Thu 2nd Mar 06
Dear friends and
family,
As I told you
yesterday I finally got round to the opera, Manon Lescaut by Puccini. I'm sorry to admit my ignorance but I
had never heard of this opera of Puccini. I knew about Madame Butterfly and I
hope the New Israel Opera will put that on one of these days.
Manon knows great wealth and great love. Her efforts to take wealth from one man and love from another end
up in her being a criminal and dying in the arms of her lover in a distant
land,
Everybody looks
for money and love. We're ready to do almost anything for these. Unfortunately
they don't often go together.
Today's headlines in the Israeli newspapers is the danger that gang
warfare poses for ordinary citizens. Now we have to protect ourselves against
criminals and terrorists.
We have always
prided ourselves in being a land of honest people and felt safe in the
knowledge that anyone, male or female, kids and the elderly could walk safely
down the street and wouldn't be attacked or molested in any way.
It's not only
the good police force that keeps criminals off our streets,
it's the moral goodness of the citizens. Israelis consist of a great majority
of law abiding citizens. Many of them came as pioneers or out of religious
motivation. These are not typical criminal types.
The increase in
the number of criminals is the result of protracted economic difficulties that
the country has faced since its establishment. This has resulted in spending
less on education and welfare systems. The honest citizen has had to educate
his children himself to live honestly and can't depend on the state to do that
for him.
Manon, for example wan't
fortunate enough to have wise parents or a wise older brother to educate her. Unfortunately there are too many Manons in modern society in
I am very
grateful for the half price tickets at the box office,
otherwise I couldn't have afforded to go to the opera. I could have lived
happily without my visit to the opera but I realize how important it is to
enjoy something beautiful. It's an experience that nourishes our souls for a
long time. I am still relishing the pleasure of listening to
Yesterday I had
lunch with my friend Shaul in the local good
vegetarian restaurant called the Village Green. This was quite a splurge for us
who usually eat at a small humus place in the market called Rahmu.
At Rahmu we get a plate of humus and pita and pickles for IS20
at the Village green I paid IS32 for just one plate of salad. I don't know why
vegetarian restaurants have to be for the upper classes. Is it that only upper
class folk are vegetarian and the masses still love their meat? It should be
the other way around.
Being vegetarian
isn't only healthy it's also very economical. Double the quantity of tomatoes,
carrots, cabbage, cucumbers etc in the salad for IS32 could be purchased in the
market for about IS5.
The poor aren't
vegetarians and don't live healthy lives because these go together with
education and poverty goes together with lack of education.
We have
compulsory education to the age of 16 in
I'd like to know
how many vegetarians are criminals. I think very few.
One of the
places which is a must for visitors to
I consider the
Jews examples of the human race just as I consider the Germans themselves as
examples of the human race or the English or any other nation.
The Germans
committed these atrocities against the Jews because they made the mistake of
not considering the Jews as representatives of the human race.
Most of the time we are aware that people around us are human beings and
we treat them with respect and courtesy. Unfortunately when someone annoys us,
for a moment we tend to forget, that they, like ourselves, are also human and
we act like the Germans did.
For me the
atrocities exhibited at Yad Vashem
remind us what terrible acts we humans are capable of performing if we forget
that someone else is also human.
No matter how
irritating the circumstances, our fellow man is also a
member of the human race and deserves to be treated with courtesy and respect.
This simple lesson seems to me to be the most important one we learn from the
holocaust.
Have a great no
news day.
Reply to: legork@netvision.net.il
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