some truth to it. After a couple of centuries of living in ghettoes, exiled from our homeland, we learned to provide for ourselves. The Jews have gotten pretty good at moving money, goods and services around to help one another. But it's more than that. Central to the Jewish tradition are three things - study of Torah, prayer and acts of loving kindness. The latter is ingrained in us from an early age. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, is obligated to do tzedakah (roughly translated as, "charity"). If you've got nothing yourself, you give a penny or you provide volunteer labor. If you've got a million bucks to spare you may as well ante up now because the Federation will find you. The obligation to do good works goes beyond fellow Jews. We have obligations not just to our brethren but also to to "the stranger within our gates", which is to say anyone in need. In the United States, this tradition has led an affluent community to direct its efforts toward any number of community-based organizations, without regard to religious affiliation.
For Ranya and the Jews, it was love at first sight. She found numerous kindred spirits, to say nothing of more sources of donations and targets for distributions. She also became a sought-after speaker at conferences and synagogue programs, delivering her message that what she does can be replicated in other communities. All you need to do is ask around and be ready for some creative dumpster-diving. Having been adopted by the Jews, Ranya met Naomi Eisenberger
Naomi is the Executive Director of the Good People Fund (having held the same position with a predecessor organization). The Good People Fund raises money for small groups and people in the US and Israel who work, usually on shoe-string budgets using volunteer labor, to do some good in this world. The Fund, which is small by US charitable organization standards, works mostly with community-based organizations for whom a $10,000 grant is a major gift. Naomi's Fund also makes donor-advised gifts to organizations approved by its Board. Naomi runs the Fund out of her New Jersey home with the occasional road trip to vet potential grant recipients or get involved in projects. Naomi has known Ranya for years and both directs cash donations to the Distribution Center and connects Ranya with local groups who could use her help.
Liz recently began to volunteer to help Naomi, handling some administrative tasks and helping to edit communications. The two are kindred spirits in that they have the talent to bring together people who, working together, can make a real difference in the lives of people who could use a break. Yes, dear reader, this is going to be one more tale of my wife doing good while I show up in time to eat.
Naomi has been working with an Appalachia-based organization called Family-to-Family and, through them, was introduced to people from a community center in McRoberts, Kentucky. McRoberts was a coal company town until the 1950s when the industry began to wind down and switch from deep tunnel mining to strip mining. Today any mining in the area involves blowing off the tops of mountains, spewing debris into local streams and creating lakes of sludge from the water and solid waste left over from refining coal. This leaves places like McRoberts with few jobs but lots of polluted drinking water and the occasional flood from a sludge lake. The coal companies and the politicians they own will tell you that all of this is safe. I'm not sure than someone whose land has been covered by a sludge flood would agree.
Economically-speaking, McRoberts is poor. The per capita income is about half that of the state average. Drug abuse is rampant (this is oxycontin country). Lots of people need clothing and basic household goods. These needs only increase in the winter as kerosene heaters burn down the houses they were supposed to just heat. But McRoberts is rich in its sense of community. Rich in people willing to help each other as best they can. People in McRoberts may. like Israelis, know that things can always get worse but, like Israelis, that doesn't stop them from getting on with their lives. And that's what got them onto Naomi's radar screen.
Naomi suggested to community representatives a distribution of needed items trucked in by Ranya the Shoe Lady. Naomi knew this could be done. But Naomi's audience consisted of people who have heard lots of promises from lots of outsiders that were never fulfilled. So when this Jewish lady from New Jersey (and, trust me, this is not a common sight in McRoberts) promised that someone known as Ranya the Shoe Lady from Denver would deliver enough clothing, shoes and hosehold goods to help dozens of families, the locals were understandably skeptical. Nevertheless, they agreed to the distribution, setting a date, lining up a location and identifying volunteers to do the heavy lifting. Naomi called in some of her own regular helpers and asked Liz if we would like to help out. And that's what got me on the road to McRoberts.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Read more!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
On The Road in Appalachia - Part 1 - Remembering Uncle Bernie
Uncle Bernie died on Thanksgiving Day. Uncle Bernie was a great uncle. He was funny, compassionate, committed to human rights and the mass consumption of good food, booze and, of course, the best cigars that could be found around the globe. Bernie was a photographer both for love and for making a living. Every photograph, slide and home movie had the same artist's touch that could be found in his professional work. If you ever see a news reel from WWII of a tank rolling over the cameraman, that was probably Uncle Bernie, lying in a ditch somewhere in Italy. Or the stills from Quo Vadis, shot while Bernie was back in Italy on a Fullbright Fellowship. Once, when walking through the wooden corridors of the Larchmont Beach Club lockers, Bernie stopped and pointed out a certain corner under a certain skylight. "I always liked the light at this spot," he said. "I used to take pictures of Amy [his younger daughter] right here."
To the rest of the world, Uncle Bernie was Bernard Birnbaum, a legendary producer for CBS News. He was compassionate and cared deeply for and about not only his family and the people he worked with but also many of the people whose lives he covered. At the age of 89 his big heart finally gave up. With my cousin Debbie's permission, I missed the funeral in order not to miss my flight to Tel Aviv. This is not so unusual in our family. Uncle Bernie would sometimes miss family gatherings because he would be in Italy, India, Vietnam or a few dozen other places.
Bernie went to work for CBS in 1951 and stayed for over 40 years. He didn't just produce TV news, he was one of the people who invented it. If you're old enough to remember shows like Omnibus and Camera Three or when the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite went from 15 to 30 minutes, then you remember what I knew as Uncle Bernie's shows. You young folks may have noticed his credits on Sunday Morning. During his career he covered serious topics like political conventions, the civil rights movement, the Eichmann trial, Vatican II, the Kennedy and Oswald assassinations, the Vietnam War and most of the rest of the history of the second half of the last century. But he also produced shows in a lighter vein, like the report on the Bossa Nova craze sweeping up from Brazil to the USA. Or stories about ordinary people living their lives which came to full fruition with the series "On The Road with Charles Kuralt." Bernie was famous for thinking of what would make a story hit home and then getting it on film. Like the mother of a Boston auto rental clerk who lived in fear of the Boston Strangler or a live interview with Marina Oswald just days after the assassination. The latter made Dan Rather into a national star (and a life-long friend).
Bernie never admitted how he got Mrs. Oswald on camera but his usual technique involved a lot of charm and winning someone's trust. Or sometimes it was just reverting back to his Brooklyn roots. Like that time he set up his film crew on a Jerusalem street across the street from the courthouse where the trial of Adolph Eichmann was about to begin. A man who objected to CBS News cluttering up his sidewalk leaned out from a balcony and started yelling at Bernie, first in Hebrew and then in Yiddush. That did it. Bernie says he told the guy a few things, also in Yiddush, using some expletives that we will delete here. Not 15 minutes later, Bernie, now lighter by two cigars and $50US had rented the balcony for his camera crew. Bernie thought the shot would be better from one story up.
One of the stories Uncle Bernie told me starts with Bernie having breakfast in a bar (a number of his stories start this way). This particular breakfast took place in late November, 1963 in Dallas. Bernie was having breakfast with Fred Friendly, then head of CBS News. They were discussing how best to cover the ongoing story of JFK's assassination. The networks' national news crews were packing up to follow the story from Dallas to Washington for the funeral and the start of the Johnson Administration. But Fred and Bernie concluded that the arrest and trial of JFK's alleged assassin was also major news worthy of leaving a national crew in Dallas with the resources to broadcast live. When word got out that CBS was staying, ABC and NBC also decided to stay. And so, Lee Harvey Oswald became the first person to be assassinated on live television. And, thanks to the then-high tech device of kinescope, his was also the first assassination to be shown on instant replay.
Uncle Bernie also had some of the character traits of an absent-minded professor (this amused the children while exasperating my Aunt Ronnie). For example, there was the time Uncle Bernie sat with Liz and I in his Larchmont living room and told us that he once had the opportunity to get a real insider's take on what had really gone on in Vietnem. Bernie having breakfast in a bar in Bangkok with a four-star general. The general said to Bernie, "You know, most people don't understand that Vietnam........" I never heard the rest of the story. Uncle Bernie suddenly remembered something that needed his attention, stood up, walked up the stairs and never came back to the story.
Bernie produced numerous documentaries over the years. But the one that gets referred to most often is "Christmas in Appalachia." With Charles Kuralt in front of the camera, Bernie brought into millions of homes the horrors of crushing poverty and environmental ruin wreaked upon people living in the wake of the coal industry. Christmas in Appalachia didn't just win Bernie his first Emmy award, it also helped stir a public debate that lead to the Johnson Administration declaring a War on Poverty.
Unfortunately, that war and much of its good intentions got lost in the jungles of Vietnam. Today, over 40 years after Uncle Bernie's show was broadcast, not all that much has changed. I got a lesson in poverty and compassion in early November when I went On the Road in Appalchia with Ranya the Shoe Lady.
[To be continued.] Read more!
To the rest of the world, Uncle Bernie was Bernard Birnbaum, a legendary producer for CBS News. He was compassionate and cared deeply for and about not only his family and the people he worked with but also many of the people whose lives he covered. At the age of 89 his big heart finally gave up. With my cousin Debbie's permission, I missed the funeral in order not to miss my flight to Tel Aviv. This is not so unusual in our family. Uncle Bernie would sometimes miss family gatherings because he would be in Italy, India, Vietnam or a few dozen other places.
Bernie went to work for CBS in 1951 and stayed for over 40 years. He didn't just produce TV news, he was one of the people who invented it. If you're old enough to remember shows like Omnibus and Camera Three or when the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite went from 15 to 30 minutes, then you remember what I knew as Uncle Bernie's shows. You young folks may have noticed his credits on Sunday Morning. During his career he covered serious topics like political conventions, the civil rights movement, the Eichmann trial, Vatican II, the Kennedy and Oswald assassinations, the Vietnam War and most of the rest of the history of the second half of the last century. But he also produced shows in a lighter vein, like the report on the Bossa Nova craze sweeping up from Brazil to the USA. Or stories about ordinary people living their lives which came to full fruition with the series "On The Road with Charles Kuralt." Bernie was famous for thinking of what would make a story hit home and then getting it on film. Like the mother of a Boston auto rental clerk who lived in fear of the Boston Strangler or a live interview with Marina Oswald just days after the assassination. The latter made Dan Rather into a national star (and a life-long friend).
Bernie never admitted how he got Mrs. Oswald on camera but his usual technique involved a lot of charm and winning someone's trust. Or sometimes it was just reverting back to his Brooklyn roots. Like that time he set up his film crew on a Jerusalem street across the street from the courthouse where the trial of Adolph Eichmann was about to begin. A man who objected to CBS News cluttering up his sidewalk leaned out from a balcony and started yelling at Bernie, first in Hebrew and then in Yiddush. That did it. Bernie says he told the guy a few things, also in Yiddush, using some expletives that we will delete here. Not 15 minutes later, Bernie, now lighter by two cigars and $50US had rented the balcony for his camera crew. Bernie thought the shot would be better from one story up.
One of the stories Uncle Bernie told me starts with Bernie having breakfast in a bar (a number of his stories start this way). This particular breakfast took place in late November, 1963 in Dallas. Bernie was having breakfast with Fred Friendly, then head of CBS News. They were discussing how best to cover the ongoing story of JFK's assassination. The networks' national news crews were packing up to follow the story from Dallas to Washington for the funeral and the start of the Johnson Administration. But Fred and Bernie concluded that the arrest and trial of JFK's alleged assassin was also major news worthy of leaving a national crew in Dallas with the resources to broadcast live. When word got out that CBS was staying, ABC and NBC also decided to stay. And so, Lee Harvey Oswald became the first person to be assassinated on live television. And, thanks to the then-high tech device of kinescope, his was also the first assassination to be shown on instant replay.
Uncle Bernie also had some of the character traits of an absent-minded professor (this amused the children while exasperating my Aunt Ronnie). For example, there was the time Uncle Bernie sat with Liz and I in his Larchmont living room and told us that he once had the opportunity to get a real insider's take on what had really gone on in Vietnem. Bernie having breakfast in a bar in Bangkok with a four-star general. The general said to Bernie, "You know, most people don't understand that Vietnam........" I never heard the rest of the story. Uncle Bernie suddenly remembered something that needed his attention, stood up, walked up the stairs and never came back to the story.
Bernie produced numerous documentaries over the years. But the one that gets referred to most often is "Christmas in Appalachia." With Charles Kuralt in front of the camera, Bernie brought into millions of homes the horrors of crushing poverty and environmental ruin wreaked upon people living in the wake of the coal industry. Christmas in Appalachia didn't just win Bernie his first Emmy award, it also helped stir a public debate that lead to the Johnson Administration declaring a War on Poverty.
Unfortunately, that war and much of its good intentions got lost in the jungles of Vietnam. Today, over 40 years after Uncle Bernie's show was broadcast, not all that much has changed. I got a lesson in poverty and compassion in early November when I went On the Road in Appalchia with Ranya the Shoe Lady.
[To be continued.] Read more!
Friday, November 20, 2009
"Health Care Reform" - A Bad Bill Is Not Better Than No Bill
Getting ready for my winter sojourn in the Holy Land, I spent a couple of days counting pills and refilling prescriptions. US law doesn't just forbid me to import identical but cheaper drugs from abroad. It also forbids my mail-order pharmacy from mailing my pills to me in Tel Aviv. So, once a year, I become a traveling pharmacy. If this sounds lame to you, you're right.
Any day now, the e-mails and the robo calls from Obama's Organizing for America (the ongoing campaign to maintain the grassroots support that got him elected in the first place) and the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), America's largest lobbying group for senior citizens (which they define as anyone over 50) will start flooding in. They're going to ask me, yet again, to support whatever mess Congress finally gags up as "health care reform" because a bad bill that sort of seems to do some of the things we need to get done is better than no bill at all. Sorry, this time I'm not on board for the fantasy express. A bad bill that leaves us at the mercy of insurance companies and Big Pharma will not assure universal coverage at a reasonable cost. I'd rather have no bill and work for a single payer system.
In 2010, my medical insurance will cost more for less coverage. Rather than the 15% or so rate increase that is now metastasizing its way through US medical insurance, I'm getting a 3% bump but my deductibles and co-pays will increase, raising my total cost by some as yet undetermined amount. What can I say. Don't get old and don't get sick. It seems I'm not alone, however, as most small businesses are looking at 15% rate increases. Just before Congress acts on a Bill which the insurance industry fears might actually put a lid on what they can charge. What a coincidence.
Want another coincidence? Big Pharma and the President made a big deal out of how Big Pharma would reduce consumers' costs by $80 billion and support (or at least not oppose) a health care reform bill. At the time, the bills kicking around Congress would have saved about $160 billion in drug costs. Since then drug prices have been going up at a rate of 9% a year for brand name drugs under patent protection (this while the rest of the economy has been deflating). So, by the time Congress passes something, Big Pharma will have taken in more than the $80 billion that they'll then make a big show of giving back by discounting their prices. As a famous business writer likes to say, pretty slick.
In addition to counting pills, I've been trying to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. No luck. None of my doctors has the vaccine and the town I live in may get some but children, teachers, health care workers and first responders are all in line ahead of me. I don't mind having the lower priority but I do mind being told I need to vaccinate myself against the worst pandemic since the 1919 flu plague and then told that private industry just could not produce and distribute enough vaccine before the season began. But I do have an alternative. I wrote to my cousin in Jerusalem. She is both a Family Doctor and our family's doctor. She can get us the shots when we're in Israel but expressed surprise that I could not get vaccinated in the US. I explained that this is because Israel has a serious national health care system that responds on a national level to things like flu pandemics while the US system is f****d up beyond all recognition.
When Congress came up with the Medicare drug bill, a $450 billion giveaway to Big Pharma, AARP argued that a bad bill was better than no bill. US taxpayers buy some drugs for some seniors but we're not allowed to negotiate the price because that would somehow be unfair to the pharmaceutical companies. We were told by the Bush Administration that drug prices would be controlled by free market competition. Wanna bet? Within 6 months of the drug companies' initially enrolling retirees at low ball rates, the price of prescription drugs began to spike upward and have never looked back. What we got, all dressed up as reform, was the biggest giveaway to private industry since the Feds gave the railroad barons the rights of way west of the Mississippi.
Americans will probably continue to spend more money on health care than any other country but actually be less healthy than citizens of comparable, first world countries. The problem with health care in the US arises mainly from the lousy method of allocation of resources and the uneven methods of payment. Its all driven by profits and all maintained in the name of free market capitalism using the canard of patient "choice" as the "on" button. We are all programmed by constant, mass advertising to demand the latest, most expensive forms of treatment and will sue if we don't get them (or sue if we do get them and they don't work). As anyone willing to really look around them knows, unfettered free market capitalism doesn't really work if your concern is the general welfare of the entire citizenry. Its great for a handful of investment bankers and hedge fund managers but not so wonderful for factory workers or retail store employees. The cure is a single payer system.
First let's get over ourselves and talk about what single payer is not. Its not socialism. Why not? A truly socialist medical system would involved public ownership and control over not just the funding but also the providers of health care and the manufacturers of the drugs and equipment they use. Single payer would leave the actual practice of medicine and all its related goods and services in private hands (except of course for public services like the VA hospitals). Single payer would involve the representatives of the US taxpayers negotiating prices and working on quality assurance.
A doctor friend of mine once said he opposed government-run health care because he did not want medical care rationed based on economics. To which I replied, "What the hell do you think goes on now?" And, if you're out there screaming in terror about "death panels," let me be the first to tell you the truth. We've had death panels for years under euphemisms like "managed care" and "peer review" and "bankruptcy court."
What single payer would be is a way to reduce costs and open the health care field to improvements in quality (like a national computer data base of medical records and drug prescriptions which would cut down on medical errors which would cut down on tort awards and save us all billions) and best practices based on patient care and not on how large a bonus the CEO of the insurance company will get this year. It's no accident that the best health care at the most affordable prices is available from not-for-profit, community-based health care systems.
What would single payer cost compared to what we're spending now? The cost of single payer would involve a tax higher than the current Medicare tax but less than the total employers and employees now spend on Medicare taxes plus the cost of private health care insurance. Do you own a business? If you could get health care coverage for yourself and your employees for less than the current cost of such insurance plus your Medicare taxes, would you take the deal? Damn right you would. You can add. Congress can't.
You see, Congress and the Administration, having taken billions in political contributions from insurers, drug companies and other health care players, did not have the political nerve to dare interfere with our relationship with our health care insurer. They won't do what's right because they are afraid we will be upset over having the government disrupt our wonderful, fulfilling relationship with our health insurers. Ask me if I care about my deep, sensitive relationship with my health care insurer. Funny you should ask, but no. What I do care about is my relationship with my cardiologist and the other doctors who have spent considerable time and effort keeping me alive. And single payer, just like my Medicare, leaves me free to keep the doctors I have and choose new ones and that's what matters. Not how they get paid.
By the way, when you add Medicare taxes, plus state taxes for Medicaid plus the Federal tax advantages given to medical expenses plus the cost of Federal health care programs for the military (both active and veterans), the US income taxpayer currently foots the bill for about 60% of the total cost of health care in the US. That's before our own expenses for private coverage. Bottom line, we're paying most of the cost of health care now and, in return, we live in a country where the infant mortality rate is comparable to that of Bangladesh.
How do we go to single payer? The financing side is easy enough. Start with the Medicare law and take out the age and disability limitations. Just cover everyone. Then we can go to work on improving quality, on negotiating fair reimbursement rates for providers and all the rest. Every individual and employer has to pay into the system or can opt out for private coverage but still pay a tax. This way private insurers can't cherry-pick the young and healthy out of a system meant to insure everyone. Anyone who wants to buy private insurance is always free to do so.
So where do we find enough money to pay for expanding Medicare to cover everyone? Well, let me count the ways for you. First, Medicare delivers a dollar of benefits for about 4 cents in overhead. Private insurers spend up to 30 cents per dollar. Administrative costs alone would represent a saving of about $500 billion dollars over ten years. Make a serious dent in unnecessary procedures by insisting on best practices and setting reimbursement rates to favor keeping patients well and you save another $850 billion. (These are AARP estimates.) Let's see, we need a trillion and single payer saves us at least 1.35 trillion. And there's the cost reduction described above. You do the math. Congress doesn't seem to be up to the task.
Single payer would also take Medicaid and similar programs off the books of state governments. Yes, your Federal taxes will go up but, just this once, your state income and maybe your property taxes will go down. Go find a Governor who wouldn't love to shove Medicaid expenses back up to the Federal level.
But no one, except maybe Bernie Sanders, the only socialist in Congress, is advocating for single payer. Why not? You'd think AARP would follow the logic of its own research. But they seem to be too busy trying to sell me health insurance to get to work on real health care reform. The rest of Congress is too busy accepting campaign contributions and after-office jobs from insurers and Big Pharma to get too worked up over your health.
Finally, I don't know why the CEOs and CFOs of every S&P 500 company (other than the health care insurers) are not raving socialists when it comes to health care expenses. To use an oft-cited example, it costs about $2000 less to build a car in Japan or Canada because those countries have national health insurance. Its the same for most other industries. Its a mystery to me why otherwise cold, calculating business people don't jump at the chance to get this albatross off their bottom lines.
And just what are we getting instead of single payer? We seem to be on the verge of getting some modest rule changes so some people can't lose coverage just because they lose their health or their jobs. Plus some, but not all, of the uninsured (most of whom have jobs and pay taxes) get coverage through a "health care exchange." That's why AARP and Obama will tell me soon that a bad bill is better than no bill. But given that the exchange, which may or may not have a public option along with 5 or 6 private options, may not be allowed to seriously negotiate prices, its not clear how "reform" will control costs or improve the quality of care.What we do know is that the exchange, which may or may not be open to a wide group of employers and individuals, is based on some flow charts which, in turn, are based on work done by Jacob Hacker, a Yale University professor of political science. They look like this:
That's right. These flow charts were given to 535 US legislators and they were asked to come up with major health care legislation. When I first saw these charts I had one of those moments of clarity in which it become clear that the world has really gone insane this time around. I believe I can sum up my take on the pending legislation in two words, "We're f****d." (And that's not even taking into account the Stupak Amendment which will send women's health care back into the middle ages.)
But don't take my word for it. Here's a message from a Canadian health care consultant using a form of communication that Americans are sure to understand -- a beer advertisement:
Read more!
Any day now, the e-mails and the robo calls from Obama's Organizing for America (the ongoing campaign to maintain the grassroots support that got him elected in the first place) and the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), America's largest lobbying group for senior citizens (which they define as anyone over 50) will start flooding in. They're going to ask me, yet again, to support whatever mess Congress finally gags up as "health care reform" because a bad bill that sort of seems to do some of the things we need to get done is better than no bill at all. Sorry, this time I'm not on board for the fantasy express. A bad bill that leaves us at the mercy of insurance companies and Big Pharma will not assure universal coverage at a reasonable cost. I'd rather have no bill and work for a single payer system.
In 2010, my medical insurance will cost more for less coverage. Rather than the 15% or so rate increase that is now metastasizing its way through US medical insurance, I'm getting a 3% bump but my deductibles and co-pays will increase, raising my total cost by some as yet undetermined amount. What can I say. Don't get old and don't get sick. It seems I'm not alone, however, as most small businesses are looking at 15% rate increases. Just before Congress acts on a Bill which the insurance industry fears might actually put a lid on what they can charge. What a coincidence.
Want another coincidence? Big Pharma and the President made a big deal out of how Big Pharma would reduce consumers' costs by $80 billion and support (or at least not oppose) a health care reform bill. At the time, the bills kicking around Congress would have saved about $160 billion in drug costs. Since then drug prices have been going up at a rate of 9% a year for brand name drugs under patent protection (this while the rest of the economy has been deflating). So, by the time Congress passes something, Big Pharma will have taken in more than the $80 billion that they'll then make a big show of giving back by discounting their prices. As a famous business writer likes to say, pretty slick.
In addition to counting pills, I've been trying to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. No luck. None of my doctors has the vaccine and the town I live in may get some but children, teachers, health care workers and first responders are all in line ahead of me. I don't mind having the lower priority but I do mind being told I need to vaccinate myself against the worst pandemic since the 1919 flu plague and then told that private industry just could not produce and distribute enough vaccine before the season began. But I do have an alternative. I wrote to my cousin in Jerusalem. She is both a Family Doctor and our family's doctor. She can get us the shots when we're in Israel but expressed surprise that I could not get vaccinated in the US. I explained that this is because Israel has a serious national health care system that responds on a national level to things like flu pandemics while the US system is f****d up beyond all recognition.
When Congress came up with the Medicare drug bill, a $450 billion giveaway to Big Pharma, AARP argued that a bad bill was better than no bill. US taxpayers buy some drugs for some seniors but we're not allowed to negotiate the price because that would somehow be unfair to the pharmaceutical companies. We were told by the Bush Administration that drug prices would be controlled by free market competition. Wanna bet? Within 6 months of the drug companies' initially enrolling retirees at low ball rates, the price of prescription drugs began to spike upward and have never looked back. What we got, all dressed up as reform, was the biggest giveaway to private industry since the Feds gave the railroad barons the rights of way west of the Mississippi.
Americans will probably continue to spend more money on health care than any other country but actually be less healthy than citizens of comparable, first world countries. The problem with health care in the US arises mainly from the lousy method of allocation of resources and the uneven methods of payment. Its all driven by profits and all maintained in the name of free market capitalism using the canard of patient "choice" as the "on" button. We are all programmed by constant, mass advertising to demand the latest, most expensive forms of treatment and will sue if we don't get them (or sue if we do get them and they don't work). As anyone willing to really look around them knows, unfettered free market capitalism doesn't really work if your concern is the general welfare of the entire citizenry. Its great for a handful of investment bankers and hedge fund managers but not so wonderful for factory workers or retail store employees. The cure is a single payer system.
First let's get over ourselves and talk about what single payer is not. Its not socialism. Why not? A truly socialist medical system would involved public ownership and control over not just the funding but also the providers of health care and the manufacturers of the drugs and equipment they use. Single payer would leave the actual practice of medicine and all its related goods and services in private hands (except of course for public services like the VA hospitals). Single payer would involve the representatives of the US taxpayers negotiating prices and working on quality assurance.
A doctor friend of mine once said he opposed government-run health care because he did not want medical care rationed based on economics. To which I replied, "What the hell do you think goes on now?" And, if you're out there screaming in terror about "death panels," let me be the first to tell you the truth. We've had death panels for years under euphemisms like "managed care" and "peer review" and "bankruptcy court."
What single payer would be is a way to reduce costs and open the health care field to improvements in quality (like a national computer data base of medical records and drug prescriptions which would cut down on medical errors which would cut down on tort awards and save us all billions) and best practices based on patient care and not on how large a bonus the CEO of the insurance company will get this year. It's no accident that the best health care at the most affordable prices is available from not-for-profit, community-based health care systems.
What would single payer cost compared to what we're spending now? The cost of single payer would involve a tax higher than the current Medicare tax but less than the total employers and employees now spend on Medicare taxes plus the cost of private health care insurance. Do you own a business? If you could get health care coverage for yourself and your employees for less than the current cost of such insurance plus your Medicare taxes, would you take the deal? Damn right you would. You can add. Congress can't.
You see, Congress and the Administration, having taken billions in political contributions from insurers, drug companies and other health care players, did not have the political nerve to dare interfere with our relationship with our health care insurer. They won't do what's right because they are afraid we will be upset over having the government disrupt our wonderful, fulfilling relationship with our health insurers. Ask me if I care about my deep, sensitive relationship with my health care insurer. Funny you should ask, but no. What I do care about is my relationship with my cardiologist and the other doctors who have spent considerable time and effort keeping me alive. And single payer, just like my Medicare, leaves me free to keep the doctors I have and choose new ones and that's what matters. Not how they get paid.
By the way, when you add Medicare taxes, plus state taxes for Medicaid plus the Federal tax advantages given to medical expenses plus the cost of Federal health care programs for the military (both active and veterans), the US income taxpayer currently foots the bill for about 60% of the total cost of health care in the US. That's before our own expenses for private coverage. Bottom line, we're paying most of the cost of health care now and, in return, we live in a country where the infant mortality rate is comparable to that of Bangladesh.
How do we go to single payer? The financing side is easy enough. Start with the Medicare law and take out the age and disability limitations. Just cover everyone. Then we can go to work on improving quality, on negotiating fair reimbursement rates for providers and all the rest. Every individual and employer has to pay into the system or can opt out for private coverage but still pay a tax. This way private insurers can't cherry-pick the young and healthy out of a system meant to insure everyone. Anyone who wants to buy private insurance is always free to do so.
So where do we find enough money to pay for expanding Medicare to cover everyone? Well, let me count the ways for you. First, Medicare delivers a dollar of benefits for about 4 cents in overhead. Private insurers spend up to 30 cents per dollar. Administrative costs alone would represent a saving of about $500 billion dollars over ten years. Make a serious dent in unnecessary procedures by insisting on best practices and setting reimbursement rates to favor keeping patients well and you save another $850 billion. (These are AARP estimates.) Let's see, we need a trillion and single payer saves us at least 1.35 trillion. And there's the cost reduction described above. You do the math. Congress doesn't seem to be up to the task.
Single payer would also take Medicaid and similar programs off the books of state governments. Yes, your Federal taxes will go up but, just this once, your state income and maybe your property taxes will go down. Go find a Governor who wouldn't love to shove Medicaid expenses back up to the Federal level.
But no one, except maybe Bernie Sanders, the only socialist in Congress, is advocating for single payer. Why not? You'd think AARP would follow the logic of its own research. But they seem to be too busy trying to sell me health insurance to get to work on real health care reform. The rest of Congress is too busy accepting campaign contributions and after-office jobs from insurers and Big Pharma to get too worked up over your health.
Finally, I don't know why the CEOs and CFOs of every S&P 500 company (other than the health care insurers) are not raving socialists when it comes to health care expenses. To use an oft-cited example, it costs about $2000 less to build a car in Japan or Canada because those countries have national health insurance. Its the same for most other industries. Its a mystery to me why otherwise cold, calculating business people don't jump at the chance to get this albatross off their bottom lines.
And just what are we getting instead of single payer? We seem to be on the verge of getting some modest rule changes so some people can't lose coverage just because they lose their health or their jobs. Plus some, but not all, of the uninsured (most of whom have jobs and pay taxes) get coverage through a "health care exchange." That's why AARP and Obama will tell me soon that a bad bill is better than no bill. But given that the exchange, which may or may not have a public option along with 5 or 6 private options, may not be allowed to seriously negotiate prices, its not clear how "reform" will control costs or improve the quality of care.What we do know is that the exchange, which may or may not be open to a wide group of employers and individuals, is based on some flow charts which, in turn, are based on work done by Jacob Hacker, a Yale University professor of political science. They look like this:
That's right. These flow charts were given to 535 US legislators and they were asked to come up with major health care legislation. When I first saw these charts I had one of those moments of clarity in which it become clear that the world has really gone insane this time around. I believe I can sum up my take on the pending legislation in two words, "We're f****d." (And that's not even taking into account the Stupak Amendment which will send women's health care back into the middle ages.)But don't take my word for it. Here's a message from a Canadian health care consultant using a form of communication that Americans are sure to understand -- a beer advertisement:
Read more!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Recession Is Over
Millburn, New Jersey
29 October 2009
Today, the 80th anniversary of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the US Government announced that the recession of 2008-2009 is officially over.
So, if you or anyone you know is still unemployed and about to lose benefits, owns a small business that is about to go under, has a home heading into foreclosure or can no longer afford to maintain health insurance, stop whining. or tell your friend to stop whining. Haven't you heard? The recession is over. Read more!
29 October 2009
Today, the 80th anniversary of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the US Government announced that the recession of 2008-2009 is officially over.
So, if you or anyone you know is still unemployed and about to lose benefits, owns a small business that is about to go under, has a home heading into foreclosure or can no longer afford to maintain health insurance, stop whining. or tell your friend to stop whining. Haven't you heard? The recession is over. Read more!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Artists, Architects and Plumbers - Part 4
Tel Aviv
18 March 2009
Ein Hod
21 March 2009
A tap on my shoulder interrupted my reverie. I had been gazing at the small details in the centers of a series of large-sized photographs. Each photograph appeared to have been shot from inside a rectangular tunnel or storm sewer, looking out at a still sea under a bright but hazy sky. In each picture, a seemingly random group of bathers were standing or walking in the shallow water. And, of course, each picture had the always informative title Untitled. To get a better view of what was going on in the center of each photograph, I put on my reading glasses and got my nose very close to each picture. Do this to a Renoir and a museum guard will chastise you. I turned around expecting to be asked not to drool on the art but instead met Elon Ganor, the photographer, who wanted to congratulate me.
Elon was pleased that I, out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who had walked by his work, was the only one to stop and focus on the details. He was so nice (and I was so flattered) that I didn't have the heart to tell him I had mainly been staring at a group of good looking young women in string bikinis. In a rare moment of discretion, I chose not to accuse the artist of some sort of high-brow voyeurism. I would have liked to have made a profound observation about his use of light, the randomness of life passing by or, that old reliable, the meaning of art, as inspired by his photographs, but nothing of the kind was floating around in my head.
So, instead, I took the opportunity to ask Elon how he got the shots. He told me that he had constructed a rectangular box out of cardboard. Holding the box in one hand and his camera in the other, Elon shot through the box at a still sea. The people in the center are random bathers. Emboldened I pushed on and asked what he meant to convey. Elon told me that he doesn't like to talk about his art. "Wait, you started this," I said in an accusatory tone of voice. "But I was paying you a compliment," he complained.
A significant feature of contemporary art is the absence of emotion, the triumph of mechanical mass production over human craftsmanship, and the end of defining art as somehow separate from daily life. The great paradox of contemporary art is that it purports to break down all the old barriers between the viewer and the art but often leaves the viewer more distant from the art. We, the viewers, need to either know the context of the art's creation (what you see is merely the end point of a process and it's the process that matters) or we have to create meaning for ourselves (if meaning is what you're after). In other words, the art is the interaction between the viewer and the object. Think about that while you're wondering whether the Richard Serra rising over your head will fall and crush you like a bug.
Tel Aviv is a mecca for Israeli artists and a flourishing part of the international art scene. The city features a major art museum, dozens of galleries, artists, art students and a myriad of cafes in which they hang out, contemplate their art, and try to get laid. I encountered Elon and several other artists at the opening night of Fresh Paint, a Contemporary Art Fair. Omanut Achshaveet, which the Fair's PR people translated as contemporary art, translates literally as Now Art. Someone who actually knows about this stuff told me that Omanut Achshaveet is art produced in the most recent 2 or 3 years by younger, up and coming artists. True to its name, Fresh Paint filled several buildings of a restored railroad station with recent works by mostly younger Israeli artists. With major corporate sponsorship, numerous galleries showing off their Now Art artists, and the large crowd of people who came to see and be seen, Fresh Paint, in its second year, is well on its way to becoming a regular feature of the Tel Aviv art scene.
This year's Fair featured tattoo artists creating wall murals, live music from alternative bands and a fund raising postcard sale. For 45 shekels you could buy a postcard painted by one of the participating artists. The artists painted whatever they wanted but did not sign the cards. Buyers were not told who had done the work until after they paid their 45 shekels ($10.70 at the then-current exchange rate). Some of the artists are well-established and their cards are worth far more than what was paid. Other cards were by artists for whom this sale may be the high point of their careers. Still others were by artists whose work could become valuable years from now. (You know the story, the one person shows that get rave reviews, followed by the feature story in the weekend magazine, followed by the motorcycle crash, followed by the post-death run up in market value.) It was the Fair's version of a midway game - test your eye for art.
My own review of the Fair is that, while it was fun, there wasn't all that much "new" about most of the paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs and videos. While no work appeared to break new ground, many works were compelling, many were political, others very clever, even funny (though I didn't get the puns, another reason to learn Hebrew). I was pleased that, after some years in the minimalist desert, art continues to head back to looking like something and sending messages that I may be able to grasp. Like the painting of soldiers standing in a circle around a drain, war, or perhaps peace, is circling the drain. But the upside down bathtubs with doll-like figures coming out of the drains needed an explanation that these were part of a series describing different aspects of a wedding (don't ask).
My favorite works at the Fair turned out to be the photography. (The Fair's panel of expert judges preferred an installation of miniature white chairs lined up as if waiting for Ken and Barby to get married -- what do art professors, curators and gallery owners know?) In addition to Elon's work, I particularly liked photographs by Aviv Naveh and Ron Amir. Aviv's photograph of a single-file line of soldiers walking through the desert past a Bedouin tent with migrating birds in formation overhead makes a statement about the imposition of the modern, often violent world, on traditional, more pastoral life. Aviv also had great landscapes of the Sinai and Central Park. You have to love a kid who thinks the two greatest cities are Tel Aviv and New York.
Ron was showing a series of photographs taken in and around Arab villages situated near Caesarea. Caesarea has become a very upscale residential town with multimillion dollar villas and the country's only golf course. The Arab villages are everything Caesarea is not - unpaved roads, stripped cars in tall grasses, buildings you wouldn't really want to live in and villagers who have that aura of poverty about them. This is the underside of life in Israel – the classic subject matter for photographers. Think Jacob Riis in the NYC slums or Margaret Bourke-White at a bread line. Moved, angered and wondering what can be done, I went off to check out the tattoo artists.
A few days later we were on the road to Ein Hod, Israel's artists' village tucked into the Carmel Mountains just north of Zichron Yaakov, founded in 1953 by a group of artists led by Marcel Danco, a Romanian-born Dada artist who was prominent in the Zurich branch of the movement. There's a museum at Ein Hod with his and other Dada works that runs education programs, many for children, about Dada. Ein Hod is the opposite end of the art world from Fresh Paint. Its 66 resident artists and a revolving group of about 32 guest artists are in the upper half of the age spectrum. I've heard Ein Hod be accused of becoming "too commercial." This may just be the price of success. The village's painters, sculptors, craftspeople, musicians and film makers include 10 Israel prize winners. Living as a community, these artists have shared their lives and artistic spirits, resulting in art that has spread out not only over Israel but around the world. The village itself is worth the trip. Spilling down from a hilltop, Ein Hod preserved the classic architectural features of the Arab buildings while adding homes, galleries and studios that combine classic Arab and modern architecture (think Frank Lloyd Wright working in Jerusalem stone).
Our host and tour guide led us through the village to some specific galleries he likes to shop in. There were antiques (in Israel, '50s kitsch passes for objects from the olden days), paintings and ceramic sculpture (in a house with Arabic archways looking out over the valley between Ein Hod and the next mountain to the south). The village is decorated with outdoor sculpture by the residents, including a couple of bus stops that were echoes of Paris Metro entrances.
In the center of Ein Hod, next to its main galleries, Dada museum and concert hall, is Dona Rosa, a fabulous Argentine grill restaurant whose owners claim to have replicated their Mother's kitchen in Argentina. I don't know if this is architecturally true and I don't care because this place proves once again, to my delight, that Argentines know what to do with large hunks of dead animal and a very hot grill. The veal ribs were immense and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Same for the steaks. I make no apology to the vegetarians in the audience. This is how G-d meant for people to eat. And so, stuffed again, we waddled, downhill, back to the car, and returned to the big city. Read more!
18 March 2009
Ein Hod
21 March 2009
A tap on my shoulder interrupted my reverie. I had been gazing at the small details in the centers of a series of large-sized photographs. Each photograph appeared to have been shot from inside a rectangular tunnel or storm sewer, looking out at a still sea under a bright but hazy sky. In each picture, a seemingly random group of bathers were standing or walking in the shallow water. And, of course, each picture had the always informative title Untitled. To get a better view of what was going on in the center of each photograph, I put on my reading glasses and got my nose very close to each picture. Do this to a Renoir and a museum guard will chastise you. I turned around expecting to be asked not to drool on the art but instead met Elon Ganor, the photographer, who wanted to congratulate me.
Elon was pleased that I, out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who had walked by his work, was the only one to stop and focus on the details. He was so nice (and I was so flattered) that I didn't have the heart to tell him I had mainly been staring at a group of good looking young women in string bikinis. In a rare moment of discretion, I chose not to accuse the artist of some sort of high-brow voyeurism. I would have liked to have made a profound observation about his use of light, the randomness of life passing by or, that old reliable, the meaning of art, as inspired by his photographs, but nothing of the kind was floating around in my head.
So, instead, I took the opportunity to ask Elon how he got the shots. He told me that he had constructed a rectangular box out of cardboard. Holding the box in one hand and his camera in the other, Elon shot through the box at a still sea. The people in the center are random bathers. Emboldened I pushed on and asked what he meant to convey. Elon told me that he doesn't like to talk about his art. "Wait, you started this," I said in an accusatory tone of voice. "But I was paying you a compliment," he complained.
A significant feature of contemporary art is the absence of emotion, the triumph of mechanical mass production over human craftsmanship, and the end of defining art as somehow separate from daily life. The great paradox of contemporary art is that it purports to break down all the old barriers between the viewer and the art but often leaves the viewer more distant from the art. We, the viewers, need to either know the context of the art's creation (what you see is merely the end point of a process and it's the process that matters) or we have to create meaning for ourselves (if meaning is what you're after). In other words, the art is the interaction between the viewer and the object. Think about that while you're wondering whether the Richard Serra rising over your head will fall and crush you like a bug.
Tel Aviv is a mecca for Israeli artists and a flourishing part of the international art scene. The city features a major art museum, dozens of galleries, artists, art students and a myriad of cafes in which they hang out, contemplate their art, and try to get laid. I encountered Elon and several other artists at the opening night of Fresh Paint, a Contemporary Art Fair. Omanut Achshaveet, which the Fair's PR people translated as contemporary art, translates literally as Now Art. Someone who actually knows about this stuff told me that Omanut Achshaveet is art produced in the most recent 2 or 3 years by younger, up and coming artists. True to its name, Fresh Paint filled several buildings of a restored railroad station with recent works by mostly younger Israeli artists. With major corporate sponsorship, numerous galleries showing off their Now Art artists, and the large crowd of people who came to see and be seen, Fresh Paint, in its second year, is well on its way to becoming a regular feature of the Tel Aviv art scene.
This year's Fair featured tattoo artists creating wall murals, live music from alternative bands and a fund raising postcard sale. For 45 shekels you could buy a postcard painted by one of the participating artists. The artists painted whatever they wanted but did not sign the cards. Buyers were not told who had done the work until after they paid their 45 shekels ($10.70 at the then-current exchange rate). Some of the artists are well-established and their cards are worth far more than what was paid. Other cards were by artists for whom this sale may be the high point of their careers. Still others were by artists whose work could become valuable years from now. (You know the story, the one person shows that get rave reviews, followed by the feature story in the weekend magazine, followed by the motorcycle crash, followed by the post-death run up in market value.) It was the Fair's version of a midway game - test your eye for art.
My own review of the Fair is that, while it was fun, there wasn't all that much "new" about most of the paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs and videos. While no work appeared to break new ground, many works were compelling, many were political, others very clever, even funny (though I didn't get the puns, another reason to learn Hebrew). I was pleased that, after some years in the minimalist desert, art continues to head back to looking like something and sending messages that I may be able to grasp. Like the painting of soldiers standing in a circle around a drain, war, or perhaps peace, is circling the drain. But the upside down bathtubs with doll-like figures coming out of the drains needed an explanation that these were part of a series describing different aspects of a wedding (don't ask).
My favorite works at the Fair turned out to be the photography. (The Fair's panel of expert judges preferred an installation of miniature white chairs lined up as if waiting for Ken and Barby to get married -- what do art professors, curators and gallery owners know?) In addition to Elon's work, I particularly liked photographs by Aviv Naveh and Ron Amir. Aviv's photograph of a single-file line of soldiers walking through the desert past a Bedouin tent with migrating birds in formation overhead makes a statement about the imposition of the modern, often violent world, on traditional, more pastoral life. Aviv also had great landscapes of the Sinai and Central Park. You have to love a kid who thinks the two greatest cities are Tel Aviv and New York.
Ron was showing a series of photographs taken in and around Arab villages situated near Caesarea. Caesarea has become a very upscale residential town with multimillion dollar villas and the country's only golf course. The Arab villages are everything Caesarea is not - unpaved roads, stripped cars in tall grasses, buildings you wouldn't really want to live in and villagers who have that aura of poverty about them. This is the underside of life in Israel – the classic subject matter for photographers. Think Jacob Riis in the NYC slums or Margaret Bourke-White at a bread line. Moved, angered and wondering what can be done, I went off to check out the tattoo artists.
A few days later we were on the road to Ein Hod, Israel's artists' village tucked into the Carmel Mountains just north of Zichron Yaakov, founded in 1953 by a group of artists led by Marcel Danco, a Romanian-born Dada artist who was prominent in the Zurich branch of the movement. There's a museum at Ein Hod with his and other Dada works that runs education programs, many for children, about Dada. Ein Hod is the opposite end of the art world from Fresh Paint. Its 66 resident artists and a revolving group of about 32 guest artists are in the upper half of the age spectrum. I've heard Ein Hod be accused of becoming "too commercial." This may just be the price of success. The village's painters, sculptors, craftspeople, musicians and film makers include 10 Israel prize winners. Living as a community, these artists have shared their lives and artistic spirits, resulting in art that has spread out not only over Israel but around the world. The village itself is worth the trip. Spilling down from a hilltop, Ein Hod preserved the classic architectural features of the Arab buildings while adding homes, galleries and studios that combine classic Arab and modern architecture (think Frank Lloyd Wright working in Jerusalem stone).
Our host and tour guide led us through the village to some specific galleries he likes to shop in. There were antiques (in Israel, '50s kitsch passes for objects from the olden days), paintings and ceramic sculpture (in a house with Arabic archways looking out over the valley between Ein Hod and the next mountain to the south). The village is decorated with outdoor sculpture by the residents, including a couple of bus stops that were echoes of Paris Metro entrances.
In the center of Ein Hod, next to its main galleries, Dada museum and concert hall, is Dona Rosa, a fabulous Argentine grill restaurant whose owners claim to have replicated their Mother's kitchen in Argentina. I don't know if this is architecturally true and I don't care because this place proves once again, to my delight, that Argentines know what to do with large hunks of dead animal and a very hot grill. The veal ribs were immense and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Same for the steaks. I make no apology to the vegetarians in the audience. This is how G-d meant for people to eat. And so, stuffed again, we waddled, downhill, back to the car, and returned to the big city. Read more!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Preparing for Passover
Back in the Western Hemisphere, Liz and I are preparing for Passover. This means getting the house and cars cleaned, intensive shopping and cooking (by Liz) and the participation in a series of bizarre, irrational rituals (by me), all leading up to the two Seders of the Diaspora (one for her family and one for mine). This year, in addition to being a fasting first born, I am expected to get myself up on a local hilltop to join the Rabbi and a small, hardy band of co-congregants in blessing the rising sun. Jewish tradition has it that once every 28 years you have to get up before dawn on the same day you are expected to attend, if not lead, a Seder until close to midnight. Why? Well, every 28 years, on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan the sun rises in the same position it was in on the fourth day of creation. That's the day on which G-d created the sun, moon, stars and time as we experience it. After the sun blessing I will wrap myself in leather straps and study a sufficient amount of medieval text to be allowed to break my fast. We will then adjourn to the synagogue parking lot to make a bonfire out of uneaten bread, crackers and the like while contemplating the fact that some people are starving.How the Rabbi knows the position of the sun on the fourth day of creation, a day that began before there was a sun, moon and stars by which we measure time, was not included in the synagogue bulletin. Nor can anyone really explain the bit about the leather straps. But, after all, its a religion (tradition if you're a secular MOT) and some things have to be taken on faith. Its like believing that a microscopic bit of leavened bread, left for months on the heating element of a stove, can eat its way through over a quarter inch of solid aluminum and contaminate a gallon of chicken soup with hometz (the evil stuff of leavened bread). Which brings me to the lovely picture above.
This year marked a real breakthrough in our lives in Israel. Liz finally dared to buy meat in the Hatikvah shuk. Not just any meat and not, to my disappointment, red meat. Nostalgic for her Grandmother's soup, Liz needed not only a chicken but also chicken feet and unborn eggs.
Liz' hesitation to buy unidentifiable slabs of dead animal with patches of fur still on them is not totally unreasonable. However, most of the butchers have identifiable chickens, chicken parts, and cuts of meat that just scream "Grill Me." OK, the cow heads complete with teeth in their mouths are a bit gross but the fillets looks wonderful. From my perspective, the Hativah Shuk's butchers all keep clean stalls, have adequate refrigeration, the meat generally looks appetizing (except the stuff with the fur and the cow heads), its all certified as kosher and a neighborhood of Yemenite, Russian and Ethiopian immigrants does not appear to be suffering from an e-coli epidemic. But to me, the winning argument is that this is the source of meat for Busi, our favorite grill restaurant. Shows you what I know.
Liz remains unimpressed by any of this seemingly flawless logic. Liz remarked that the meat in Busi is already cooked when placed in front of her. For those of you reading this who are not professional married men, pointing out to your wife that the meat she would buy from the same source as her favorite grill restaurant would also be cooked, under her strict supervision, before being placed in front of her for consumption is right up there with suggesting that she join you in a beer while watching the game. Such silliness only gets you the look that says you have permission not to be an idiot. So let's move on.
To me, chicken feet are what crazy old ladies in Brooklyn feed to stray cats. To my wife, its the magic ingredient that makes ordinary chicken soup into her Grandmother's chicken soup. For those of you who have never prepared chicken feet to go into soup, get someone else to do it for you if you can. You have to soak them in warm water, chop off the end of the toes (you really don't want toe nails in your soup no matter what that guy on Food Channel's Bizarre Foods tries to tell you) and then carefully remove the outer leathery surface with a sharp knife, without cutting into the thin flesh or delicate bones beneath. Liz seems to be able to do this with ease. I destroyed two feet and was assigned other kitchen duties.
Unborn eggs are just that. Unfertilized egg yolks, covered by a membrane instead of a shell. They're found inside a slaughtered chicken and are one of those peasant delicacies guaranteed to increase your cholesterol to dangerous levels. Unlike fertilized eggs, which for purposes of kashrut, are pareve (neutral foods that can be eaten with anything), unborn eggs are meat. This is probably because they were not become sufficiently separated from the chicken to suit certain medieval Rabbis. Of course, the chickens they are part of do not fit the Biblical definition of meat (no split hooves, no chewed cud) are nevertheless classified as meat. Chickens are meat because the same medieval Rabbis concluded, after a long debate and a vote, that they know meat when they see it and chickens are meat. Many years later, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart would apply this same reasoning to define pornography. Unfortunately for generations of Jewish housekeepers, Justice Stewart added "and this isn't it," whereas the Rabbis decided just the opposite. Clearly, no woman who shopped or cooked for these guys was in the room. They were all probably at home getting ready for Passover.
And so, as we approach the evening on which occurs the Seder, a tradition that attracts participation by more Jews than any other event on our calendar, I wish you and yours a Hag Sameach Pesach (a Happy Passover Holiday) or, if you, like me, were raised by members of the Arbeiter's Ring (Workmen's Circle), a zisn pesach (a sweet Passover - though what's sweet about nondairy desserts made from matzah meal escapes me at this moment). As my gift to you, here's a recipe for Liz' Grandmother's chicken soup as dictated to me while I cut. chopped and brought it all to a simmering boil:
1/2 large, fresh chicken, cut the long way
16 chicken feet (about 1/2 kilogram)
unborn eggs (enough)
1 medium sized onion with the outermost skin peeled off
Carrots - cut thick (about 3/4 inch) - enough
Parsnip = 2 or 3 (optional and apparently not grown in Israel during the winter)
Fresh Dill - about half a bunch (or dry, chopped to taste)
Salt - none if your husband is a chronic heart patient, otherwise, to taste.
Place chicken and chicken feet into the largest pot left by the owners of the apartment you are renting. Cover them with water (this is a bit tricky as the feet float but 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot will do). Cook on high heat until you get scum on the water. Skim off the scum and turn the heat down to a simmer. After one hour add the veggies. After another hour, add the dill and unborn eggs and let it all cook for another 20 minutes. During cooking, if the soup starts to boil, turn down the heat. If you get more scum or more fat than you care for, skim it off the surface.
Serve with sea or kosher salt for those who want to salt up something made with double salted kosher meat. And don't forget the Israeli soup nuts or, if its Passover, the matzah farfel.
Again, a zisn pesach to you all. Read more!
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Right is Wrong - An Open Letter to Daniel Gordis
Rabbi Daniel Gordis of the Shalem Institute is an eloquent and passionate proponent of Israel and a leading voice in the discussion over Israel's future. That's why there's a link to his blog site on this blog site. But in an interview that appeared in the March 25, 2009 edition of The Jerusalem Post, his suggestion that we turn away from peace efforts was, IMHO, just plain wrong. So I wrote him the letter that forms the remainder of this blog.
Dear Rabbi Gordis:
As an avid reader of your essays, I don't always agree with every point you make but have always been impressed by your thoughtful analysis and passion for your subjects. However, in your interview, Rehab for an all-consuming peace addiction, The Jerusalem Post, 25 March 2009, among all the excellent suggestions for building Israeli society as something much more than a Hebrew-speaking version of America and Europe, you are very wrong to suggest that Israel should simply withdraw from peace efforts and ignore the Palestinians until they change in an acceptable way.
Obsessing on the peace process to the exclusion of all the critical issues facing Israel (education, environment, energy, the nature of Israeli democracy, to name a few obvious ones) is, of course, a dangerous path. However, the same can be said of the ludicrous amount of resources Israel and the diaspora pumps into the expansion and protection of West Bank settlements. Setting aside serious peace efforts in favor of simply managing "the situation", which will inevitably be accompanied by continued West Bank settlement expansion, will only allow an infection to fester and eventually burst into the next Intifada. Given that every generation of Arab Israelis feels more isolated and more hostile to Jewish Israel, the next Intifada is very likely to include their participation and make the Triangle and the areas immediately around it look like Watts, Detroit and Newark in 1968.
The Right is wrong, especially when it comes to Gaza. Sharon never intended to encourage the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza. He made a tactical move to make it easier to keep control of the West Bank and expand the settlements there. In pulling out of Gaza, Israel failed to take two steps, assuring that the disengagement would be remembered as a mistake. First, Sharon ignored the pleas from Abu Mazen to negotiate an orderly transfer of power. As has been successfully done in and around Jenin, PA forces needed to be put in place and the rejectionist front (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al) subdued before the pull out took place. Instead, Israel simply pulled out and Gaza immediately slipped into the chaos of clan vendettas that ended only when Hamas took control. Second, the Israeli government promised the Gaza settlers that their communities would be kept together and provided with good homes, jobs or opportunities to re-establish their businesses. The failure to deliver on this promise is not just a disgraceful way to treat people but has given the Right a ready-made argument against any withdrawals from any settlements, ever.
When Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, the Olmert government, instead of giving Hamas a chance to act like a government before lowering the boom, immediately went to the blockade. As a result Hamas was free to continue the "resistance." After Operation Cast Lead we have a lot of bodies on both sides and not much to show for it. Hamas is more popular than ever, Gaza looks like the set from Escape from New York, missiles continue to hit southern Israel and Gilad Shalit is no closer to going home. Making no effort at all to pursue peace only guarantees that more Israeli children will grow up to fight in places like Gaza. I simply do not believe that that is what you want.
Continuous expansion of the settlements and a refusal to seriously pursue openings such as the Saudi peace proposal only lead Israel down a path where its soul is truly threatened. The day will come when Palestinians generally give up on a separate state (consider, for example, that Hamas has no interest in a state but would win an election if one were to be held). By then the Right may have the votes in Knesset to annex the West Bank. At that point, to maintain a Jewish state, Israel will have to seriously consider engaging in ethnic cleansing or apartheid. And that's when Israel loses the international recognition essential to the fulfillment of the Zionist project (I've read Arthur Hertzberg's The Zionist Idea) and finds itself on the wrong end of international economic sanctions. Israel will also risk losing its majority support among diaspora Jews. (How many Americans will send their kids to summer programs in an apartheid state?)
The Knesset now has at least 23 members (Shas, UTJ, National Union and Habayit Hayehudi) who, like Hamas, use the democratic process as a means to an end but who do not believe in democracy as a worthy goal in its own right. And I think the jury is out on Israel Beiteinu and some members of the Likud list. The chance that such a government would respond favorably to a serious peace overture from any Arab group is slim to nil. The chance that such a government might seek a "final solution" to the Arab problem is growing all the time. Bibi's idea of building a Palestinian economy to buy off their nation ambitions is a chimera. If he was right, no American Jew would make aliyah since, as you well know, Jews can and do have far more economically and physically secure lives in America. And yet, American Jews still make aliyah for reasons that you have so eloquently expressed. Why should we think that the same would not be true for Palestinians?
Your vision for education of all Israelis in our traditions, the end of the strangle hold of the Rabbinate on Israelis' lives and a serious debate over the very nature of Israel are all noble causes in which we should all enlist. But turning your back on peace efforts is not the way to get there. The Right is wrong. Please do not join them.
Respectfully,
David Stolow
Read more!
Dear Rabbi Gordis:
As an avid reader of your essays, I don't always agree with every point you make but have always been impressed by your thoughtful analysis and passion for your subjects. However, in your interview, Rehab for an all-consuming peace addiction, The Jerusalem Post, 25 March 2009, among all the excellent suggestions for building Israeli society as something much more than a Hebrew-speaking version of America and Europe, you are very wrong to suggest that Israel should simply withdraw from peace efforts and ignore the Palestinians until they change in an acceptable way.
Obsessing on the peace process to the exclusion of all the critical issues facing Israel (education, environment, energy, the nature of Israeli democracy, to name a few obvious ones) is, of course, a dangerous path. However, the same can be said of the ludicrous amount of resources Israel and the diaspora pumps into the expansion and protection of West Bank settlements. Setting aside serious peace efforts in favor of simply managing "the situation", which will inevitably be accompanied by continued West Bank settlement expansion, will only allow an infection to fester and eventually burst into the next Intifada. Given that every generation of Arab Israelis feels more isolated and more hostile to Jewish Israel, the next Intifada is very likely to include their participation and make the Triangle and the areas immediately around it look like Watts, Detroit and Newark in 1968.
The Right is wrong, especially when it comes to Gaza. Sharon never intended to encourage the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza. He made a tactical move to make it easier to keep control of the West Bank and expand the settlements there. In pulling out of Gaza, Israel failed to take two steps, assuring that the disengagement would be remembered as a mistake. First, Sharon ignored the pleas from Abu Mazen to negotiate an orderly transfer of power. As has been successfully done in and around Jenin, PA forces needed to be put in place and the rejectionist front (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al) subdued before the pull out took place. Instead, Israel simply pulled out and Gaza immediately slipped into the chaos of clan vendettas that ended only when Hamas took control. Second, the Israeli government promised the Gaza settlers that their communities would be kept together and provided with good homes, jobs or opportunities to re-establish their businesses. The failure to deliver on this promise is not just a disgraceful way to treat people but has given the Right a ready-made argument against any withdrawals from any settlements, ever.
When Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, the Olmert government, instead of giving Hamas a chance to act like a government before lowering the boom, immediately went to the blockade. As a result Hamas was free to continue the "resistance." After Operation Cast Lead we have a lot of bodies on both sides and not much to show for it. Hamas is more popular than ever, Gaza looks like the set from Escape from New York, missiles continue to hit southern Israel and Gilad Shalit is no closer to going home. Making no effort at all to pursue peace only guarantees that more Israeli children will grow up to fight in places like Gaza. I simply do not believe that that is what you want.
Continuous expansion of the settlements and a refusal to seriously pursue openings such as the Saudi peace proposal only lead Israel down a path where its soul is truly threatened. The day will come when Palestinians generally give up on a separate state (consider, for example, that Hamas has no interest in a state but would win an election if one were to be held). By then the Right may have the votes in Knesset to annex the West Bank. At that point, to maintain a Jewish state, Israel will have to seriously consider engaging in ethnic cleansing or apartheid. And that's when Israel loses the international recognition essential to the fulfillment of the Zionist project (I've read Arthur Hertzberg's The Zionist Idea) and finds itself on the wrong end of international economic sanctions. Israel will also risk losing its majority support among diaspora Jews. (How many Americans will send their kids to summer programs in an apartheid state?)
The Knesset now has at least 23 members (Shas, UTJ, National Union and Habayit Hayehudi) who, like Hamas, use the democratic process as a means to an end but who do not believe in democracy as a worthy goal in its own right. And I think the jury is out on Israel Beiteinu and some members of the Likud list. The chance that such a government would respond favorably to a serious peace overture from any Arab group is slim to nil. The chance that such a government might seek a "final solution" to the Arab problem is growing all the time. Bibi's idea of building a Palestinian economy to buy off their nation ambitions is a chimera. If he was right, no American Jew would make aliyah since, as you well know, Jews can and do have far more economically and physically secure lives in America. And yet, American Jews still make aliyah for reasons that you have so eloquently expressed. Why should we think that the same would not be true for Palestinians?
Your vision for education of all Israelis in our traditions, the end of the strangle hold of the Rabbinate on Israelis' lives and a serious debate over the very nature of Israel are all noble causes in which we should all enlist. But turning your back on peace efforts is not the way to get there. The Right is wrong. Please do not join them.
Respectfully,
David Stolow
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Sunday, March 29, 2009
Artists, Architects and Plumbers - Part 3
22 March 2009
Tel Aviv
As I sit here writing my way through the week just passed, Danny the Technician is trying to put the washing machine back together. He's replaced the motor and solenoid for far more money than I would spend on a 10 year old machine but that was the owner's call. This is Danny's third and, hopefully, last trip to the apartment this week as, before we get anything fixed here, we need to work our way through a system compartmentalized into narrow, carefully protected jurisdictions on a level of hairsplitting that seems to be the G-d given talent of my tribe. Someone once said that a sign of Zionism's success would be when thieves and hookers are Jews speaking Hebrew. Perhaps of equal importance are the plumbers, technicians, electricians, building maintenance crews and the like who are Jews speaking Hebrew.
This week both our washing machine and our second toilet (for the second time) decided to break down. Getting something fixed in Israel needs to be approached with patience and good humor. Just consider it part of your Israel adventure and your blood pressure will do just fine. Part of the fun is the jurisdictional disputes. Say, for example, that you rent your apartment, the owner is out of the country and you have to go through the agent. The agent's first response will be to insist that you call building maintenance or the Va'ad (building board, everything here is a form of co-op) to see if they will handle it. Now some things really do belong to the building, like the mold that grew through the walls in our former abode. It’s not clear who owns the connection between the toilet and the main plumbing system. However, the inside flushing mechanism of the toilet is definitely the apartment owner's problem, unless the head of building maintenance is in a good mood.
The plumber was here last Friday to fix the leak around the base of the second toilet. Building maintenance had actually given this one a try earlier in the week. But merely laying down a new line of caulk was not enough. So the agent had to bring in an outside plumber at some substantial expense to the owner to reconnect the toilet and the main waste pipe. After he had completed the repairs, he informed us that we could not use the toilet until Sunday. He then unstopped the drain on the sink in the main bathroom. For this repair we paid 80 shekels. Liz thought it was high. Doing quick math in my head I realized that I was being asked to pay $20 for a plumber to make a house call. Have you called a plumber lately? If you have, then you know why I smiled, handed over the cash and said nothing.
But what seems to be outside the jurisdiction of all these experts is cleaning up after themselves. I got to dump out whatever awful mess came out of our drain and put away all the folding chairs, cleaning implements and buckets that had to come out of the utility closet so our washing machine could be put back into service. I can hardly wait to get back to New Jersey where, I'm told, I have one broken toilet and sliding patio doors damaged by a squirrel trying to dig his way out of the house.
Read more!
Tel Aviv
As I sit here writing my way through the week just passed, Danny the Technician is trying to put the washing machine back together. He's replaced the motor and solenoid for far more money than I would spend on a 10 year old machine but that was the owner's call. This is Danny's third and, hopefully, last trip to the apartment this week as, before we get anything fixed here, we need to work our way through a system compartmentalized into narrow, carefully protected jurisdictions on a level of hairsplitting that seems to be the G-d given talent of my tribe. Someone once said that a sign of Zionism's success would be when thieves and hookers are Jews speaking Hebrew. Perhaps of equal importance are the plumbers, technicians, electricians, building maintenance crews and the like who are Jews speaking Hebrew.
This week both our washing machine and our second toilet (for the second time) decided to break down. Getting something fixed in Israel needs to be approached with patience and good humor. Just consider it part of your Israel adventure and your blood pressure will do just fine. Part of the fun is the jurisdictional disputes. Say, for example, that you rent your apartment, the owner is out of the country and you have to go through the agent. The agent's first response will be to insist that you call building maintenance or the Va'ad (building board, everything here is a form of co-op) to see if they will handle it. Now some things really do belong to the building, like the mold that grew through the walls in our former abode. It’s not clear who owns the connection between the toilet and the main plumbing system. However, the inside flushing mechanism of the toilet is definitely the apartment owner's problem, unless the head of building maintenance is in a good mood.
The plumber was here last Friday to fix the leak around the base of the second toilet. Building maintenance had actually given this one a try earlier in the week. But merely laying down a new line of caulk was not enough. So the agent had to bring in an outside plumber at some substantial expense to the owner to reconnect the toilet and the main waste pipe. After he had completed the repairs, he informed us that we could not use the toilet until Sunday. He then unstopped the drain on the sink in the main bathroom. For this repair we paid 80 shekels. Liz thought it was high. Doing quick math in my head I realized that I was being asked to pay $20 for a plumber to make a house call. Have you called a plumber lately? If you have, then you know why I smiled, handed over the cash and said nothing.
But what seems to be outside the jurisdiction of all these experts is cleaning up after themselves. I got to dump out whatever awful mess came out of our drain and put away all the folding chairs, cleaning implements and buckets that had to come out of the utility closet so our washing machine could be put back into service. I can hardly wait to get back to New Jersey where, I'm told, I have one broken toilet and sliding patio doors damaged by a squirrel trying to dig his way out of the house.
Read more!
Artists, Architects and Plumbers - Part 2
17 March 2009
Lower Galilee Valley
Driving a car is like riding a bicycle. Once you know how, it comes back quickly, particularly if you need to get into the flow of traffic in Tel Aviv. Today was the day I had been looking forward to and Liz was dreading. We were going to do the single most dangerous thing you can do in Israel, drive a car. Despite the statistical fact that you have more to fear from Israeli motorists than Arab terrorists, I love getting mobile and taking a road trip. The weather was lovely, the roads in good shape and traffic not bad as we drove both ways against the rush hours. Our first destination was Kibbutz Hanaton, the only kibbutz affiliated with the Conservative Movement (Masorti in Israel), which is in the midst of rebuilding its membership and reviving its mission.
Hanaton sits atop a hill overlooking the Eshkol Reservoir in the Lower Galilee Valley. As the ads used to say, getting there is half the fun. The drive takes you out of the heavily built up coastal plain into the less populated rolling green hills of the Carmel range, past Zichron Yaakov, through Yoqneam, into the Jezreel Valley and up to Hanaton. Directly below the kibbutz is a new neighborhood, clearly more upscale than the modest kibbutz housing, being built on what used to be kibbutz land (part of the kibbutz's economic recovery plan). To the west, on a plateau looking down on the kibbutz, are the dairy and chicken sheds. The hillsides around Hanaton are also sprinkled with Arab villages. In this part of Israel the population is about evenly divided between Arabs and Jews.
The kibbutz was originally founded in the 1980s, with the goals of spreading religious diversity from the Diaspora to Israel, educating Israelis about Masorti Judaism and providing a Conservative alternative for Jews seeking to combine their aliyah with spiritual growth. Unfortunately, the original Hanaton was formed just in time for the general economic collapse of the kibbutz movement. Hanaton's original community did not take root and almost all the original members left. The kibbutz was saved from total collapse by an influx of members from other parts of the kibbutz movement. However, becoming a secular, socialist kibbutz was not what the founders had in mind.
And so began a tug of war that, after some litigation, an economic reorganization, and a renewal of support from the Masorti Movement, has led to a revival of the kibbutz along its original spiritual lines. This time around, however, Hanaton is a kibbutz mitchadesh instead of a kibbutz sh'tufee. A kibbutz sh'tufee is the old socialist model (from each according to his or her ability and to each according to his or her needs) where all property and income is shared. A kibbutz mitchadesh, literally a renewed kibbutz, involves some level of privatization depending upon the organizational structure adopted by the kibbutz members. These kibbutzim run the gamut from mainly socialist with some private property or earnings allowed to a capitalist style cooperative, indistinguishable from a moshav. Hanaton is going to fall somewhere in the middle with members owning their own homes, keeping income from their own jobs and becoming shareholders in the kibbutz businesses (dairy and chickens). Income from the businesses will first be used to maintain community property, like the swimming pool, education center and synagogue, and then be put into a fund to assist kibbutz members who have lost jobs or become disabled. The kibbutz is also looking into setting up an independent living facility for older members and perhaps, as has been done by other kibbutzim, opening it up to outsiders.
What initially attracted Liz' attention and gave me the chance for a road trip was Kibbutz Hanaton's solicitation for funds in Mercaz, the Masorti newsletter, offering a voucher for a stay at the kibbutz guesthouse correlated to the amount of the donation. So Liz contacted Yoav, Hanaton's newly appointed Rabbi, and made a date. When we arrived, Yoav was in a meeting and, as he had warned in advance, was to leave soon for more meetings in Jerusalem. Yoav is a 30-something Rabbi, married with children, who agreed last summer to take on the task of rebuilding Hanaton. He has succeeded in increasing the membership from about 11 to about 55, most of whom will be moving to the kibbutz starting next summer, as housing becomes available.
So Yoav suggested that we walk around to see the kibbutz for ourselves and he would call us on a cell phone when the kibbutz meeting broke up. The kibbutz consists mostly of one story homes with high loft ceilings, the requisite dining hall, administration building, an education center next to a hostel/dormitory and that rarity among kibbutzim, a synagogue. When our cell phone went off we returned to the education center where Yoav excused himself for another meeting but left us in the able hands of Steve, one of the few kibbutz members from our age cohort. Steve, a CPA from Boston, made aliyah 25 years ago and works in-house for Intel. His attachment to the kibbutz? His daughter married Yoav and his grandchildren are leaving Jerusalem to live at Hanaton. Having reached a point where he was considering career and lifestyle changes anyway, and clearly a professional married man who knows life is easier if his wife gets to live near the grandchildren, Steve decided to join the kibbutz.
Steve spent the better part of two hours telling us about the kibbutz, answering our questions and talking about his own journey from Boston to this hilltop. We sat in the sun on community meeting benches facing toward the reservoir. While we were speaking, a herd of sheep accompanied by a single, Arab shepherd came by. After a brief conversation with the friendly shepherd, Steve informed us that our visitors were from the village just north of Hanaton. The kibbutz members welcome the local shepherds' flocks, as the sheep keep the grass and shrubs nicely trimmed and everyone enjoys a day off much more without the noise of lawn mowers. At our urging, Steve hazarded a guess as to how much it would cost to join Hanaton. The guesstimate is about $250,000 since you have to buy and fix up a house plus buy into the kibbutz' jointly held property and businesses. If you're making aliyah, the benefits bundle will defray some of this, particularly by helping you get a low cost mortgage and the initial income tax breaks. (I later learned that the aliyah agencies are offering enhanced benefits for immigrants to agree to live in the north, which could make Hanaton an even better deal. Try getting something with two or three bedrooms, a nice view and quiet surroundings in Tel Aviv for $250,000.)
The central purpose of Kibbutz Hanaton is not the dairy business but a Conservative spiritual life joined to an educational program open to all. So joining is not just a matter of money. Members are selected based upon their compatibility with the Kibbutz' mission. This will also make it harder to sell your house since the Kibbutz has to approve any buyer as a member, which, in turn, could dissuade some banks from funding a mortgage. Among Hanaton's new members are six or seven Rabbis. Interestingly enough, three Rabbis are Orthodox and one of them is married to a woman who is about to become a Reform Rabbi. Just what form Kibbutz religious life will take is still not set in concrete. And that, I think, is the point. Yoav, who joined us at the end of our stay, is looking for people who want to engage in the search, who understand that, in classic Judaism, it’s not the final destination but the quality of the journey that matters. Back in the States we talk a lot about Jewish identity – what it is and, if you can figure that out, how to keep it or even pass it on to your children. The same sort of search is going on among Israelis. Secular Jews want to get more in touch with their roots. There's not a significant shift toward becoming religious; but there is a real desire to become more knowledgeable about, and incorporate more of the traditions into, Israeli culture. Yoav sees Hanaton as playing a role in this search. He envisions bringing in groups from Israel and the diaspora to learn and explore. Yoav also believes that many Israelis reject religion because the only religion they know is Orthodoxy or Hasidism. Teaching people about Conservative or Reform Judaism gives Israelis options long familiar to American Jews but very new to most Israelis.
All of which is very exciting. If we were twenty-somethings, Hanaton would be very attractive to us. If they ever get the guest house/retreat business going we will most definitely be back.
With the romance of kibbutz life restored to us, we left Hanaton and drove the 20 minutes to Kibbutz Yagur to meet my cousin, Avia, in the dining hall for lunch. Yagur, tucked into the north side of the Carmel Mountain a short distance southeast of Haifa, was founded in 1922. While maintaining much of its socialist heritage, Yagur members can have private cars, kitchens in their apartments and jobs outside the kibbutz. Avia's youngest daughter, Nili, who is thirty-something, was among the last children raised in the children's house. At the age of 10 she went to live with her parents.
The kibbutz dining hall has the feel of a college or summer camp cafeteria. It’s as much a social gathering hall as a place to get fed. Just in case you don't know who set up this establishment, there are soda fountain spigots dispensing freshly made seltzer. We were joined at lunch by Nili's father-in-law, Yagur's chief electrician, who didn't just know about Hanaton but helped install its new electrical system. After watching videos of Avia's recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and enjoying her most recent grandchild (Nili's first baby), we drove back to Tel Aviv.
The ride between Tel Aviv and Yagur is now easy and scenic. You don't have to go through Haifa any more: Route 70 runs southeast from Yagur Junction, through the valleys between the Carmel Mountains and out to the sea: Route 2 runs along the sea and becomes Namir Street in north Tel Aviv. To top off a fun day, I got to park a car in the private, underground space that comes with our apartment. Have I told you that we've rented the apartment for next winter? Did I mention the part about the beach?
Read more!
Lower Galilee Valley
Driving a car is like riding a bicycle. Once you know how, it comes back quickly, particularly if you need to get into the flow of traffic in Tel Aviv. Today was the day I had been looking forward to and Liz was dreading. We were going to do the single most dangerous thing you can do in Israel, drive a car. Despite the statistical fact that you have more to fear from Israeli motorists than Arab terrorists, I love getting mobile and taking a road trip. The weather was lovely, the roads in good shape and traffic not bad as we drove both ways against the rush hours. Our first destination was Kibbutz Hanaton, the only kibbutz affiliated with the Conservative Movement (Masorti in Israel), which is in the midst of rebuilding its membership and reviving its mission.
Hanaton sits atop a hill overlooking the Eshkol Reservoir in the Lower Galilee Valley. As the ads used to say, getting there is half the fun. The drive takes you out of the heavily built up coastal plain into the less populated rolling green hills of the Carmel range, past Zichron Yaakov, through Yoqneam, into the Jezreel Valley and up to Hanaton. Directly below the kibbutz is a new neighborhood, clearly more upscale than the modest kibbutz housing, being built on what used to be kibbutz land (part of the kibbutz's economic recovery plan). To the west, on a plateau looking down on the kibbutz, are the dairy and chicken sheds. The hillsides around Hanaton are also sprinkled with Arab villages. In this part of Israel the population is about evenly divided between Arabs and Jews.The kibbutz was originally founded in the 1980s, with the goals of spreading religious diversity from the Diaspora to Israel, educating Israelis about Masorti Judaism and providing a Conservative alternative for Jews seeking to combine their aliyah with spiritual growth. Unfortunately, the original Hanaton was formed just in time for the general economic collapse of the kibbutz movement. Hanaton's original community did not take root and almost all the original members left. The kibbutz was saved from total collapse by an influx of members from other parts of the kibbutz movement. However, becoming a secular, socialist kibbutz was not what the founders had in mind.
And so began a tug of war that, after some litigation, an economic reorganization, and a renewal of support from the Masorti Movement, has led to a revival of the kibbutz along its original spiritual lines. This time around, however, Hanaton is a kibbutz mitchadesh instead of a kibbutz sh'tufee. A kibbutz sh'tufee is the old socialist model (from each according to his or her ability and to each according to his or her needs) where all property and income is shared. A kibbutz mitchadesh, literally a renewed kibbutz, involves some level of privatization depending upon the organizational structure adopted by the kibbutz members. These kibbutzim run the gamut from mainly socialist with some private property or earnings allowed to a capitalist style cooperative, indistinguishable from a moshav. Hanaton is going to fall somewhere in the middle with members owning their own homes, keeping income from their own jobs and becoming shareholders in the kibbutz businesses (dairy and chickens). Income from the businesses will first be used to maintain community property, like the swimming pool, education center and synagogue, and then be put into a fund to assist kibbutz members who have lost jobs or become disabled. The kibbutz is also looking into setting up an independent living facility for older members and perhaps, as has been done by other kibbutzim, opening it up to outsiders.
What initially attracted Liz' attention and gave me the chance for a road trip was Kibbutz Hanaton's solicitation for funds in Mercaz, the Masorti newsletter, offering a voucher for a stay at the kibbutz guesthouse correlated to the amount of the donation. So Liz contacted Yoav, Hanaton's newly appointed Rabbi, and made a date. When we arrived, Yoav was in a meeting and, as he had warned in advance, was to leave soon for more meetings in Jerusalem. Yoav is a 30-something Rabbi, married with children, who agreed last summer to take on the task of rebuilding Hanaton. He has succeeded in increasing the membership from about 11 to about 55, most of whom will be moving to the kibbutz starting next summer, as housing becomes available.
So Yoav suggested that we walk around to see the kibbutz for ourselves and he would call us on a cell phone when the kibbutz meeting broke up. The kibbutz consists mostly of one story homes with high loft ceilings, the requisite dining hall, administration building, an education center next to a hostel/dormitory and that rarity among kibbutzim, a synagogue. When our cell phone went off we returned to the education center where Yoav excused himself for another meeting but left us in the able hands of Steve, one of the few kibbutz members from our age cohort. Steve, a CPA from Boston, made aliyah 25 years ago and works in-house for Intel. His attachment to the kibbutz? His daughter married Yoav and his grandchildren are leaving Jerusalem to live at Hanaton. Having reached a point where he was considering career and lifestyle changes anyway, and clearly a professional married man who knows life is easier if his wife gets to live near the grandchildren, Steve decided to join the kibbutz.
Steve spent the better part of two hours telling us about the kibbutz, answering our questions and talking about his own journey from Boston to this hilltop. We sat in the sun on community meeting benches facing toward the reservoir. While we were speaking, a herd of sheep accompanied by a single, Arab shepherd came by. After a brief conversation with the friendly shepherd, Steve informed us that our visitors were from the village just north of Hanaton. The kibbutz members welcome the local shepherds' flocks, as the sheep keep the grass and shrubs nicely trimmed and everyone enjoys a day off much more without the noise of lawn mowers. At our urging, Steve hazarded a guess as to how much it would cost to join Hanaton. The guesstimate is about $250,000 since you have to buy and fix up a house plus buy into the kibbutz' jointly held property and businesses. If you're making aliyah, the benefits bundle will defray some of this, particularly by helping you get a low cost mortgage and the initial income tax breaks. (I later learned that the aliyah agencies are offering enhanced benefits for immigrants to agree to live in the north, which could make Hanaton an even better deal. Try getting something with two or three bedrooms, a nice view and quiet surroundings in Tel Aviv for $250,000.)The central purpose of Kibbutz Hanaton is not the dairy business but a Conservative spiritual life joined to an educational program open to all. So joining is not just a matter of money. Members are selected based upon their compatibility with the Kibbutz' mission. This will also make it harder to sell your house since the Kibbutz has to approve any buyer as a member, which, in turn, could dissuade some banks from funding a mortgage. Among Hanaton's new members are six or seven Rabbis. Interestingly enough, three Rabbis are Orthodox and one of them is married to a woman who is about to become a Reform Rabbi. Just what form Kibbutz religious life will take is still not set in concrete. And that, I think, is the point. Yoav, who joined us at the end of our stay, is looking for people who want to engage in the search, who understand that, in classic Judaism, it’s not the final destination but the quality of the journey that matters. Back in the States we talk a lot about Jewish identity – what it is and, if you can figure that out, how to keep it or even pass it on to your children. The same sort of search is going on among Israelis. Secular Jews want to get more in touch with their roots. There's not a significant shift toward becoming religious; but there is a real desire to become more knowledgeable about, and incorporate more of the traditions into, Israeli culture. Yoav sees Hanaton as playing a role in this search. He envisions bringing in groups from Israel and the diaspora to learn and explore. Yoav also believes that many Israelis reject religion because the only religion they know is Orthodoxy or Hasidism. Teaching people about Conservative or Reform Judaism gives Israelis options long familiar to American Jews but very new to most Israelis.
All of which is very exciting. If we were twenty-somethings, Hanaton would be very attractive to us. If they ever get the guest house/retreat business going we will most definitely be back.
With the romance of kibbutz life restored to us, we left Hanaton and drove the 20 minutes to Kibbutz Yagur to meet my cousin, Avia, in the dining hall for lunch. Yagur, tucked into the north side of the Carmel Mountain a short distance southeast of Haifa, was founded in 1922. While maintaining much of its socialist heritage, Yagur members can have private cars, kitchens in their apartments and jobs outside the kibbutz. Avia's youngest daughter, Nili, who is thirty-something, was among the last children raised in the children's house. At the age of 10 she went to live with her parents.
The kibbutz dining hall has the feel of a college or summer camp cafeteria. It’s as much a social gathering hall as a place to get fed. Just in case you don't know who set up this establishment, there are soda fountain spigots dispensing freshly made seltzer. We were joined at lunch by Nili's father-in-law, Yagur's chief electrician, who didn't just know about Hanaton but helped install its new electrical system. After watching videos of Avia's recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and enjoying her most recent grandchild (Nili's first baby), we drove back to Tel Aviv.
The ride between Tel Aviv and Yagur is now easy and scenic. You don't have to go through Haifa any more: Route 70 runs southeast from Yagur Junction, through the valleys between the Carmel Mountains and out to the sea: Route 2 runs along the sea and becomes Namir Street in north Tel Aviv. To top off a fun day, I got to park a car in the private, underground space that comes with our apartment. Have I told you that we've rented the apartment for next winter? Did I mention the part about the beach?
Read more!
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