הבלוג של אבו אלמוג

A very dear friend of mine, Stephanie Sklar - Wolfson came to a rare visit in Israel, and talking to my wife, expressed an inunderstandable desire to read this blog in English. It seems she is intrigued by the announcements in facebook, and 'google translate' enables only a vague understanding of what's it all about. I will therefore do my best to translate a post. This is a post from October, chosen because it gives the reader a general view of the issues the blog deals with, and containing an implicit (or is it explicit? I can never remember which is which) expression of my love to my wife. So Steph - this one is for you, in rememberance of the happy days in Jerusalem in 1990. 

I have an unreadable post brewing, regarding Ignnazio Silone, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman. But today I'm in a good mood - a new nephew was born (thank you, thank you ...) I have visited Petah Tikva (there really is such a place) and it was quite a good weekend. So I'll write a light and non-binding post, and keep Silone, Lapid and Lieberman for next time or the one after.

 

Maybe it's the elections, the Facebook page that has 32 likes, or the post on Yair Lapid and changing the system that brought a thousand entries to my blog last week, but the traffic on this blog has increased by several hundred percent. There are lots of new names and faces, subscribers, readers and commentors.

 

I have a feeling that not all readers are totally one hundred percent knowledgable to the depths of the blog and pick up all the nuances of each refference. Some of the more avid readers were not present in those early days in which the blog only served as interpretation to Bulgakov's writings, or as a daily tribute to the acts of MK Hannin Zoabi, and not familiar with the struggle against the yellow gate. for the sake of these readers I henceforward submit a short glossary.

 

* Abu - I identify as "Abu Almog" for the simple reason my daughter is Almog. It was also my nickname in Wikipedia for quite a while. The nickname is a tribute to the Arab culture, with a feminist twist. At first I encouraged the responders here are to also identify as 'Abu's, and so emerged Abu Absalom, Abu Matan, Abu Keren and other 'Abu's. Then came the reader 'Shir-Dema',  who is sensitive to the needs of people who don't want to be parents, and I got a good cold shower from her. Well, I'm Abu Almog, and you'll be whoever you want.

 

* Bulgakov, Mikhail; Bortko, Vladimir - Improbable as it may sound, the blog started with a series of two or three posts analyzing Bulgakov's 'Master and Margarita', in the context of a rerun of the TV series in Yes Radoga russian channel. I haven't returned to this This subject, though some more stuff about Bulgakov keeps peeping here and there. Cultural affairs are being reviewed here and there on this blog. A lot of music (very conservative taste. Polish rock from the seventies), a little about movies (the same), literature here and there (very eclectic taste. Trashy thrillers to Bulgakov. In the past year I have discovered the idol Bolano and I'm stuck with him), and TV (Extremely trashy Taste - mostly reality shows, but I take care to hide it under the guise of postmodern analysis' using fake quotations from Faucault). The core subject of the blog is politics, and everything connects to it, from biking to the uncertainties regarding the raising of children. But As there is a place here in matters of the heart, and because I will not reveal some very personal details on some issues, so I like to go back to the classics. 'Master and Margarita' is one of the few books that make me cry every time I read the closing lines.

 

* Houni, Analia - Inspiration for writing, the blog's official muse. Underwear model, Lacan scholar, and the official wife the idol Zizak. coming very close to the theoretical model. Have you seen a more exalted source of inspiration?

 

* The theoretical model - Mentioned in several posts dealing with the ideal woman. We will not expand here, but the woman in question has dark hair and is generally reminding in apperance and personality of Jeanne Moreau in "The Bride Wore Black". S' satisfies the theoretical model outlined. Wherever she deviates from the model, she only improves it.

 

* National - Social Party - This is a phrase I'm trying to put into regular use, so I put it here too. In short, it describes the Likud Beiteinu party that received the national element from Lieberman, and the social element from Likud, and became the National social Party. Try to say it in a foreign language. Oops. Goodwin. We moved on.

 

* The yellow gate - A metal structure that separates the residents of Eshchar from their environment. So is a decision of Eschar's assembly to accept into our community only those with a 'Jewish and zionist affiliation'. I spent June - July 2011 in a war whose purpose was to accept anyone who desires into the Eshchar community. I took a beating, and stood up. I will continue to fight.

 

* MK Zoabi - Big subject here a for a few weeks after the Marmara affair. I promised to mention her in every post. It was pretty boring so I stopped it.

 

* Zizek, Slavoj - Idol of idols. Provider of tireless quotations, mostly made up of my head. Sometime in February 2011 or something, I also received permission from 'The Guardian' to translate his article about the Arab Spring, and I felt I was in seventh heaven. Just when he came to lecture at Tel Aviv University I had something else to do. That's Life.

 

* Lapid, Yair - Punching bag. mine and Zadok Tyson's.

* Stunning. Cool. Superb - Superlatives who's aim is to highlight certain passages in the text, and downgrade the linguistic register as a rhetorical device designed to emphasize the intellectual character of the discussion here. So it can be a superlative ("look here - The whole thing of the Frankfurt School of Neo-Marxism is soooo superb") or a derogative ("I have a feeling that what the whole Ben-Gurion University thing does to academic freedom is not cool at all") but there will be two or three such idioms in every post.

 

* Millet, the - The method of the prevailing legal system in Israel, which divides the population into groups according to their ethnicity (masquerading as 'religious communities') that may be married only within themselves. I wrote a very long MA  thesis explaining why is it so bad, and sometimes I explain here how exactly is it responsible for the problems of mankind from the revolt in Syria to Hurricane Cindy.

* A true candy - A nickname for the musical piece usually ending every post.

 

* Stretin, Hassidim - My maternal ancestors were Admors in Stretin. This means I am the legal successor of the title, and as such allow myself from time to time to give rabbinical rulings, boasting with the title of "the Alter Rebbe of  Stretin residing in the rabbinical court in Sakhnin." The Hassidic stories I tell in those posts usually end with the annihilation of the Strettin Jewish community in the 1648 Pogroms, But we must believe that someday the messiah will come, and gather the sons of Israel to the promised land and save us from the evil ways of the Goyim. Amen.

 

* Omar, Daher al - THe official refreshener of this blog. Ruler of Galilee in the 18th century who has founded here a Palestinian state, and brought the Jews from exile to help him in his war against the Sultan in Constantinople. 'Daherism' promotes a separate Galillee identity,and Jewish - Arab cooperation in the war against external colonial powers. The Daheristic state is an absolute monarchy, whose sources of income are the Galilee's touristic attractions - sacred tombs, and the Daheristic court for No Millet marriage and No Fault Divorce that will be founded in Safed. We also have a monopoly on the production zaatar, and we export it in small amounts and overprice it.

 

* S' - S' is my wife. She does not like me to write about her and I respect that. Sometimes I write about something related to her indirectly and then I mention her name in initials. Readers of this blog know how much I love her, but not much beyond that.

 

* Shumsk - The town in Ukraine where my father's family came from. Most of the family remained there after the my grandfather made Aliyah in 1937, and all of them were killed in one day in July 1942.

 

* Thesis, the - I have worked for two years on a master's degree thesis submitted in 2012 for recieving an MA degree in democracy. Obviously The subject was the millet system. I was very much occupied with it at the time and shared these matters here a lot. Many posts include fragments of the thesis. The thesis in two words - the rationale of the millet system is that it is a mechanism to control the Arab population. I wrote about it a hundred and  twenty pages, and God willing there will also be a doctorate.

 

* 88 FM - The Best Radio Station in Israel and an indefatigable content provider for this blog. Ad nauseam. The idol is of course Boaz Cohen, but Ben Red is also superb.

 

* 1971 - Best year in the history of recorded music forever. There were a few posts dedicated to it. Well, 'Transformer' (whose forty years anniversary is sometime in November) and 'Ziggy Stardust' were in 1972, but in total 1971 is a very reasoned choice. My life and my opinions quite match Lennon's 'Imagine' released this year, but lately I feel like Harrison's "my Sweet Lord ", which just happens to be the most played song in 88 FM in 2012.

 

* 1987 - The year I got stuck in it, and I have no idea why. In my dreams, and my mental world in general I'm still there. Just before the trauma of the first intifada, before I got a message that my mithological ex-girlfriend had me replaced with an improved model, and before my actual life even started with a S' and the children and law school and all that. There are also quite a lot of posts about it, which usually mention a shithole in Lebanon called Nebi Al Awadi, where I spent the most significant parts of the Wonderyear 1987, usually described here as "that mythological, eschatological, sublime destination of my soul - Nebi Al Awadi."

 

I hope I have contributed to a better understanding of recent blog readers. We conclude with a true candy - a strange song by a woman named Desireless from 1987 showing that  even in the eighties not everything was superb. See you!