Aunt Genya Dead at 102

Aunt Genya arrived in Mandatory Palestine in the twenties or before from the Soviet Union. For some reason they left the country and lived a few years in Damascus, where she went to school. During the War of Independence, her perfect Syrian Arab became a rare resource and she was recruited into an organization that operated in the neighboring countries. She and her husband Juppah (a Hungarian-speaker)  spent their last years in a kibbutz. She was among the last of Israel's pioneer elite.
The pic is unrelated to her.

The Lebensraum Paradox

I always wondered about Germany's desire for more "living space" in the thirties, that ultimately led - among other motives - to its aggression against Russia. Among the other motives I count "opportunity", that according to Victor Davis Hanson, explains all the wars of the Ancient Greeks on.  Also, Nazis feared Communism, an international movement that saw as its duty to interfere in Germany's internal affairs. But from where the imperative of conquering more space? Germany was a large country, with excellent climate and agricultural lands, and with a rapidly declining population.

I found one possible explanation in Patrick Buchanan's latest article (about the Houtis of all Muslim sects). He mentions facts I had been unaware of. Quote:

Our aim is to “starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission,” said First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. He was speaking of Germany at the outset of the Great War of 1914-1918. Americans denounced as inhumane this starvation blockade that would eventually take the lives of a million German civilians.

After the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, however, the starvation blockade was not lifted until Germany capitulated to all Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles.

As late as March 1919, four months after the Germans laid down their arms, Churchill arose in Parliament to exult, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigor, and Germany is very near starvation.”

Buchanan holds the Allies responsible for German starvation, which is only half truth. Food was scarce everywhere. Yet that generation of Germans lived with a deep fear of starvation and may have felt that they needed the cereal growing lands in Ukraine and Russia. In spite of the fact that Communist Russia was selling them grains for German industrial products. That may explain the paradox of a rich country with falling population seeking "Lebensraum".

Surviving in an inflated world

Somebody paid 400 million dollars for an ugly painting by Michelangelo. OK, there are many collectors with much money out there and only one Michelangelo. Real estate is expensive beyond imagination, a two room derelict apartment in Tel Aviv sells for one million dollars. Digital tokens like bitcoin are inflated, because anybody who wants to transfer out money from countries like Venezuela and Brazil (and Israel) buys bitcoins and sells it in the USA.

In comparison, commodities and industrial products are stable and cheap, and stocks are reasonably priced. Industrial shares are cheap because they operate in a ferociously competitive environment and hardly survive. Interest rates are lower than the inflation rate, so there is nowhere to put one's savings.

TASE, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, is a failure. This year it is 30% behind the NASDAQ. The best companies, like Mylan, are leaving. Should I leave too?

Young Israeli Poets Believe in God

HaAretz is publishing a laudable anthology of young Israeli poets, edited by Beni Tziffer. The paper is shocked by what they see: The young generation believes in God! This dramatic change parallels the country's political turn to the right, rejecting the godless, leftist, socialist generation of their parents and grandparents.

Poets are important. I understood their worth when their portraits started to appear on Israel's new bank notes, with the despairing Nathan Alterman on the 200 shekel note (57 US$). It is quite possible that Ayala Glick, of the poem right, will decorate the 2,000 shekel note around 2050.

"When God betrayed me"

When God betrayed me the first time,
the leaves did not change their colors,
the cup of tea slowly cooled
no plates were broken

God lies to me with poker face
says that again will be late from the office
while I walk on my toes
to avoid waking

The heavens are lipstick red
the tea boils again
and the leaves
gods.

(J.: Note that gods and leaves sound the same in Hebrew. She was born in 1988 in Jerusalem and served in the elite 8200 intelligence unit. She is working on her doctorate in theoretical physics. Married + 1) 

Terrorist attacks VietNam veteran

David Ramati is an American VietNam veteran who converted and lives in Kiryat Arba near Hebron.

From Arutz 7: “The terrorist drove past me, then made a U-turn, and at that point I understood that he was planning to attack me. I realized that I didn’t have time to draw my gun, so I jumped the fence. While I was in the air [jumping the fence], he managed to run into me with his car.”

Ramati added that just before the terrorist rammed into him, the terrorist smiled at him. “I saw the smile of the terrorist’s face. I told him ‘You’re not going to kill me today.’ I wasn’t afraid.”

Building Israel and Being Built in Israel

I am being pressured to work like a dog and produce more and more plans and designs for Haredi neighborhoods and Samaria. Money is no problem, they want more and they want it now. Now I have to submit a proposal for a synagogue/school in Samaria, it is a complicated topographic situation, I hate to work under pressure and for anxious nudnik Haredim.

The background of this urgency is Trump. After the unbearable political pressures and threats of Barack Obama, we are enjoying a window of opportunity for building in Samaria (quote):

Yesha Council Chairman Hananel Durani (pic). said that there are not enough construction plans in Judea and Samaria, and that there are not enough contingency plans for when the Prime Minister does decide to thaw construction within Yesha communities.

"I do not see the main freeze as a construction freeze; there is a lack of building plans" says Durani when asked about the current construction situation. "Even today, when the freeze breaks, there are not enough plans, so today we have to work very hard, not to wait, to prepare parallel plans and to advance whatever we can," Durani said.

"We have to work very hard", he says, and means this old Jewish engineer.

Chinese Fake Brides

Single men in China are hiring stand-in brides to pacify their anxious parents to show them that they are in a relationship and close to bringing them grandchildren.

Being an old Jew, I identify with Chinese parents, who willingly accept being lied to by their beloved only son, and also to keep up a fake facade of happiness vis-a-vis the neighbors.  Isn't that horrible? The son going to such extraordinary lengths to fake success and happiness ...  to make his parents happy. They take selfies smiling and radiant while inside they are anguished and desperate. And full of shame, hating themselves and the whole universe. Oh, Earth, open up, and swallow me!
 
The Chinese live in a society where they are forced to invest enormous energy in fake courtesy and fake posing, just to be allowed some tranquillity. Since Chinese are basically honest people, they live in permanent  fear of being discovered and publicly shamed. Everybody knows that all around them are faking it and fearing shaming, being all mutual accomplices in faking it. It is no wonder that Chinese escape China as fast as they can to live more honestly and in peace with themselves.