One way or another, I inform people. My computer is down and I don't have access to many of my addresses, and so I make use of Facebook, and search through old mails. Digging names that I may have forgotten from old group messages...
The responses are truly gratifying. Many people who congratulate me, who support me, who think I am doing something wonderful and special. Brave. But I do not feel particulary brave. I have watched my Jewish Israeli friends, in Israel, stand in road blocks every weekend, as part of Machsom Watch; I have watched others of my friend every Friday traveling to Bilin to endure gas grenades and not-so-rubbery bullets; yet others who have gone to jail for refusing to serve in the army; all those who have continued to fight, year after year, against torture and abuse and denial of medical treatment. And I actually feel quite cowardly, having opted to leave, to go someplace else, so I could pursue my own life. So that unlike the Israeli-Jewish activist who wrote to Obama, I wouldn't have to think about this everyday, all day. If I had to put a word to how I feel abot going, the word would be 'compelled'.
My family, though, is taking all this quite hard. In an ironic sort of way, for mostly they do not share my perspective, their image of what Israel is capable of, what the Israeli security services - from the IDF to the shabac and down the line are capable of, is so much more ruthless than mine...
And so they are worried and frightened, and their worry and their fears, loving as their concern is, are hard on me. I have been quite good at refusing to look under stones and in dark corners, places where fears lurk. They seem rather determined to make me...
The responses are truly gratifying. Many people who congratulate me, who support me, who think I am doing something wonderful and special. Brave. But I do not feel particulary brave. I have watched my Jewish Israeli friends, in Israel, stand in road blocks every weekend, as part of Machsom Watch; I have watched others of my friend every Friday traveling to Bilin to endure gas grenades and not-so-rubbery bullets; yet others who have gone to jail for refusing to serve in the army; all those who have continued to fight, year after year, against torture and abuse and denial of medical treatment. And I actually feel quite cowardly, having opted to leave, to go someplace else, so I could pursue my own life. So that unlike the Israeli-Jewish activist who wrote to Obama, I wouldn't have to think about this everyday, all day. If I had to put a word to how I feel abot going, the word would be 'compelled'.
My family, though, is taking all this quite hard. In an ironic sort of way, for mostly they do not share my perspective, their image of what Israel is capable of, what the Israeli security services - from the IDF to the shabac and down the line are capable of, is so much more ruthless than mine...
And so they are worried and frightened, and their worry and their fears, loving as their concern is, are hard on me. I have been quite good at refusing to look under stones and in dark corners, places where fears lurk. They seem rather determined to make me...
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