Illustration: Emperor Nero through the coins. He grew very fat as he aged.
Rome was built on a worthless swampy piece of land. The marketplace, the Forum, was a wetland that had to be drained to be habitable. When the malaria mosquito appeared in Italy, Rome was doomed.
It was climate change allowed the northward advance of the mosquito, sickening and successively emptying Palestine's coastlands, Greece, and then Italy. The center of gravity moved to France and Germany.
The Economist estimates that 40% of Argentina's workforce is in the informal sector. Meaning selling ice cream on the streets, repairing old cars, and working as daily construction hands. This was totally unknown at my time. On the other hand, my relatives are comfortable. The young generation is already mixed, drop-outs from the Jewish people. They fall in love with a nice schikse and don't realize that they are forfeiting their future. You have to lose your mind to choose to be an Argentine Criollo (pic) instead of the European Jews they are. My childhood friend Viky Haar married a Criolla at age 18 and now, one of his three sons is selling balloons in the zoo, and the second is doing occasional ironsmith jobs and living in abject poverty. The youngest is the most successful: he operates a cultural marijuana joint and has two kids from two different women. I am convinced that out-marrying leads to a loss of moral and social position.
Wikipedia is actively erasing information. Especially about human evolution and intelligence. The truth is the enemy of religion and morality. Religion and morality are good, agreed, so there is a hard contradiction. Fortunately, I am able to hold two contradictory ideas in my mind without being confused.
Pic.: The second Schneursohn rabbi.
I am Hungarian Jew and the early settling of Palestine is not my background, but after fifty years in Israel, the national folklore is almost mine. Like Americans adopting the cowboy hero myth, or now, the Southern plantation myth. Myths are myths, the real cowboys were Mexican farmhands ("boys") and plantation owners took good care of their expensive workforce.
There were two or three old Russian songs that are identified with the early pioneers, yet contemporary Russians never heard of them. Now they are Israeli folklore and "touch" me too.
Interesting what is NOT in the play. It takes place in Israel before the independence, but not one word about Zionism or patriotism. Second, there are no Arabs in Israel in the play. Those were the times of the big Arab revolt, but the farmers never heard of it.
