Saturday, October 8, 2011

If Only David Were a Rat

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The inability to identify the etiology for some of David's ailments is as troubling and frustrating as the inability to control them. At one point a doctor who has been monitoring him mentioned that he had just seen a note that a colleague was threshing out the details of a newly (or poorly?) documented (potential) cause for one ailment and he promised to follow up on it.

I asked him about it at David's next visit and he informed me that the testing at this point is not yet in the human phase. "With rats," he commented, "it sometimes seems like there is nothing we can't test for or treat. If only David were a rat it would make things that much simpler."

(Thankfully that ailment is now finally under relative control, but the cause remains a mystery.)

Israeli Pride (Or Lack Thereof)

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I recently finished reading Yehuda Avner's Prime Ministers, a seven-hundred page insider account by someone who served under Eshkol, Meir, Rabin and Begin. It is an amazing book and I learned a lot from it, including some tidbits about the first three that improved my estimation of them.

It is clear--and the author admits it himself--that of the lot he held Begin in the highest regard. Begin, more than the others, maintained the image of the proud Jew who bows to no one.

I couldn't help but think of the absence of Jewish pride upon reading a recent article that Israelis had attempted to import lulavim from Gaza. As if this were not ludicrous enough to begin with, it should be noted that the Gazans themselves do not grow lulavim, but rather were planning to smuggle them in from Sinai in the same tunnels used for terrorist arms.

So who had the beitzim to reject the deal? The Israeli government? Nope. The rabbinate? Nope. Hamas nixed the deal.