Too Many Holidays in This Country

I guess you have to be a parent to fully appreciate just how bad it is. Hardly any work time left, with life moving along from one long school vacation to another... It's Passover this time, with two and a half weeks of having to entertain the kids.

The religious holiday is next week, but apparently school teachers need more time off work to do their spring cleaning or something. With IsraeliDad still working this week, at least on some days, I am left with not too much available work time. Good thing my parents-in-law came back from their trip to China yesterday, so they take the kids over to their place for some of the day (or rather, the kids go there on their own, since we share the same backyard).

Holiday plans are still vague. One of the major problems is that there are way too many Israelis in an overcrowded country. That means every possible place will be packed full of families and kids. It's starting already, as we noticed trying to find a parking place in a busy shopping center on Friday. I am not sure how come there are so many people in all places at all times. You'd think if everyone goes to one place, then surely some place has to be empty at the same place? Not like they're all in the country even. I bet Turkey is full of Israelis this time of year and Cyprus as well. Not to mention the hordes of Israelis always traveling in India, the Far East and South America. Europe too. I know some people can't believe there are only 7 million of us. I guess Israelis occupy a large space wherever they are?

Local Version of Hope

The more I interact with people online, learning to see this conflict from various perspectives, the more I realize how difficult it is. I mean, it's complex enough to try and see it from the Israeli perspective... learning what it looks like through the eyes of other people is truly enlightening in that respect. I think that cultural exchanges can be a good way of letting others see what it's like on our side. Well, maybe. Or it might just confuse you more ;)

Enough blabbing, I'll try and keep this one short(er). I want to share a song today, a popular rap song, no less by a rapper named "Subliminal". Plays on the Israeli radio stations daily, at least on the one I listen to - Galgalatz, a military radio station that has little to do with the military and is mostly involved with fighting traffic accidents (one of those things you need live here to understand, I guess).

Here are the lyrics, in my own simplistic translation - my apologies to the writers, it does sounds better in Hebrew, especially with the music. Video clip will be embedded below, if I can get it to work. Please don't take these are representing my own personal political views. To me, more than anything, this song shows the confusion in Israeli society. The mix of wanting peace, wanting to remain militarily strong and secure, getting sick of wars and death, and just ending up being confused but still hopeful. The name of the song is "Hope", which is also the name of the Zionist national anthem: HaTikva, literally meaning "The Hope".

I saw how they went
Too many of them never returned
Friends said goodbye, homes were broken,
Tears were shed by families,
Young people, flowers that will never bloom,
The hope (HaTikva) in our minds, love in our souls,
The dream in our spirit, so forever we shall continue.

Gone is the silence, sounds of war again,
Another soldier returns wrapped up in the national flag,
Blood and a tear absorbed in the soil,
Another shocked mother, left only with a picture,
I lock the hope in my heart, a strong people won't break,
Because the SOB who will stop Israel wasn't born yet.

Give me the hope to accept what there is not,
The strength to change what there is.

Let us continue, life is ahead,
It's not too late, tomorrow is a brand new day,
The dream will die if we lose the hope,
So reach your hands for love.

You promised us a dove, we see an eagle in the sky,
Brother, the poisonous stinging nettle is not the olive branch,
Living like a dream, everyone talking about peace,
but they keep shooting, pulling the trigger,
In a world of terror attacks, innocent people still talk,
Living in an illusion of justice, they increase the gap in the people.

Going thruogh daily madness to survive,
Don't want to live to fight,
The Sub fights to live,
Planting hope, setting in roots,
Protecting the dream with my body, to stop it from shattering,
Enough, enough of pain, enough of drama
It's been over a year that the land bleeds and not sleeps, and why

Give me the hope to accept what there is not,
The courage to try and fix it.

Let us continue, life is ahead...

God, give me the hope to accept what there is not,
Give me the strength to change what there is,
Give me the courage to try and fix the world.

Sounds confused and ambivalent? It does to me, but in that I think it is not a bad reflection of Israeli society at this point in time. Anyway, here's the video, if I can manage to embed it here -