My good friend Michael Weingrad!
https://gettr.com/user/weingrad

Oh, and Joe Rogan has also joined.
https://gettr.com/post/plgurw90c5

I had the pleasure of meeting David Ehrlich once in his Jerusalem cafe/bookstore. He was a close friend of my longtime friend Professor Michael Weingrad.

He is remembered by Michael here:
https://www.pdx.edu/judaic/news/david-ehrlich-memoriam

'David Ehrlich - In Memoriam
Author: Michael Weingrad
Posted: March 24, 2020

It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of David Ehrlich (1959-2020), father, writer, founder of Jerusalem's legendary literary cafe Tmol Shilshom, and the 2009 Schusterman Israeli Artist-in-Residence at Portland State University's Judaic Studies department.

David was the author of three collections of short stories in Hebrew, as well as the collection in English translation Who Will Die Last: Stories of Life in Israel (Syracuse University Press, 2013).

David's residency at PSU was widely appreciated by students and community members. A number of PSU students decided to visit Israel for the first time after taking a course on Israeli literature with David. Portland's Jewish Theatre Collaborative created and performed a dramatic reading of his stories, and David spoke to audiences in Portland, Seattle, and Eugene about literature, gay identity in Israel, and the challenges of keeping a cafe open during the Intifada. He valued spending time in Oregon with the late Alter Wiener, a Holocaust survivor who was a childhood friend of David's father, also a Holocaust survivor from Poland. David spoke frequently of how much he loved his time in Portland, and frequently sported his PSU baseball cap on the streets of Jerusalem.

Tmol Shilshom, a Jerusalem cultural institution, first opened in 1994 and is a favorite destination for its countless visitors over the years, a warm and welcoming haven for a diverse cross-section of Jerusalem's population. Tmol has long been known as an LGBTQ-friendly place (David served on the board of Jerusalem's LGBTQ community center) as well as a popular choice for young religious Jews on a first date. The cafe's rich schedule of readings by Israel's foremost writers was launched with a poetry reading by David's friend Yehuda Amichai, and continues today with poetry slams, book launches, and musical performances. All this reflected David's warmth of personality, love of books, and openness to people.

David was a beloved friend to many in Israel, the United States, and throughout the world, a true portion of the beauty Jerusalem is said to have been granted from on high. He is survived by his parents, his sister, his two 12 year old children, and his friend Tamar Baum with whom he co-parented their twins. May his memory be a blessing...'

Follow the link for a picture, and links in the original.

At the Forward, David is remembered by writers and others who knew him:
https://forward.com/news/israel/442313/longing-for-yesterday-a-tribute-to-the-late-david-ehrlich-of-tmol-shilshom/

May his memory be for a blessing. Blessed is the Righteous Judge.

"I won't ask anything of you, if you'll just be here again tomorrow."

I woke up with this song in my brain, so now you get to hear it too.

You know how you can hear a song 100 times and not really pay attention, and then on the 101st time it suddenly grabs you? That's this song for me right now. The name of the band (Devek) means glue, and I'm glued to this tune.

I'll try to work up a translation of the lyrics later.

I'm working on getting Proverbs 6 thru 8 nailed down in the Hebrew. This hasn't been my favorite section of P in the past but I'm warming to it now. I really like the contrasts between the feminine personifications of Folly and Wisdom. (I don't have to be bound by the reading of "physical gratification and heretical ideas" propounded by the good folks at ArtScroll.)

One thing I notice about the behavior of Folly, the femme fatale of 7:6 - 27, is that it's this weird mixture of secretiveness and aggressiveness. She's here, she's there, suddenly she's hitting on him. She literally gets in his face. She's a stalker. It's not just that her behavior is "unladylike" - it's manipulative and dangerous.

The male object of her attentions can't claim ignorance, because she tells him upfront that "the man is not in his house ... he took the purse of money with him." So she's a married woman trying to make a few shekels on the side. And notice how her house (7:8 and :11) becomes "his house" in her words (7:19) - it's like the husband is gone, so NOBODY is responsible for what happens in the house! She's disavowing responsibility on behalf of herself and the male listener. And the final warning (23) is - like so much of P - eminently pragmatic, and recalls 6:26-32. The lesson: following Folly is bad for your health.

Wisdom, by contrast, stands in plain view and calls out, where she can be seen and heard by anyone who cares to look or listen. She may be subtle but she's not sneaky. Again, this is totally consistent with the outlook of P: real wisdom isn't convoluted (niftal ve'ikkesh), it's honest and straightforward. Lady Wisdom doesn't try to entice you with a lot of glamor and superstition; she doesn't promise you get-rich-quick schemes or thrust a copy of Dianetics into your hand. But if you seek her you'll find her, and if you love her she'll treat you right (8:17).

מילים: רבי מרדכי עבאדי
לחן: מאיר בנאי

"Assemblies of the People"
Words by Rabbi Mordechai Abbadi
Music by Meir Banai



I just love this song.

OK, I have to get this off my chest. What ever possessed the Israelis to call their operation "Pillar of Defense" in English? The Hebrew name is "Pillar of Smoke", which is dramatic, concrete, and Biblical. But what in the world does a "pillar of defense" look like? It's a mangled metaphor. Just plain bad writing. Grrrrr.

Hebrew is the only language that's been brought back from the dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language
'The revival of the Hebrew language was a process that took place in Europe and Israel at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, through which the Hebrew language changed from a sacred language to a spoken and written language used in daily life. Modern Hebrew is, together with the literary Arabic language, the official language of the modern state of Israel, and even before the state's establishment it was one of the official languages of the British Mandate for Palestine. Not purely a linguistic process, the revival of Hebrew was part of an ideology associated with Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

The process of Hebrew's return to regular usage is unique; there are no other examples of a language without any native speakers subsequently acquiring several million such native speakers, and no other examples of a sacred language becoming a national language with millions of first language speakers.'

This means that a bunch of people had to teach themselves to speak a language that NOBODY IN THE WORLD spoke. I think that's pretty amazing. What fascinates me about the process of learning Modern Hebrew is seeing how the ancient language has been adapted and retrofitted for use in today's world - while staying true to itself.

I'm practicing conversation with some old recordings I bought from DLI when I was a student there (so very long ago!) and with DVDs of two popular Israeli shows, Srugim and BeTipul.

Srugim ("Knitted", referring to the knitted skullcaps popular with religious-Zionist men) is a serial drama about five young, single, modern-orthodox adults in Jerusalem. I love this show because it captures the tension and conflict that go with being an observant Jew living in the modern world.

If your relationship status with the Jewish religion is "it's complicated", this show is for you.

All of the characters - Yifat, Hodaya, Reut, Amir, and Nati - struggle to define their relationships with each other, with the world, and with Judaism. I relate most to Hodaya; her relationship with religion is intense and personal, and so her struggle with it is intense and personal. The show does a great job of presenting religious Jews for a largely secular Israeli audience in a way that isn't stereotyped or caricatured, which is a big deal in itself.

The other show, BeTipul ("In Treatment"), was remade in an American version. It's a drama with a psychologist, Reuven Dagan (Assi Dayan) and his various patients. There's a femme fatale named Naamah who tries to seduce him, a military pilot named Yadin who's been disciplined for accidentally bombing a school building, a high school girl named Ayala, and a couple named Orna and Michael. And there are also episodes showing Reuven's sessions with his therapist/mentor, Gila (Gila Almagor).

It's a fascinating show, and very challenging to follow because there are no English subtitles, only Hebrew captions. Plus there's no action at all, just two people sitting in chairs talking to each other. So you really have to know Hebrew to follow it! I have to stop the DVD a lot to look up words, but it's great practice.

...