Today I feel I really can't hold any longer. Since ELAL lost my baggage on 20th, Feb from London to Tel Aviv, I've contacted them for so many times. But still, no body replies and there is no hope I can see. Here is the letter I wrote to them today. If you are thinking about flying to Israel, hope my bad experience will help you to choose air companies.
To those who may concerned,
It’s my fourth time I contact you for my lost baggage in 20th Feb, ELAL airline from London to Tel Aviv. More than one month has past and I still can’t receive a word from you. So I hope you can understand my angry when I’m writing this letter.
On 20th, Feb, I took ElAl Y0216 from London to Tel Aviv. At check-in, some security people took my suitcase, then gave me the boarding pass and told me that I can go --they will take charge of my suitcase. I didn’t bring anything forbidden and nobody told me that they took things out.
After I arrived at my home in Tel Aviv, open my suitcase, I found that all the gifts I bought for my family and friends had gone. Nice perfumes, skin cream, cosmetics, all disappeared. And my clay cup was broken. THEY ARE IN MY SUITCASE, NOT HANDBAG. YOU CAN’T TAKE THEM OUT FROM MY SUITCASE.
What happened later is really interesting. I called baggage claim department, the lady told me to send you a letter. So I download the form and did exactly what I should do, and then wait. A whole month past and I didn’t even receive an E-mail from you. Don’t mention a “sorry”.
So, last weekend, I went to your office on Ben Yehuda Street. I told the lady there what happened; she gave me another phone number. The lady who answered the phone told me you have sent me a letter 3 days ago. I told her I never received anything. Then a gentle man answered the phone, he said he sent me an email. I told him I never received email neither. He said he will send it again and what I need to do is waiting again.
Unfortunately I don’t have much time left in Israel. And Unfortunately I check both my email and mail box everyday but still no letter comes from you. I’d say this very bad experience with your company has already changed my good impression with ElAl. I don’t think I would choose ELAL again and my friends agree with me. As a journalist, perhaps I need to tell more readers to be careful.
I understand that security check is very necessary in Israel. But if you lose or break a passenger’s property, you’d better say sorry and gave compensation as soon as possible. What makes me feel bad is that it seems you never want to solve the problem; you just ask passengers to make one phone call, and another phone call, and endless different phone call…Until the passenger give up.
I’m still waiting for an ending for this story. I hope this letter will help. Other wise I’d have to go to your office again and I’d like to talk to the manager.
What I want is just my stuff back, if they’ve already lost, I want your compensation ASAP.
Anyway, I still like Israel, like Tel Aviv, like people I meet here.
Best wishes,
Mar 22, 2009
5 days in Jordan--back to Jerusalem
10, March, 2009 back to Jerusalem
By Judita
It was our last day in Jordan. Oh no! We planned to wake up earlier but actually as always we were so relaxed, had nice breakfast (well, it became boring after all time in hostel), paid our almost last money and went out. We went to post office to send postcards. Surprisingly, stamps were expensive and they even didn’t put real ones. Only some stickers. Boo… Then we tried to catch taxi to bus station, it took long time and the driver again asked too much. But well, what can we do… Our small bus to Madaba was very lousy, it went so slow. But on the other hand, we could see huge part of Amman. We went through some fancy districts with Sheraton, Marriot etc. hotels and so on. Part of people in bus was students. I have to tell that I haven’t seen almost any cute guy guys in Jordan, but finally in that lousy bus I saw one or two J We went through green fields, landscape is different there. In fact, Jordan has many different areas: desert, mountains, valleys and plain fields. We arrived to Madaba – I expected it to be tourist place like Petra because of mosaic stuff but actually it was a bit ugly city, dirty, noisy with some grilled chickens. But we didn’t have any money left! What a pity! Nobody spoke English and we had trouble to find that famous church. While wandering in the streets Joe found shop that sells beer – well, he got some – it’s not 100% Jordanian, because it is Amstel – but it was made in Jordan! Yes! We found one church but it wasn’t right one. After visiting it we went to another one. On the way we saw beautiful mosque too. So we entered finally that church and finally after so long time I saw it! But well, actually, I expected so much that when I saw it – it is just mosaic! Nice and huge and old but for me it looked even better in postcards than real. We didn’t spend too much time because we had to get to Israel. I have to admit: first time I didn’t want to go back to Israel. Amman is huge, noisy, crowded and dirty in some places (although there are a lot of fancy neighbourhoods), but in a way it is very relaxing and easy. Or maybe just because we were tourists… But people are not annoying, they even don’t care about you, at least it seems so. And all that good food. Sweets and Turkish coffee for 250 piastre in the morning in paper “cappuccino“ cup.
Anyway, we had to catch taxi to Mt. Nebus & border. It is so annoying! But no taxi driver can ruin my good feelings about Jordan. We got one and we went to Mt. Nebus. Very beautiful view, more mosaics, sun and Jerusalem feeling (soon). After mountain we got to the border. King (in picture) told “goodbye” to us and we entered border crossing territory. It wasn’t so easy, because we had to pay border tax and so on, they totally robbed us. Good, we had sweets, so we were more relaxed, although still very angry. We crossed border – finally Israel – guy with kippah and so on. At the border check point they took pictures of us and fingerprints. Walla – now we are in database forever. We also had to enter to one machine with blowing wind. Drugs control maybe?.. But we didn’t have any. Only beer. By the way, I forgot to mention that last night me and Joe were looking for Jordanian beer but could not find any (people told, it’s because of prophet Mahomet birthday). But then we got non-alcohol beer, made in Dubai. That’s exotic! And we had famous Palestinian juice (Jews) – really good (carrot + orange). So after all checking we were in Israel, or in fact, in West Bank. (I have to tell the truth: when I entered bathroom there with toilet paper, clean and nice, I had a thought: “I still like Israel in a way”...) Again terribly expensive sherut drivers (how can they add money for bags?!). So we took this sherut and reached Jerusalem. Home feeling indeed! Good dinner in Arab restaurant in Old Town, bus to home. Tel Aviv is so American/European/West – bus driver listens to radio; it plays Rihanna, no ethnic/Arabic music, malls, Purim costumes. So familiar. On the other hand, I miss this simplicity of Amman, different smells, Arabic writings on the buildings, king’s pictures and real Middle East atmosphere. More more more!
By Wing
Today is our last day in Jordan. We planned to rush to Madaba to see the St. George's church with a famous mosaic map on the ground, and catch taxi there to Mt. Nebo and then cross the border back to Jerusalem.
After we had breakfast as much as we could as usual, we set off to post office. I had 5 post cards, Judita had 3. It cost us 0.8 JD for each postcard--what a big sum of money! That made us very carefully and nervous when we chose which mail box we should throw our money to.
Though we felt more familiar with Amman, the fact is you can never figure out this huge city. We failed to get a local bus again, and had to take a taxi to Abdili bus station. I don't have any memory on bus--for me, just get on, close eyes, someone wakes me up, open eyes, get off, that's it.
Madaba is a small town with dusty road, tiny shops and dirty restaurants. Nobody speaks English, and there is no sign on the streets. Jordanian tour departments always want foreign tourists to pass their geography exam before they can see the attractions. We walked up a steep uphill, and down a steep downhill, after we went into another church by mistake, we finally found the right church--the mosaic map on it's ground is the oldest one of Middle East. I never knew that people use mosaic to make map before, I only knew that my grandma use them as a nice house decoration--especially in bathroom.
We bargained an extremely expensive taxi from 30JD to 15JD, which was still expensive. We rushed to Mt.Nebo, where Moses died at 120 years old. The view was wonderful. I can see Dead Sea like blue glass, behind the big shadow given by clouds on the land.
The border is in desert. We had our passport checked for countless times, and also had our money robbed by border officers again. In the Israeli side, we were taken to all kinds of high-tech equipment to make sure we were innocent. When we back to Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, all I and Judita thought was good chicken. We had our happy hour on food in a nice restaurant in Old City, but poor Joe, he is a vegetarian and always has to eat like a rabbit. I think I will be a monk for my next life, which can only eat vegetables like Joe or rabbits, so I should eat as much meat as I want in my present life.
Our Jordan trip was perfect and we were a perfect team. I don't know who/what Judita and Joe will be for their next life, anyway, I hope I will meet them again, after 100 years.
By Judita
It was our last day in Jordan. Oh no! We planned to wake up earlier but actually as always we were so relaxed, had nice breakfast (well, it became boring after all time in hostel), paid our almost last money and went out. We went to post office to send postcards. Surprisingly, stamps were expensive and they even didn’t put real ones. Only some stickers. Boo… Then we tried to catch taxi to bus station, it took long time and the driver again asked too much. But well, what can we do… Our small bus to Madaba was very lousy, it went so slow. But on the other hand, we could see huge part of Amman. We went through some fancy districts with Sheraton, Marriot etc. hotels and so on. Part of people in bus was students. I have to tell that I haven’t seen almost any cute guy guys in Jordan, but finally in that lousy bus I saw one or two J We went through green fields, landscape is different there. In fact, Jordan has many different areas: desert, mountains, valleys and plain fields. We arrived to Madaba – I expected it to be tourist place like Petra because of mosaic stuff but actually it was a bit ugly city, dirty, noisy with some grilled chickens. But we didn’t have any money left! What a pity! Nobody spoke English and we had trouble to find that famous church. While wandering in the streets Joe found shop that sells beer – well, he got some – it’s not 100% Jordanian, because it is Amstel – but it was made in Jordan! Yes! We found one church but it wasn’t right one. After visiting it we went to another one. On the way we saw beautiful mosque too. So we entered finally that church and finally after so long time I saw it! But well, actually, I expected so much that when I saw it – it is just mosaic! Nice and huge and old but for me it looked even better in postcards than real. We didn’t spend too much time because we had to get to Israel. I have to admit: first time I didn’t want to go back to Israel. Amman is huge, noisy, crowded and dirty in some places (although there are a lot of fancy neighbourhoods), but in a way it is very relaxing and easy. Or maybe just because we were tourists… But people are not annoying, they even don’t care about you, at least it seems so. And all that good food. Sweets and Turkish coffee for 250 piastre in the morning in paper “cappuccino“ cup.
Anyway, we had to catch taxi to Mt. Nebus & border. It is so annoying! But no taxi driver can ruin my good feelings about Jordan. We got one and we went to Mt. Nebus. Very beautiful view, more mosaics, sun and Jerusalem feeling (soon). After mountain we got to the border. King (in picture) told “goodbye” to us and we entered border crossing territory. It wasn’t so easy, because we had to pay border tax and so on, they totally robbed us. Good, we had sweets, so we were more relaxed, although still very angry. We crossed border – finally Israel – guy with kippah and so on. At the border check point they took pictures of us and fingerprints. Walla – now we are in database forever. We also had to enter to one machine with blowing wind. Drugs control maybe?.. But we didn’t have any. Only beer. By the way, I forgot to mention that last night me and Joe were looking for Jordanian beer but could not find any (people told, it’s because of prophet Mahomet birthday). But then we got non-alcohol beer, made in Dubai. That’s exotic! And we had famous Palestinian juice (Jews) – really good (carrot + orange). So after all checking we were in Israel, or in fact, in West Bank. (I have to tell the truth: when I entered bathroom there with toilet paper, clean and nice, I had a thought: “I still like Israel in a way”...) Again terribly expensive sherut drivers (how can they add money for bags?!). So we took this sherut and reached Jerusalem. Home feeling indeed! Good dinner in Arab restaurant in Old Town, bus to home. Tel Aviv is so American/European/West – bus driver listens to radio; it plays Rihanna, no ethnic/Arabic music, malls, Purim costumes. So familiar. On the other hand, I miss this simplicity of Amman, different smells, Arabic writings on the buildings, king’s pictures and real Middle East atmosphere. More more more!
By Wing
Today is our last day in Jordan. We planned to rush to Madaba to see the St. George's church with a famous mosaic map on the ground, and catch taxi there to Mt. Nebo and then cross the border back to Jerusalem.
After we had breakfast as much as we could as usual, we set off to post office. I had 5 post cards, Judita had 3. It cost us 0.8 JD for each postcard--what a big sum of money! That made us very carefully and nervous when we chose which mail box we should throw our money to.
Though we felt more familiar with Amman, the fact is you can never figure out this huge city. We failed to get a local bus again, and had to take a taxi to Abdili bus station. I don't have any memory on bus--for me, just get on, close eyes, someone wakes me up, open eyes, get off, that's it.
Madaba is a small town with dusty road, tiny shops and dirty restaurants. Nobody speaks English, and there is no sign on the streets. Jordanian tour departments always want foreign tourists to pass their geography exam before they can see the attractions. We walked up a steep uphill, and down a steep downhill, after we went into another church by mistake, we finally found the right church--the mosaic map on it's ground is the oldest one of Middle East. I never knew that people use mosaic to make map before, I only knew that my grandma use them as a nice house decoration--especially in bathroom.
We bargained an extremely expensive taxi from 30JD to 15JD, which was still expensive. We rushed to Mt.Nebo, where Moses died at 120 years old. The view was wonderful. I can see Dead Sea like blue glass, behind the big shadow given by clouds on the land.
The border is in desert. We had our passport checked for countless times, and also had our money robbed by border officers again. In the Israeli side, we were taken to all kinds of high-tech equipment to make sure we were innocent. When we back to Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, all I and Judita thought was good chicken. We had our happy hour on food in a nice restaurant in Old City, but poor Joe, he is a vegetarian and always has to eat like a rabbit. I think I will be a monk for my next life, which can only eat vegetables like Joe or rabbits, so I should eat as much meat as I want in my present life.
Our Jordan trip was perfect and we were a perfect team. I don't know who/what Judita and Joe will be for their next life, anyway, I hope I will meet them again, after 100 years.
5 days in Jordan--Amman
09, March, 2009 Amman
By Wing
Today is our last day in Amman. We want to see the city as much as possible. Last night we were so full that even this morning we don't feel hungry. What I eat for breakfast is only half of yesterday. So does Judita. What a pity.
There are so many things need to see in Amman, which all open and close at different time. It's not easy to make a perfect schedule. We went to Rome Theatre first because everyone says it's the place you have to see in Amman. Actually, it's just another ruins of ancient Rome. Compared to Jerash, this theatre is not that amazing. However, for me, theatres are always attractive. It's a different feeling when people are standing on a stage facing 7000 stone seats, I think, you feel the power of creative art. I do like them.
There are 2 small but very interesting museums at both wings of the stage. They are not like the fancy top-end British museums, but 3 or 4 rooms display Bedouin customs, tools and jewelry, which are very nice and elegant.
After theater, we looked for the citadel nearby. It's not far away but at the top of hill. We climbed up steep stairs in garbage yard, which should be the special way built by Jordan government for tourists. It is a ruins of Byzantine. It's fine, but the archaeology museum sucks. The funny thing was we escaped tickets by accident, so we saved 2 JD without realizing it. Judita said we should go to a nice restaurant and have some nice chilly chicken for dinner. I totally agreed with her. Anyway, the citadel doesn't worth 2JD.
It seems we got better know about Amman. We managed our way to walk to King-Abdullah Mosque, instead of taking taxi. This Mosque with a blue dome is huge and cost a lot to build. In the small museum at the entrance, there is a short introduction of the King's family. Every time the King's name mentioned, it will begin with "his Majesty", and followed by "may Allah bless him health" or something like that. I couldn't help laughing, but the security guy was very close to us and watched us all the time with a stone-like face. I looked at Judita, I thought she was doing her best to pretend a stone-like face, so, I did my best to do the same thing, too.
Before entering the Mosque, they put me and Judita in a long, totally black gown, with a hood to cover our guilty hair. Joe didn't have to because he is lucky enough to be a man. I think the gown looks like a nice pajama, but absolutely too long for me. I stepped on it several times when I climbed the stairs, almost fell down--that would be funny and Allah would for sure be mad on me.
The huge hall is delicate with bright diamond lights hung from the domed ceiling. We were on our knees quietly while some Muslims were praying. I felt totally different when I wearing this black pajama. I didn't dare to speak normally (only whisper), nor did I dare to look at people's eyes(always looked at my feet instead)--I felt the world changed only because this black pajama.
It took us a long time to find the National Gallery. However, it was closed because today is the birthday of some prophets. Actually it is a very tinny gallery located in the richest neighbourhood near a park, more like a rich man's private collection than a "national" gallery. It seems the King(may Allah bless his health) is more mercy on Mosque than Fine Arts. I don't know whether there are common people coming here. Compared to the dirty crowded downtown, this neighbourhood is a different world--private house, clean street, quiet park, no horns, no smoking men on the street, small shops have all kinds of western drinks and snacks, even bus stations have signs with name and number.
It was 3pm when we realized that we were starving. We broke into an Indian restaurant and decided to eat loads of spicy food. During our journey, we never spent money on lunch(breakfast was included in hostel fee), so we can save enough money for a good dinner everyday. I think it's a brilliant idea. The food was very nice and I ate my chicken like a wolf. I'm lucky with Judita and Joe, with whom I feel so relax that never have to pretend a "lady".
We caught a cab back to King Hussein Mosque Souq. Both I and Judita were candy fans. We bought bags of chocolate and sweets. Those sweets with fruits, flowers and nuts were so fancy. I ran out all my money on them. Oh no!
By Wing
Today is our last day in Amman. We want to see the city as much as possible. Last night we were so full that even this morning we don't feel hungry. What I eat for breakfast is only half of yesterday. So does Judita. What a pity.
There are so many things need to see in Amman, which all open and close at different time. It's not easy to make a perfect schedule. We went to Rome Theatre first because everyone says it's the place you have to see in Amman. Actually, it's just another ruins of ancient Rome. Compared to Jerash, this theatre is not that amazing. However, for me, theatres are always attractive. It's a different feeling when people are standing on a stage facing 7000 stone seats, I think, you feel the power of creative art. I do like them.
There are 2 small but very interesting museums at both wings of the stage. They are not like the fancy top-end British museums, but 3 or 4 rooms display Bedouin customs, tools and jewelry, which are very nice and elegant.
After theater, we looked for the citadel nearby. It's not far away but at the top of hill. We climbed up steep stairs in garbage yard, which should be the special way built by Jordan government for tourists. It is a ruins of Byzantine. It's fine, but the archaeology museum sucks. The funny thing was we escaped tickets by accident, so we saved 2 JD without realizing it. Judita said we should go to a nice restaurant and have some nice chilly chicken for dinner. I totally agreed with her. Anyway, the citadel doesn't worth 2JD.
It seems we got better know about Amman. We managed our way to walk to King-Abdullah Mosque, instead of taking taxi. This Mosque with a blue dome is huge and cost a lot to build. In the small museum at the entrance, there is a short introduction of the King's family. Every time the King's name mentioned, it will begin with "his Majesty", and followed by "may Allah bless him health" or something like that. I couldn't help laughing, but the security guy was very close to us and watched us all the time with a stone-like face. I looked at Judita, I thought she was doing her best to pretend a stone-like face, so, I did my best to do the same thing, too.
Before entering the Mosque, they put me and Judita in a long, totally black gown, with a hood to cover our guilty hair. Joe didn't have to because he is lucky enough to be a man. I think the gown looks like a nice pajama, but absolutely too long for me. I stepped on it several times when I climbed the stairs, almost fell down--that would be funny and Allah would for sure be mad on me.
The huge hall is delicate with bright diamond lights hung from the domed ceiling. We were on our knees quietly while some Muslims were praying. I felt totally different when I wearing this black pajama. I didn't dare to speak normally (only whisper), nor did I dare to look at people's eyes(always looked at my feet instead)--I felt the world changed only because this black pajama.
It took us a long time to find the National Gallery. However, it was closed because today is the birthday of some prophets. Actually it is a very tinny gallery located in the richest neighbourhood near a park, more like a rich man's private collection than a "national" gallery. It seems the King(may Allah bless his health) is more mercy on Mosque than Fine Arts. I don't know whether there are common people coming here. Compared to the dirty crowded downtown, this neighbourhood is a different world--private house, clean street, quiet park, no horns, no smoking men on the street, small shops have all kinds of western drinks and snacks, even bus stations have signs with name and number.
It was 3pm when we realized that we were starving. We broke into an Indian restaurant and decided to eat loads of spicy food. During our journey, we never spent money on lunch(breakfast was included in hostel fee), so we can save enough money for a good dinner everyday. I think it's a brilliant idea. The food was very nice and I ate my chicken like a wolf. I'm lucky with Judita and Joe, with whom I feel so relax that never have to pretend a "lady".
We caught a cab back to King Hussein Mosque Souq. Both I and Judita were candy fans. We bought bags of chocolate and sweets. Those sweets with fruits, flowers and nuts were so fancy. I ran out all my money on them. Oh no!
5 days in Jordan--Jerash
08,March,2009 Jerash
by Judita
So we are sitting now in Jafra (Gafra/Jaffra) bar/pub (?). It’s my turn to write. Joe just gave me and Wing smoking instructions. The place is really cute, kind of meeting spot for different people. Nargilah, drinks and talks about life. You even can sit down on sofas and read books. But! No alcohol! Anyway, coffee seems good and fruit – mix – cocktail is marvelous. I feel like in one of the main and hottest spots in young people’ Amman. We should talk about serious/smart/intellectual stuff, but well..
Today we went to Jerash, ancient Roman city. It was nice experience to get there – Wing asked one guy how to get to bus station and he helped us to find taxi etc. then we got local bus to Jerash. No tourists-nice! The moment we got from bus and went to city was also without tourists. When we came back, it was so difficult to find places we needed. Amman is so huge, no signs, no directions. I still didn’t figure out its whole picture. We saw Blue Mosque and then we walked back to hostel. In one street we heard thousand offers to go to Damascus. Shitty Israel stamp in our passports…
Being here I feel really close to “mysterious” Middle East. There are many shops/hotels/companies like – Iraqi airways; Riyadh hotel/Baghdad hotel and so on. Israel’s “middle easterness” looks so faked now… (I am waiting trip to West Bank – how it will be there). In fact, we didn’t see anything famous in Amman yet, but well, maybe tomorrow. Today we enjoyed Jerash which is not so far from Syria (around 50 km). And also delicious food in unknown place, recommended by funny man who (according to him) works in Aquaba and has Lithuanian girlfriend (haha). Anyway, food was great, later Joe danced Arabic dances in hostel’s room; I and Wing enjoyed it a lot.
My mind is scattered like Middle East, it went away with nargilah smoke… This place is very mixed: locals, tourists, families, girls with covered hair and girls with no covering; guys with latest fashion shoes and student look and guys in traditional dresses.
Amman is weird. Sometimes we go to the same street 10 times and can’t recognize it – it’s the same. All places look similar – shops, mosques, churches, buildings (well, except burnt cinema, maybe…)
by Wing
Jerash is an ancient Roman city ruins. It is the very right time to come because green grass and little yellow flowers make the huge old gray stone columns, temples, churches and theatres a very nice scene. Both historical and vivid.
When we stopped at a gorgeous temple ruins, I felt magic because it looks exactly the same as what C.S.Lewis wrote in his book The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The four kids didn't know that hundreds of years had passed since they left Narnia. They sat on the ground of a palace ruins wondering where they were without noticing that it was there palace long time ago. Here, in Jerash, at the corner of the ruined stone temple, is a wooden door also--a treasure chamber is hidden behind?
We decided to have lunch there. Actually, that's a really bad decision. As a famous temple, so many tourists holding cameras were coming all the time. I felt sorry for them, probably they will have to use photo-shop to remove us and our food from their travel pictures--"what stupid kids!" They might think.
At night, after a cheap but great dinner--bread with lamb in a local restaurant, we made up our mind to go to Hussein Cinema, the only cinema in downtown. It would be pretty funny to see Brad Pitt speak Arabic in a Jordan cinema. It was my suggestion but to my big surprise, it was not a cinema at all. An old building looks like just be burnt by a fire, at the back of street without any lights or signs, that's it. Beyond imagination. After a while, some Arabic men came, they opened the door, turned on the light, and welcomed us. I saw there were stairs inside, and every inch of the wall was covered by movie posters, from 1990s' to the latest Bolt.
"We have Jackie Chen, Iron Man." He spoke in Arabish, "1JD each person.” I guess we were the audiences and we gave up our plan of Brad Pitt. It's the most special cinema I've ever been--really wonderful.
by Judita
So we are sitting now in Jafra (Gafra/Jaffra) bar/pub (?). It’s my turn to write. Joe just gave me and Wing smoking instructions. The place is really cute, kind of meeting spot for different people. Nargilah, drinks and talks about life. You even can sit down on sofas and read books. But! No alcohol! Anyway, coffee seems good and fruit – mix – cocktail is marvelous. I feel like in one of the main and hottest spots in young people’ Amman. We should talk about serious/smart/intellectual stuff, but well..
Today we went to Jerash, ancient Roman city. It was nice experience to get there – Wing asked one guy how to get to bus station and he helped us to find taxi etc. then we got local bus to Jerash. No tourists-nice! The moment we got from bus and went to city was also without tourists. When we came back, it was so difficult to find places we needed. Amman is so huge, no signs, no directions. I still didn’t figure out its whole picture. We saw Blue Mosque and then we walked back to hostel. In one street we heard thousand offers to go to Damascus. Shitty Israel stamp in our passports…
Being here I feel really close to “mysterious” Middle East. There are many shops/hotels/companies like – Iraqi airways; Riyadh hotel/Baghdad hotel and so on. Israel’s “middle easterness” looks so faked now… (I am waiting trip to West Bank – how it will be there). In fact, we didn’t see anything famous in Amman yet, but well, maybe tomorrow. Today we enjoyed Jerash which is not so far from Syria (around 50 km). And also delicious food in unknown place, recommended by funny man who (according to him) works in Aquaba and has Lithuanian girlfriend (haha). Anyway, food was great, later Joe danced Arabic dances in hostel’s room; I and Wing enjoyed it a lot.
My mind is scattered like Middle East, it went away with nargilah smoke… This place is very mixed: locals, tourists, families, girls with covered hair and girls with no covering; guys with latest fashion shoes and student look and guys in traditional dresses.
Amman is weird. Sometimes we go to the same street 10 times and can’t recognize it – it’s the same. All places look similar – shops, mosques, churches, buildings (well, except burnt cinema, maybe…)
by Wing
Jerash is an ancient Roman city ruins. It is the very right time to come because green grass and little yellow flowers make the huge old gray stone columns, temples, churches and theatres a very nice scene. Both historical and vivid.
When we stopped at a gorgeous temple ruins, I felt magic because it looks exactly the same as what C.S.Lewis wrote in his book The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The four kids didn't know that hundreds of years had passed since they left Narnia. They sat on the ground of a palace ruins wondering where they were without noticing that it was there palace long time ago. Here, in Jerash, at the corner of the ruined stone temple, is a wooden door also--a treasure chamber is hidden behind?
We decided to have lunch there. Actually, that's a really bad decision. As a famous temple, so many tourists holding cameras were coming all the time. I felt sorry for them, probably they will have to use photo-shop to remove us and our food from their travel pictures--"what stupid kids!" They might think.
At night, after a cheap but great dinner--bread with lamb in a local restaurant, we made up our mind to go to Hussein Cinema, the only cinema in downtown. It would be pretty funny to see Brad Pitt speak Arabic in a Jordan cinema. It was my suggestion but to my big surprise, it was not a cinema at all. An old building looks like just be burnt by a fire, at the back of street without any lights or signs, that's it. Beyond imagination. After a while, some Arabic men came, they opened the door, turned on the light, and welcomed us. I saw there were stairs inside, and every inch of the wall was covered by movie posters, from 1990s' to the latest Bolt.
"We have Jackie Chen, Iron Man." He spoke in Arabish, "1JD each person.” I guess we were the audiences and we gave up our plan of Brad Pitt. It's the most special cinema I've ever been--really wonderful.
5 days in Jordan--Petra
06,March,2009 Petra
by Wing
We three spent half an hour on making the decision of going to Jordan, now, tonight. It was 4 or 5 in afternoon, we were talking about Jordan on the roof of our dorms in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a Jordan map from National Geography and a Lonely Planet guide book. Only Judita, my roommate from Lithuania, had been to Jordan before. She is a blond girl, a young writer, an interesting traveller who has many adventure experience in Middle East during the last 4 years. Neither I nor Joe had been to any other country except Israel since we began our MA study in Tel Aviv University--both of us spent all day on our hopeless Hebrew homework. He came from Washington States and I came from Beijing, China.
So, we'll write our travel dairy in turns, I(Wing)--Joe--Judita.
We rushed down the roof and went back to pack quickly. At night, We took No.27 bus at the opposite street of the university to go to old bus station, then waited for the bus to Elat, a small city at the south of Israel, where the Jordan border was. There were many soldiers waiting at the bus station, and we were dragging our bags and hugging our food--pita, rabbit salad, boiled eggs--like refugees. Judita and Joe were talking excitedly while I was sleeping fast from the very beginning. During the 5 hours on bus to Elat, I was still asleep.
It was about 6 in the morning and Elat was so dark and cold. The Red Sea looks like black ink, with orange lights blinking from the other side. We looked for a warm nice cafe for a long time but failed, at last we had to eat our breakfast at the chill beach. A weird guy suddenly appeared, without even looking at Judita or me, he only staring at Joe, excited, and talked to him so warmly. When we finally sit down at a breakfast cafe, Joe said that the guy must be gay. The shopkeeper looked at us angrily--not because we were laughing, but for what we ordered was only the cheapest coffee.
We paid a lot to cross the border and even more for the taxi to Petra. In the middle of the day, finally we were in Petra, the most famous ancient city in Jordan. We stayed in Petra Gate Hostel, 9JD(about $13) per person/night. The room was clean and people were friendly and helpful. We also had private bathroom and free breakfast.
What happened at the border was something I should not forget to mention. I almost failed to pass. "People from China, Romania, Columbia all need visa." The officer said when he gave back my passport. I was a little mad on him. China is not a rich or developed country, but not the same as those two countries at least. However, things turned to a happy way after I showed them my student ID card and told them I really don't know visa is required for Jordan. They took me to the chief officer's office. He was very nice and gave me a visa stamp without asking me any questions. "Welcome to Jordan." He said. Even I myself couldn't believe it.
There were many Arabic taxi drivers waiting at the other side of the border as usual. "They will tell you there is no bus to Aqaba." Judita said," they just want to cheat you to take taxi." She was very right that just after we crossed the border, an Arabic driver came to us:"There is no bus to Aqaba today, you have to take our taxi."
Petra is a totally tourists' place, but I still recommend it strongly. "If you only go to one place in Jordan, you'd go to Petra." That's what the advertisement says. It's a huge area with old city ruins and nature views for people to explore by foot or "taxi"--camels. Those ancient ruins, unlike roman style, are very unique with a heavy atmosphere of religion and mystery. I like the tombs, temples, carvings, huge red rock valley, and the feeling of desert. Everything made me felt that we were in a great adventure story, like Indiana Jones.
At the end of hiking, there were 800 steps up to the top of the hill which was called "sacrifice place" and "the end of the world". When we finally got there, it was late in the afternoon and we were almost only half alive. However, it's quite worth it .We laid down on the big stone of the mountain, pretend to take a nap at "the end of the world"--so close to the sky, so quite and clean.
On our way back, some Bedouin friends invited us for tea and Arabic smoke. They were very warm and hospitalized people. We sat down and talked for a while. I felt so familiar with my experience in Tibet. Bedouins and Tibetans have very similar values. Bedouins say "mountains never meet, friends never apart", and Tibetans say "Money, just paper; alcohol, just water". And Bedouins also say "strong like desert, soft like sand, quiet like wind".
It was deep dark when we said goodbye to them. Moon was shinning brilliantly on the sky while no one except us were walking among the tombs, rocks and temples. The black shadows of big rocks were in some strange shapes that brought a creepy feeling. The valley was deadly quite when suddenly some weird cats rushed towards us and followed us for a long way.
We were terribly tired and I was starving to death. Luckily we were not spoiled kids and finally made our way back to hostel. The Arabic restaurant nearby was wonderful that humus with pita only cost 1JD, and my Arabic BBQ chicken with bread and salad cost 5. I'm happy because I think here is the real Middle East, Tel Aviv is just a luxury city for rich Jews.
by Wing
We three spent half an hour on making the decision of going to Jordan, now, tonight. It was 4 or 5 in afternoon, we were talking about Jordan on the roof of our dorms in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a Jordan map from National Geography and a Lonely Planet guide book. Only Judita, my roommate from Lithuania, had been to Jordan before. She is a blond girl, a young writer, an interesting traveller who has many adventure experience in Middle East during the last 4 years. Neither I nor Joe had been to any other country except Israel since we began our MA study in Tel Aviv University--both of us spent all day on our hopeless Hebrew homework. He came from Washington States and I came from Beijing, China.
So, we'll write our travel dairy in turns, I(Wing)--Joe--Judita.
We rushed down the roof and went back to pack quickly. At night, We took No.27 bus at the opposite street of the university to go to old bus station, then waited for the bus to Elat, a small city at the south of Israel, where the Jordan border was. There were many soldiers waiting at the bus station, and we were dragging our bags and hugging our food--pita, rabbit salad, boiled eggs--like refugees. Judita and Joe were talking excitedly while I was sleeping fast from the very beginning. During the 5 hours on bus to Elat, I was still asleep.
It was about 6 in the morning and Elat was so dark and cold. The Red Sea looks like black ink, with orange lights blinking from the other side. We looked for a warm nice cafe for a long time but failed, at last we had to eat our breakfast at the chill beach. A weird guy suddenly appeared, without even looking at Judita or me, he only staring at Joe, excited, and talked to him so warmly. When we finally sit down at a breakfast cafe, Joe said that the guy must be gay. The shopkeeper looked at us angrily--not because we were laughing, but for what we ordered was only the cheapest coffee.
We paid a lot to cross the border and even more for the taxi to Petra. In the middle of the day, finally we were in Petra, the most famous ancient city in Jordan. We stayed in Petra Gate Hostel, 9JD(about $13) per person/night. The room was clean and people were friendly and helpful. We also had private bathroom and free breakfast.
What happened at the border was something I should not forget to mention. I almost failed to pass. "People from China, Romania, Columbia all need visa." The officer said when he gave back my passport. I was a little mad on him. China is not a rich or developed country, but not the same as those two countries at least. However, things turned to a happy way after I showed them my student ID card and told them I really don't know visa is required for Jordan. They took me to the chief officer's office. He was very nice and gave me a visa stamp without asking me any questions. "Welcome to Jordan." He said. Even I myself couldn't believe it.
There were many Arabic taxi drivers waiting at the other side of the border as usual. "They will tell you there is no bus to Aqaba." Judita said," they just want to cheat you to take taxi." She was very right that just after we crossed the border, an Arabic driver came to us:"There is no bus to Aqaba today, you have to take our taxi."
Petra is a totally tourists' place, but I still recommend it strongly. "If you only go to one place in Jordan, you'd go to Petra." That's what the advertisement says. It's a huge area with old city ruins and nature views for people to explore by foot or "taxi"--camels. Those ancient ruins, unlike roman style, are very unique with a heavy atmosphere of religion and mystery. I like the tombs, temples, carvings, huge red rock valley, and the feeling of desert. Everything made me felt that we were in a great adventure story, like Indiana Jones.
At the end of hiking, there were 800 steps up to the top of the hill which was called "sacrifice place" and "the end of the world". When we finally got there, it was late in the afternoon and we were almost only half alive. However, it's quite worth it .We laid down on the big stone of the mountain, pretend to take a nap at "the end of the world"--so close to the sky, so quite and clean.
On our way back, some Bedouin friends invited us for tea and Arabic smoke. They were very warm and hospitalized people. We sat down and talked for a while. I felt so familiar with my experience in Tibet. Bedouins and Tibetans have very similar values. Bedouins say "mountains never meet, friends never apart", and Tibetans say "Money, just paper; alcohol, just water". And Bedouins also say "strong like desert, soft like sand, quiet like wind".
It was deep dark when we said goodbye to them. Moon was shinning brilliantly on the sky while no one except us were walking among the tombs, rocks and temples. The black shadows of big rocks were in some strange shapes that brought a creepy feeling. The valley was deadly quite when suddenly some weird cats rushed towards us and followed us for a long way.
We were terribly tired and I was starving to death. Luckily we were not spoiled kids and finally made our way back to hostel. The Arabic restaurant nearby was wonderful that humus with pita only cost 1JD, and my Arabic BBQ chicken with bread and salad cost 5. I'm happy because I think here is the real Middle East, Tel Aviv is just a luxury city for rich Jews.
Mar 20, 2009
Palestine Juice
(Homework of Drama class. )
In a souk in Jordan’s capital Amman.
A week after a conflict between Palestine and Israel in Gaza.
Three young tourists were walking along the street, passing by a little shop.
Suddenly, they heard people shouting after them.
Shouting Voice: Palestine Jews, Palestine Jews!
The three students were scared by the surprise and run away immediately.
A: How come they know we are Jews!
B: We are not Jews. We just study in Israel.
C: We should go and tell them, or it’ll be dangerous for us.
A: Yes! But you shouldn’t say you are from America, otherwise everything will be twice the price.
B: And you shouldn’t say you from Lithuania, nobody knows where it is.
C: So, you are from Columbia, you are from Romania and I’ll from Taiwan.
They agreed and walked back to the small shop. They saw a guy in the shop was making orange and banana juice. He looks happy because the tourists came back to his shop.
He claimed again: Palestine Juice, Palestine Juice!
In a souk in Jordan’s capital Amman.
A week after a conflict between Palestine and Israel in Gaza.
Three young tourists were walking along the street, passing by a little shop.
Suddenly, they heard people shouting after them.
Shouting Voice: Palestine Jews, Palestine Jews!
The three students were scared by the surprise and run away immediately.
A: How come they know we are Jews!
B: We are not Jews. We just study in Israel.
C: We should go and tell them, or it’ll be dangerous for us.
A: Yes! But you shouldn’t say you are from America, otherwise everything will be twice the price.
B: And you shouldn’t say you from Lithuania, nobody knows where it is.
C: So, you are from Columbia, you are from Romania and I’ll from Taiwan.
They agreed and walked back to the small shop. They saw a guy in the shop was making orange and banana juice. He looks happy because the tourists came back to his shop.
He claimed again: Palestine Juice, Palestine Juice!
Mar 16, 2009
MURDER/by Hanoch Levin(ACT 3)
ACT THREE
(Five years later. A rich suburb, mansions. Night. Two poor, elderly workers, a Wrecked worker and a Cracked worker, are sipping from a bottle, peeping in a house)
Wrecked: What is a woman compared to peeping at a woman?
With me, it’s all spiritual.
Look at me, a wildcat, a butterfly, all the women in the world are mine.
I flutter over the globe,from mansion to mansion,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris,Rome, Hamburg, London,
and at the foot of every mansion is a small garden with bushes,
and behind the bushes an observation post waiting just for me,
and in every window of the mansion is some Linda or Florinda or Fransuela or Jacqueline,
rolling around naked on the bed with some grunting shmuck with his ass sticking out,
and she doesn’t even know that she’s mine, all mine,
thighs, ass, breasts, and all the jumping and pumping and grunting and shrieking,
and all the wriggling in the world of Fransuela and the shmuckolino --
it’s all created just for me.
Get out into the world someday, see an ass.
(Gropes in his pants as he peeps. The Cracked worker peeps in and retreats,yawns with no lust)
Cracked: Oh, an ass. I’ve already seen.
And I’m fed up with peeping, too.
On paper, everything’s well and good,while in reality,
you stand like an idiot, don’t see anything,
just bend over and break your back half the night to
stand in the dark and see darkness,
and by the time you ever see anything,
and by the time they turn to you the part you want,
not just an ear or an elbow,
and by the time there’s also a little lighting,
and by the time you found a good crack in the shutter,
and a comfortable place to stand,
and by the time you don’t need to pee all of a sudden,
and by the time some dog or neighbor doesn’t bark at you all of a sudden,
and standing like that it gets harder to come,
from year to year, your legs hurt,
and to be fantasize is also hard,
the fantasies have got stale long ago,
and most of the women aren’t pretty either,
and if they are still pretty -- they’re wretched,
and they screw like they’re condemned to the guillotine,,
maybe in Hollywood there’s perfect bliss,
do I know? And by the time you do get to Hollywood,
how will you peep, there they’re imprisoned
in mansions with attack dogs,
electric fences and television cameras,
and in the end they too yawn with bad breath.
How wretched they all are,
and how wretched everything is,
this whole rag of a world is made only to shrivel it for you.
(Spits contemptuously and exits. The Orange Whore enters. The Wrecked Worker retreats as if caught in the act)
Wrecked: I wasn’t peeping.
There’s no woman there.
I’m alone.
Nobody’s hurting.
Just looking, not seeing.
Can’t.
Not hurting.
Almost blind.
(Orange Whore approaches him)
Orange: We housewives in this quiet neighborhood,
like calm and cleanliness.
We like the garbage picked up without seeing the garbageman.
Wrecked: I’m not from the garbage, I’m from the scaffolds over there on the building at the end of the street.
Ask about me. They know me.
At night, I walk around a little,don’t hurt at all,just peep in windows at night, definitely not at husbands, I’m a man of honor, just at women,I come and go usually don’t even come,usually don’t even see.Like to view more than to screw,
like to hallucinate more than to fornicate,
like to philosophize more than to visualize.
It’s all words.
Orange: (Lifts up her dress)
Visualize and fantasize.
Wrecked: Missus, I’m stunned.
Orange: And believe me you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The last time we saw each other...
Wrecked: Who?
Orange: When you came into our yard to collect the garbage in the garden...
Wrecked: But I told you,
I never come into yards.
I’m only from outside.
Orange: You intrigued me quite a bit.
Wrecked: Really? If so,
maybe I am the one,
and I really did collect the garbage --
who cares.
Orange: They say you have thick, hot blood.
Wrecked: I’ve been around since the twenties.
Orange: Fuck me!
Wrecked: What a night!
(Takes a flask out of his pocket, drinks)
That’s good, it calms...
that is, stimulates...
that is...
(Holds the flask out to her. She refuses)
Orange: With us, only champagne.
Wrecked: (Drinks and sings)
On a summer night, of sheer elegance uncle and auntie went out to dance...
(Stops)
Excuse me, I have to empty myself...
(Goes off to the side to pee, finishes, turns to the Orange Whore standing with her back to him, hugs her)
Orange: From behind it’ll cost you double.
Wrecked: (Breaks away from her)
What’s that, “it’ll cost?” I thought you were in love.
Orange: Of course, I was in love. But you also need a little support in our world.
Wrecked: Excuse me, I’m a romantic.
(Peeps at her face up close)
And you’re not really a housewife from here...
not rich, and not pretty...
my friend was right...
everything’s disappointing.
Orange: Come on, pal, the night’s lousy,
come on, make an opening --
you’ll get a discount.
Wrecked: (Sad)
I really don’t like to do it,
and I don’t like whores.
And even if I did -- I don’t have anything.
I’m from the scaffolds over there in the building...
Orange: Why do you say “whores,”
you offend me very much.
Wrecked: I’m leaving.
(The Purple and Pink Whores enter, block his way)
Who are you? What are you plotting?
I don’t have anything, I told you!
Pink: (Clasping him from behind)
Search his pockets.
(The Orange Whore gropes in his pockets. The Orange Whore doesn’t find anything. Disappointed)
Orange: I thought he was stealing here tonight
from the whole neighborhood.
In the end -- just a poor bastard.
Exactly what he said.
Pink: They’re all liars;
and that’s the biggest liar --
he told the truth.
(The Purple Whore kicks him angrily. Sound of an explosion outside. Neighbors run in panicky)
First: What happened?
Second: A car blew up,
a building caught fire!
Children are trapped in the burning house.
Third: (Enters in pajamas, hair dishevelled, confused, hysterical)
Quiet! Give us quiet!
One night of quiet!
Every night we say:
So far murder!
From tomorrow on -- peace!
Every morning a child is born
whose parents say:
by the time he’s grown up,
it has to be over!
And the next one grows up,
and the next one,
and the next one!
Waiting so long for life --
they don’t live!
God, give us one month of boredom!
Good, real, Swiss boredom!
I want so much to be bored!
To suffer a depression from boredom!
To hang myself out of boredom!
Oh, give us a little Swiss boredom,
‘cause there’s no more strength for this fascinating life in Asia!
Orange: Here’s the murderer!
We caught the murderer!
(Hits the Wrecked Worker. He’s scared)
Wrecked: Listen, I don’t know what you want,
but you’re making a mistake,I’ll prove it.
(The Neighbors and the Passersby join in and start hitting him)
But how can I if you just hit, and I can’t prove that I’m not something
that I don’t even know what...
(They pounce on him)
Let me say a word...
(They pounce. He whimpers)
I just peeped, I’m just an ordinary man,
from the scaffold over there in the building...
(Falls)
But I’m also not just an ordinary man...
I’ve still got a lot of important things I haven’t said yet...
(They trample him. He is almost unconscious)
Did you know that even I was born once?...
Did you know that my birth was considered good news?...
They even made a party.
I wasn’t born a peeping Tom...
I’m complex. I contain a whole world, thoughts and dreams...
I mustn’t faint before I tell about them...
I’ve also got a solution to the old riddle with matches...
a terrible shame. Don’t let me black out. I want so much to wake up...
I still have a strong desire to say...
(His speech becomes heavy as the beating and trampling continue)
And one more thing...I forgot...the most important...not yet...
(Tries again to get up, bleeding)
All that’s left is the fear:
if I close my eyes...
I’m afraid...I won’t open them again...
(A deciseive blow knocks him out)
I...want...papa...aaaa....aaaa...
(Shouting, the Orange Whore keeps kicking him in the head. One of the passersby tries to stop her)
Passerby: Stop her!
Orange: That’s the murderer!
Passerby: He’s unconscious!
Orange: Kill the dirty bastards!
Passerby: Stop her!
Orange: (Scratches his face, hysterical)
Kill him too!
Kill the beautiful people!
Kill the ballless wonders
who cover up for the dirty bastards!
Kill! Kill! Kill!
(Neighbors enter, carrying the body of the Boy, who has meanwhile grown up, quivering; behind it runs the Girl, who has also grown up, with her hair dishevelled, terrified)
Girl: He was right, there is death!
And now he’s dead!
My ugly, boring friend
with the little pipi, is dead!
He said we die and I didn’t believe it!
He’s dead! He’s dead!
You got to die!
(Sees the Wrecked Worker lying on the ground, is terrified)
That’s him!
Pink: What’s him?
Girl: I remember!
On the wedding night, on the beach,
before we found the bodies of my sister and her bridegroom!
We saw him wandering around there!
Orange: The murderer! The murderer!
(She gets loose from the arms of the Passerby, knocks him down. The Purple Whore tosses a knife to her)
What’s this? He had a knife on him!
(Stabs the Wrecked Laborer in his chest and neck)
Pink: Goodbye to the solution to the riddle with the matches!
(More Neighbors and Passersby enter)
Fourth: Break his teeth!
Gouge out his eyes!
Knock out his face!
Fifth: Find his mother,
And do it right before her eyes!
Sixth: Hurt him!
Hurt him even after he’s dead!
(They beat and trample him)
Orange: Put his prick in his mouth.
(She leans over to pull down his pants)
Purple: The other way around, the mouth to the prick.
(The Orange Whore takes the knife and cuts off the Wrecked Worker’s head)
Pink: Let us spit on him.
I won’t leave here without spitting on him!
Passerby: Why? He’s dead!
Why do you want to spit on him?
Pink: Spit on him!
I won’t leave here without spitting on him!
Spit on him!
(She spits in his face)
Orange: Let me, I’ll piss on him too!
I love to do that in the lap of nature.
(She rolls up her dress, takes the severed head, pisses on it. To the head)
Crazy life.
Some people pay a lot of money to get pissed on in their mouth between my legs.
In your whole miserable life,ever since you sucked from your mother, you haven’t had such treatment.
[(Enter Soldiers, led by the Officer. The Officer sees the body and the head)
Officer: Who did this?
Orange: We did, Sir.
We caught that murderer as he was escaping!
(Lifts up the head)
Look at him now.
(The Officer looks at the head and flinches, the Soldier searches in the pants of the Wrecked Worker, examines his papers)
Soldier: Not one of ours.
Officer: (To the Orange Whore)
Why did you do that?
Orange: So mothers can sleep soundly.]
(Enter the Messenger)
Messenger: The time of calm is over.
The time of calm is over.
The winds of reconciliation have flown away,war is at the gate.
People look at the illusory calm
and ask: How could we?
How was that possible?
Our children will not understand,
our grandchildren will laugh,
our great-grandchildren will not know what it’s above.
They will study history with a shrug.
With a smile of waking from a deep sleep,
people say to one another: To arms.
Pink: [To arms, to arms； On the way, you’ll pass by us.
Officer: (Gives the severed head to the Orange Whore)
Straighten your dress,
and lift up your head.
At this moment you have entered history,
you are inscribed in the annals of our nation.
(Exits with the Soldiers)]
END OF ACT THREE
EPILOGUE
(Two years later. Street, morning. Children are playing. Enter a stumbling Old Man, barely tottering, his back is stooped, emitting a weak voice, like a kind of soft hum)
Old Man: Pa...pa...pa...pa
Child: (To another Child)
Look, somebody’s son.
(Enter the Pale Soldier, now a civilian, wearing dark glasses,blind)
Pale Soldier: I don’t see you, I’ve gone blind in the war that came after that one, but I owe you an answer:
Your son didn’t curse, he wept,
and he couldn’t stop shaking.
His last words, and they will peck at my brain as long as I live,
were: “Have pity on me, I want papa.”
Old Man: Pa...pa...ba...ma
(Goes off)
END
(Five years later. A rich suburb, mansions. Night. Two poor, elderly workers, a Wrecked worker and a Cracked worker, are sipping from a bottle, peeping in a house)
Wrecked: What is a woman compared to peeping at a woman?
With me, it’s all spiritual.
Look at me, a wildcat, a butterfly, all the women in the world are mine.
I flutter over the globe,from mansion to mansion,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris,Rome, Hamburg, London,
and at the foot of every mansion is a small garden with bushes,
and behind the bushes an observation post waiting just for me,
and in every window of the mansion is some Linda or Florinda or Fransuela or Jacqueline,
rolling around naked on the bed with some grunting shmuck with his ass sticking out,
and she doesn’t even know that she’s mine, all mine,
thighs, ass, breasts, and all the jumping and pumping and grunting and shrieking,
and all the wriggling in the world of Fransuela and the shmuckolino --
it’s all created just for me.
Get out into the world someday, see an ass.
(Gropes in his pants as he peeps. The Cracked worker peeps in and retreats,yawns with no lust)
Cracked: Oh, an ass. I’ve already seen.
And I’m fed up with peeping, too.
On paper, everything’s well and good,while in reality,
you stand like an idiot, don’t see anything,
just bend over and break your back half the night to
stand in the dark and see darkness,
and by the time you ever see anything,
and by the time they turn to you the part you want,
not just an ear or an elbow,
and by the time there’s also a little lighting,
and by the time you found a good crack in the shutter,
and a comfortable place to stand,
and by the time you don’t need to pee all of a sudden,
and by the time some dog or neighbor doesn’t bark at you all of a sudden,
and standing like that it gets harder to come,
from year to year, your legs hurt,
and to be fantasize is also hard,
the fantasies have got stale long ago,
and most of the women aren’t pretty either,
and if they are still pretty -- they’re wretched,
and they screw like they’re condemned to the guillotine,,
maybe in Hollywood there’s perfect bliss,
do I know? And by the time you do get to Hollywood,
how will you peep, there they’re imprisoned
in mansions with attack dogs,
electric fences and television cameras,
and in the end they too yawn with bad breath.
How wretched they all are,
and how wretched everything is,
this whole rag of a world is made only to shrivel it for you.
(Spits contemptuously and exits. The Orange Whore enters. The Wrecked Worker retreats as if caught in the act)
Wrecked: I wasn’t peeping.
There’s no woman there.
I’m alone.
Nobody’s hurting.
Just looking, not seeing.
Can’t.
Not hurting.
Almost blind.
(Orange Whore approaches him)
Orange: We housewives in this quiet neighborhood,
like calm and cleanliness.
We like the garbage picked up without seeing the garbageman.
Wrecked: I’m not from the garbage, I’m from the scaffolds over there on the building at the end of the street.
Ask about me. They know me.
At night, I walk around a little,don’t hurt at all,just peep in windows at night, definitely not at husbands, I’m a man of honor, just at women,I come and go usually don’t even come,usually don’t even see.Like to view more than to screw,
like to hallucinate more than to fornicate,
like to philosophize more than to visualize.
It’s all words.
Orange: (Lifts up her dress)
Visualize and fantasize.
Wrecked: Missus, I’m stunned.
Orange: And believe me you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The last time we saw each other...
Wrecked: Who?
Orange: When you came into our yard to collect the garbage in the garden...
Wrecked: But I told you,
I never come into yards.
I’m only from outside.
Orange: You intrigued me quite a bit.
Wrecked: Really? If so,
maybe I am the one,
and I really did collect the garbage --
who cares.
Orange: They say you have thick, hot blood.
Wrecked: I’ve been around since the twenties.
Orange: Fuck me!
Wrecked: What a night!
(Takes a flask out of his pocket, drinks)
That’s good, it calms...
that is, stimulates...
that is...
(Holds the flask out to her. She refuses)
Orange: With us, only champagne.
Wrecked: (Drinks and sings)
On a summer night, of sheer elegance uncle and auntie went out to dance...
(Stops)
Excuse me, I have to empty myself...
(Goes off to the side to pee, finishes, turns to the Orange Whore standing with her back to him, hugs her)
Orange: From behind it’ll cost you double.
Wrecked: (Breaks away from her)
What’s that, “it’ll cost?” I thought you were in love.
Orange: Of course, I was in love. But you also need a little support in our world.
Wrecked: Excuse me, I’m a romantic.
(Peeps at her face up close)
And you’re not really a housewife from here...
not rich, and not pretty...
my friend was right...
everything’s disappointing.
Orange: Come on, pal, the night’s lousy,
come on, make an opening --
you’ll get a discount.
Wrecked: (Sad)
I really don’t like to do it,
and I don’t like whores.
And even if I did -- I don’t have anything.
I’m from the scaffolds over there in the building...
Orange: Why do you say “whores,”
you offend me very much.
Wrecked: I’m leaving.
(The Purple and Pink Whores enter, block his way)
Who are you? What are you plotting?
I don’t have anything, I told you!
Pink: (Clasping him from behind)
Search his pockets.
(The Orange Whore gropes in his pockets. The Orange Whore doesn’t find anything. Disappointed)
Orange: I thought he was stealing here tonight
from the whole neighborhood.
In the end -- just a poor bastard.
Exactly what he said.
Pink: They’re all liars;
and that’s the biggest liar --
he told the truth.
(The Purple Whore kicks him angrily. Sound of an explosion outside. Neighbors run in panicky)
First: What happened?
Second: A car blew up,
a building caught fire!
Children are trapped in the burning house.
Third: (Enters in pajamas, hair dishevelled, confused, hysterical)
Quiet! Give us quiet!
One night of quiet!
Every night we say:
So far murder!
From tomorrow on -- peace!
Every morning a child is born
whose parents say:
by the time he’s grown up,
it has to be over!
And the next one grows up,
and the next one,
and the next one!
Waiting so long for life --
they don’t live!
God, give us one month of boredom!
Good, real, Swiss boredom!
I want so much to be bored!
To suffer a depression from boredom!
To hang myself out of boredom!
Oh, give us a little Swiss boredom,
‘cause there’s no more strength for this fascinating life in Asia!
Orange: Here’s the murderer!
We caught the murderer!
(Hits the Wrecked Worker. He’s scared)
Wrecked: Listen, I don’t know what you want,
but you’re making a mistake,I’ll prove it.
(The Neighbors and the Passersby join in and start hitting him)
But how can I if you just hit, and I can’t prove that I’m not something
that I don’t even know what...
(They pounce on him)
Let me say a word...
(They pounce. He whimpers)
I just peeped, I’m just an ordinary man,
from the scaffold over there in the building...
(Falls)
But I’m also not just an ordinary man...
I’ve still got a lot of important things I haven’t said yet...
(They trample him. He is almost unconscious)
Did you know that even I was born once?...
Did you know that my birth was considered good news?...
They even made a party.
I wasn’t born a peeping Tom...
I’m complex. I contain a whole world, thoughts and dreams...
I mustn’t faint before I tell about them...
I’ve also got a solution to the old riddle with matches...
a terrible shame. Don’t let me black out. I want so much to wake up...
I still have a strong desire to say...
(His speech becomes heavy as the beating and trampling continue)
And one more thing...I forgot...the most important...not yet...
(Tries again to get up, bleeding)
All that’s left is the fear:
if I close my eyes...
I’m afraid...I won’t open them again...
(A deciseive blow knocks him out)
I...want...papa...aaaa....aaaa...
(Shouting, the Orange Whore keeps kicking him in the head. One of the passersby tries to stop her)
Passerby: Stop her!
Orange: That’s the murderer!
Passerby: He’s unconscious!
Orange: Kill the dirty bastards!
Passerby: Stop her!
Orange: (Scratches his face, hysterical)
Kill him too!
Kill the beautiful people!
Kill the ballless wonders
who cover up for the dirty bastards!
Kill! Kill! Kill!
(Neighbors enter, carrying the body of the Boy, who has meanwhile grown up, quivering; behind it runs the Girl, who has also grown up, with her hair dishevelled, terrified)
Girl: He was right, there is death!
And now he’s dead!
My ugly, boring friend
with the little pipi, is dead!
He said we die and I didn’t believe it!
He’s dead! He’s dead!
You got to die!
(Sees the Wrecked Worker lying on the ground, is terrified)
That’s him!
Pink: What’s him?
Girl: I remember!
On the wedding night, on the beach,
before we found the bodies of my sister and her bridegroom!
We saw him wandering around there!
Orange: The murderer! The murderer!
(She gets loose from the arms of the Passerby, knocks him down. The Purple Whore tosses a knife to her)
What’s this? He had a knife on him!
(Stabs the Wrecked Laborer in his chest and neck)
Pink: Goodbye to the solution to the riddle with the matches!
(More Neighbors and Passersby enter)
Fourth: Break his teeth!
Gouge out his eyes!
Knock out his face!
Fifth: Find his mother,
And do it right before her eyes!
Sixth: Hurt him!
Hurt him even after he’s dead!
(They beat and trample him)
Orange: Put his prick in his mouth.
(She leans over to pull down his pants)
Purple: The other way around, the mouth to the prick.
(The Orange Whore takes the knife and cuts off the Wrecked Worker’s head)
Pink: Let us spit on him.
I won’t leave here without spitting on him!
Passerby: Why? He’s dead!
Why do you want to spit on him?
Pink: Spit on him!
I won’t leave here without spitting on him!
Spit on him!
(She spits in his face)
Orange: Let me, I’ll piss on him too!
I love to do that in the lap of nature.
(She rolls up her dress, takes the severed head, pisses on it. To the head)
Crazy life.
Some people pay a lot of money to get pissed on in their mouth between my legs.
In your whole miserable life,ever since you sucked from your mother, you haven’t had such treatment.
[(Enter Soldiers, led by the Officer. The Officer sees the body and the head)
Officer: Who did this?
Orange: We did, Sir.
We caught that murderer as he was escaping!
(Lifts up the head)
Look at him now.
(The Officer looks at the head and flinches, the Soldier searches in the pants of the Wrecked Worker, examines his papers)
Soldier: Not one of ours.
Officer: (To the Orange Whore)
Why did you do that?
Orange: So mothers can sleep soundly.]
(Enter the Messenger)
Messenger: The time of calm is over.
The time of calm is over.
The winds of reconciliation have flown away,war is at the gate.
People look at the illusory calm
and ask: How could we?
How was that possible?
Our children will not understand,
our grandchildren will laugh,
our great-grandchildren will not know what it’s above.
They will study history with a shrug.
With a smile of waking from a deep sleep,
people say to one another: To arms.
Pink: [To arms, to arms； On the way, you’ll pass by us.
Officer: (Gives the severed head to the Orange Whore)
Straighten your dress,
and lift up your head.
At this moment you have entered history,
you are inscribed in the annals of our nation.
(Exits with the Soldiers)]
END OF ACT THREE
EPILOGUE
(Two years later. Street, morning. Children are playing. Enter a stumbling Old Man, barely tottering, his back is stooped, emitting a weak voice, like a kind of soft hum)
Old Man: Pa...pa...pa...pa
Child: (To another Child)
Look, somebody’s son.
(Enter the Pale Soldier, now a civilian, wearing dark glasses,blind)
Pale Soldier: I don’t see you, I’ve gone blind in the war that came after that one, but I owe you an answer:
Your son didn’t curse, he wept,
and he couldn’t stop shaking.
His last words, and they will peck at my brain as long as I live,
were: “Have pity on me, I want papa.”
Old Man: Pa...pa...ba...ma
(Goes off)
END
MURDER/by Hanoch Levin(ACT 2)
ACT TWO
(Three years later. Summer evening, on the beach. From the distance come sounds of a celebration, music. Boy and Girl enter, dressed up)
Boy: When we grow up, will you marry me?
Girl: Depends whether I’ll love you, but I won’t ‘cause you don’t have any money, and your house isn’t nice, and you don’t have a car, and you’re boring, and you stink and you’re ugly, and your pipi’s little.
Boy: You know you’ll die someday?
Girl: I won’t die.
Boy: You will die. You got to.
Girl: You know who I am? I’m the sister of the bride.
Boy: It won’t help you.
Girl: And you don’t even exist. I’m dreaming you. If I wake up --that’s the end of you.
Boy: That won’t help you either.
(Enter the Mother of the Bride)
Girl: Mother, he said I’ll die.
Mother of the Bride: You won’t die.
(To the Boy)
She won’t die.
Boy: You got to die.
Mother of the Bride: You idiot.
Girl: With a disgusting pipi.
(She exits with the Mother of the Bride. The Boy exits, offended, in the other direction. Enter the Bridegroom and the Bride, very young, intoxicated and laughing, leaving the celebration to be alone)
Bride: We didn’t go too far away?
Groom: I told my father we want half an hour alone, just the two of us, and not to look for us.
(He pulls her to him)
I love marrying you so much.
You. Wedding. Wine.
Sea. Sky.
And again you.
Bride: You became a poet.
Groom: I think I’m going to go crazy with happiness. You’re painfully beautiful.
(To himself)
Wonder if she’ll blow me.
I want a blow-job so much.
If I die now --
I’ll die without knowing a blow-job.
(The Bride laughs, gives him a long kiss on the lips)
I’d like to have you now,
here, on the sand,
and forget the rest.
Bride: A real poet.
(Lifts the hem of her dress. The Groom starts taking off his pants)
Bride: What for?
Groom: How, then?
Bride: I’ve also been waiting for this moment.
There are things I haven’t tasted yet.
(Whispers in his ear)
I’d like, my love,
above all and first of all for you to do me right,
as you’ve certainly guessed I like.
(He doesn’t understand)
Dreamy, supine, eyes gazing at the stars,
tatters of clouds passing by along with tatters of thoughts.
Groom: A real poetess. And I’m dressed?
Bride: Except for what has to be bare.
Groom: It’s already quite hard.
Bride: But what I want doesn’t get hard at all.
Groom: But wet?
Bride: Wet.
Groom: Red?
Bride: Red.
Groom: Poking out?
Bride: And how.
(The Groom starts taking off his pants again)
Not there.
Groom: I’m really confused.
Bride: Hint?
(Whispers in his ear)
From the moment you’re born to the day that you die,
behind every cry or smile,
it rolls around, winds around,
in a cell dark and vile.
At one year old, it longs for sweets,
at twenty -- for wine that suits,
and as it goes through life it meets a lot of asses and boots;
at the start of its road that is long there’s music and song ,
at the end there’s a prayer for just a little bit of air.
Groom (Looks at her with a smile frozen on his lips. To himself)
Goodbye, blow-job;
Hello, pussy-job.
(She lifts her dress, stretches out on the sand. The Groom thrusts his face between her legs. She moans)
Bride: I love you.
I expect heaven and earth from you.
You can’t hear me ‘cause your ears are pinned between my legs,
but I’ll guide you with taps on the neck.
In time, you’ll learn by yourself what I like.
(She tightens her thighs around his head. Taps the back of his neck. He licks between her legs, she lifts her face to the sky and moans with pleasure)
Shall I tell you what’s happening in the sky in the meantime?
Groom: (Shakes his head no, his voice is muffled)
Later, when I recover.
(Enter the The Father, a black silhouette in the dark, whispers)
The Father: Tell me. What were his last words.
Bride: (Lifting her head)
Somebody’s here?...
(Pause...She drops her head, moans)
Go on...go on...
The Father: His last words
I want to know...
Bride: (Lifts her head, gets up)
Somebody’s here!
The Father: (Approaches, holding a gun)
I’m the one who was left with the corpse.
I’m the one who lay on top of him.
I didn’t cry then, I was just stunned. After you went,
only then did the crying start.
It hasn’t stopped.
Bride: Don’t kill.
This is our wedding day.
The Father: Once, a long time ago,
I gave her a child.
She was naked.
She lay like you.
Bride: What do you want?
Is this a robbery?
You want jewelry?
The Father: Be quiet.
If one of you tries to escape, I’ll shoot.
Bride: All the guests are there.
The Father: Nobody will hear.
The orchestra, the noise of the waves,
the champagne corks.
And you went so far away.
(To the Groom)
Remember me?
Three years ago,
a boy who was murdered, a cellar,
and I, his father, come in,
see three soldiers over his dead body.
Groom: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re confusing me with somebody else.
The Father: It’s you. A red scarf was around your neck.
Groom: I never had one.
I don’t wear scarves.
The Father: It’s true my eyes have grown dim,
my memory betrays me,
old age overpowers me.
But you guys I do remember clearly.
I won’t forget the three of you over the corpse of my son.
Groom: I’ve got brothers and relatives,
there are people who look like me.
You can’t come at night,
after a few years and shoot somebody.
People don’t kill just like that.
The Father: Yes, sometimes it dies down.
I say to myself:
There’s everyday life.
But it comes back to me
that night in the cellar.
The corpse, over it three
living soldiers,
one of them is you.
(Puts the gun to his temple)
You want to live?
Groom: Very much. I want to live very much.
The Father: Tell me who killed him.
Tell me who stuck the knife in his back.
But more than anything I want to know what were his last words.
Groom: How can I tell you? I’ll make up something so you’ll be satisfied?
There’s a mistake. Look at me: I myself am almost a boy, tonight I got married,
you caught me in the middle of making love with my bride.
The Father: Who doesn’t want to make love, who doesn’t want to get married,
who doesn’t want wine, music?
Who, after he murdered, doesn’t want to cultivate his garden and caress the heads of his children?
Bride: He wasn’t there.
That’s my bridegroom.
He tells the truth.
I wouldn’t love him and be bound to him all my life
if he didn’t tell the truth.
I didn’t know your dead son and I don’t know what this is about.
I only know that tonight is the night I’ve waited for --
what right do you have to come and disturb it?
What right do you have to aim a gun in the middle of the night at somebody,
on the basis of your deluded memory?
Who are you to destroy our lives?
The Father: You talk nice, and the sound of your voice is charming. I’m tempted to believe you. It’s easy to convince on such a sweet night,and the moon and the sea and the wedding, and above all -- your body.
I’m losing my confidence in my memory, in my eyes,
and yet I know that if I leave here now,
in another hour, tomorrow, a year --
I’ll be sorry I didn’t kill him.
Understand: I’m not alone.
I carry my son on my back.
Groom: Then nothing will help me.
You’ll kill me no matter what.
The Father: Yes, yes, I”ll kill.
And if not for your eyes looking at me like that, I would have killed already.
It will take another minute, because of the eyes, but I will kill.
Groom: (To the Bride)
When I was a boy, I wrote poems.
I want to recite the last poem
that I dedicated to you.
The Father: Why don’t you shout for help?
Bride: I don’t believe you’ll shoot him.
Groom: (Recites)
I would like to sing you the absolute song about everything.
About the whole world,about the mountain and the wind,
about what exists,and about what changes --
in a word,
in a syllable,
Ah-ah-a-a-a-a.
(The Father shoots him in the head. The Groom falls. The Bride shouts. The Father jumps and stops her mouth)
The Father: And you, shut up!
I see that I have to kill you too!
Bride: Don’t kill me!...
I haven’t done anything!...
I beg you:
I want to live!...
Tomorrow morning we planned to travel for two weeks with another couple of friends...
my older sister already has a baby...
I’m only eighteen years old and I haven’t done anything yet...
I haven’t had time to mistreat anybody...
once I slapped my little brother,
he cried and so did I...
once I fought with a girlfriend...
once I left a boyfriend who loved me...
more than that I haven’t done...
tonight I got married...
I’m still a virgin...
there are still pleasures I haven’t known...
And I haven’t even been abroad...
My whole life is ahead of me,
and it’s not fair for you to rob me...
(Chokes, trembles with fear)
I won’t tell anybody who you are...
go away...I didn’t see you...
I’ll never recognize you...
I’m begging...here I am
kissing your shoes...
(Crawls to his feet, kisses his shoes, he grabs her face)
The Father: How long it’s been since I touched a woman.
(He holds her face as she sobs quietly)
Bride: You killed the man who was dearer to me than anybody.
You just killed.
If you knew how innocent he was.
He never even slept with a woman.
How could he have killed?
We had a moment of pleasure,
such a lovely start.
The Father: I’ll never quench this thirst: to kill.
(Clasps her in his arms)
Bride: Take pity on me! Please!
The Father: I came to disturb the peace.
Wherever I see it,
I’ll destroy it.
(Knocks her down and lies on top of her)
Bride: No!...No!...
The Father: Understand: I don’t give a damn
about brides and grooms,
and little babies and mothers,
and life altogether.
I don’t give a damn about nature,
and its wonderful landscapes.
The world pains me,
peace wounds my rest.
You cry and your tears tempt me.
Bride: No!...No!...
Please!...
(The Father rapes her. At first she resists. Her resistance subsides. The Father finishes and gets up. She continues lying, whimpering softly like a baby)
The Father: Why do your eyes keep staring at me?
Why don’t you scream?
Why don’t you get up and run away?
(The Bride lies still on her back, groaning softly)
You’re breaking my heart,
my girl. My boy.
My children.
(Aims the gun at her face. She whispers, almost swoons)
Bride: Why?...Why?...
The Father: “Why.” We’re long past the question “why.”
The question “why” shouldn’t be asked.
The question “why” belongs to other times.
(He shoots her in the face and exits. Enter the Girl, on her way back to the party. She comes on the two corpses, looks at them with her mouth gaping open, runs out, comes back with the Father of the Groom and other guests)
Father of the Groom:What...what...what...
How!...How!...
I don’t believe
what my eyes see!
I can’t digest it!
What...what...what...
What my eyes see, it’s not true!
Guest: Give him some water, and then give him some time.
To digest facts like these takes time.
Father of the Groom:My son is murdered at his wedding?
My son and daughter-in-law at their wedding?
How?! Who?! What for?!
Why did they kill my innocent children
on the day of their happiness?!
Guest: Give a man time to digest the death of his dear ones.
Give him time for shock..
Then give him time to collapse.
Then give him time for mourning,
for breaking down, for shrivelling with grief,
for the endless crushing of his heart.
The Father: (Shouts)
They murdered my children!
The earth is quaking!
They murdered my children!
Guest: (Quietly, to himself)
Give him time.
The earth seems to be quaking,
but not really.
The earth is quiet,
and the night is clear and calm.
END OF ACT TWO
(Three years later. Summer evening, on the beach. From the distance come sounds of a celebration, music. Boy and Girl enter, dressed up)
Boy: When we grow up, will you marry me?
Girl: Depends whether I’ll love you, but I won’t ‘cause you don’t have any money, and your house isn’t nice, and you don’t have a car, and you’re boring, and you stink and you’re ugly, and your pipi’s little.
Boy: You know you’ll die someday?
Girl: I won’t die.
Boy: You will die. You got to.
Girl: You know who I am? I’m the sister of the bride.
Boy: It won’t help you.
Girl: And you don’t even exist. I’m dreaming you. If I wake up --that’s the end of you.
Boy: That won’t help you either.
(Enter the Mother of the Bride)
Girl: Mother, he said I’ll die.
Mother of the Bride: You won’t die.
(To the Boy)
She won’t die.
Boy: You got to die.
Mother of the Bride: You idiot.
Girl: With a disgusting pipi.
(She exits with the Mother of the Bride. The Boy exits, offended, in the other direction. Enter the Bridegroom and the Bride, very young, intoxicated and laughing, leaving the celebration to be alone)
Bride: We didn’t go too far away?
Groom: I told my father we want half an hour alone, just the two of us, and not to look for us.
(He pulls her to him)
I love marrying you so much.
You. Wedding. Wine.
Sea. Sky.
And again you.
Bride: You became a poet.
Groom: I think I’m going to go crazy with happiness. You’re painfully beautiful.
(To himself)
Wonder if she’ll blow me.
I want a blow-job so much.
If I die now --
I’ll die without knowing a blow-job.
(The Bride laughs, gives him a long kiss on the lips)
I’d like to have you now,
here, on the sand,
and forget the rest.
Bride: A real poet.
(Lifts the hem of her dress. The Groom starts taking off his pants)
Bride: What for?
Groom: How, then?
Bride: I’ve also been waiting for this moment.
There are things I haven’t tasted yet.
(Whispers in his ear)
I’d like, my love,
above all and first of all for you to do me right,
as you’ve certainly guessed I like.
(He doesn’t understand)
Dreamy, supine, eyes gazing at the stars,
tatters of clouds passing by along with tatters of thoughts.
Groom: A real poetess. And I’m dressed?
Bride: Except for what has to be bare.
Groom: It’s already quite hard.
Bride: But what I want doesn’t get hard at all.
Groom: But wet?
Bride: Wet.
Groom: Red?
Bride: Red.
Groom: Poking out?
Bride: And how.
(The Groom starts taking off his pants again)
Not there.
Groom: I’m really confused.
Bride: Hint?
(Whispers in his ear)
From the moment you’re born to the day that you die,
behind every cry or smile,
it rolls around, winds around,
in a cell dark and vile.
At one year old, it longs for sweets,
at twenty -- for wine that suits,
and as it goes through life it meets a lot of asses and boots;
at the start of its road that is long there’s music and song ,
at the end there’s a prayer for just a little bit of air.
Groom (Looks at her with a smile frozen on his lips. To himself)
Goodbye, blow-job;
Hello, pussy-job.
(She lifts her dress, stretches out on the sand. The Groom thrusts his face between her legs. She moans)
Bride: I love you.
I expect heaven and earth from you.
You can’t hear me ‘cause your ears are pinned between my legs,
but I’ll guide you with taps on the neck.
In time, you’ll learn by yourself what I like.
(She tightens her thighs around his head. Taps the back of his neck. He licks between her legs, she lifts her face to the sky and moans with pleasure)
Shall I tell you what’s happening in the sky in the meantime?
Groom: (Shakes his head no, his voice is muffled)
Later, when I recover.
(Enter the The Father, a black silhouette in the dark, whispers)
The Father: Tell me. What were his last words.
Bride: (Lifting her head)
Somebody’s here?...
(Pause...She drops her head, moans)
Go on...go on...
The Father: His last words
I want to know...
Bride: (Lifts her head, gets up)
Somebody’s here!
The Father: (Approaches, holding a gun)
I’m the one who was left with the corpse.
I’m the one who lay on top of him.
I didn’t cry then, I was just stunned. After you went,
only then did the crying start.
It hasn’t stopped.
Bride: Don’t kill.
This is our wedding day.
The Father: Once, a long time ago,
I gave her a child.
She was naked.
She lay like you.
Bride: What do you want?
Is this a robbery?
You want jewelry?
The Father: Be quiet.
If one of you tries to escape, I’ll shoot.
Bride: All the guests are there.
The Father: Nobody will hear.
The orchestra, the noise of the waves,
the champagne corks.
And you went so far away.
(To the Groom)
Remember me?
Three years ago,
a boy who was murdered, a cellar,
and I, his father, come in,
see three soldiers over his dead body.
Groom: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re confusing me with somebody else.
The Father: It’s you. A red scarf was around your neck.
Groom: I never had one.
I don’t wear scarves.
The Father: It’s true my eyes have grown dim,
my memory betrays me,
old age overpowers me.
But you guys I do remember clearly.
I won’t forget the three of you over the corpse of my son.
Groom: I’ve got brothers and relatives,
there are people who look like me.
You can’t come at night,
after a few years and shoot somebody.
People don’t kill just like that.
The Father: Yes, sometimes it dies down.
I say to myself:
There’s everyday life.
But it comes back to me
that night in the cellar.
The corpse, over it three
living soldiers,
one of them is you.
(Puts the gun to his temple)
You want to live?
Groom: Very much. I want to live very much.
The Father: Tell me who killed him.
Tell me who stuck the knife in his back.
But more than anything I want to know what were his last words.
Groom: How can I tell you? I’ll make up something so you’ll be satisfied?
There’s a mistake. Look at me: I myself am almost a boy, tonight I got married,
you caught me in the middle of making love with my bride.
The Father: Who doesn’t want to make love, who doesn’t want to get married,
who doesn’t want wine, music?
Who, after he murdered, doesn’t want to cultivate his garden and caress the heads of his children?
Bride: He wasn’t there.
That’s my bridegroom.
He tells the truth.
I wouldn’t love him and be bound to him all my life
if he didn’t tell the truth.
I didn’t know your dead son and I don’t know what this is about.
I only know that tonight is the night I’ve waited for --
what right do you have to come and disturb it?
What right do you have to aim a gun in the middle of the night at somebody,
on the basis of your deluded memory?
Who are you to destroy our lives?
The Father: You talk nice, and the sound of your voice is charming. I’m tempted to believe you. It’s easy to convince on such a sweet night,and the moon and the sea and the wedding, and above all -- your body.
I’m losing my confidence in my memory, in my eyes,
and yet I know that if I leave here now,
in another hour, tomorrow, a year --
I’ll be sorry I didn’t kill him.
Understand: I’m not alone.
I carry my son on my back.
Groom: Then nothing will help me.
You’ll kill me no matter what.
The Father: Yes, yes, I”ll kill.
And if not for your eyes looking at me like that, I would have killed already.
It will take another minute, because of the eyes, but I will kill.
Groom: (To the Bride)
When I was a boy, I wrote poems.
I want to recite the last poem
that I dedicated to you.
The Father: Why don’t you shout for help?
Bride: I don’t believe you’ll shoot him.
Groom: (Recites)
I would like to sing you the absolute song about everything.
About the whole world,about the mountain and the wind,
about what exists,and about what changes --
in a word,
in a syllable,
Ah-ah-a-a-a-a.
(The Father shoots him in the head. The Groom falls. The Bride shouts. The Father jumps and stops her mouth)
The Father: And you, shut up!
I see that I have to kill you too!
Bride: Don’t kill me!...
I haven’t done anything!...
I beg you:
I want to live!...
Tomorrow morning we planned to travel for two weeks with another couple of friends...
my older sister already has a baby...
I’m only eighteen years old and I haven’t done anything yet...
I haven’t had time to mistreat anybody...
once I slapped my little brother,
he cried and so did I...
once I fought with a girlfriend...
once I left a boyfriend who loved me...
more than that I haven’t done...
tonight I got married...
I’m still a virgin...
there are still pleasures I haven’t known...
And I haven’t even been abroad...
My whole life is ahead of me,
and it’s not fair for you to rob me...
(Chokes, trembles with fear)
I won’t tell anybody who you are...
go away...I didn’t see you...
I’ll never recognize you...
I’m begging...here I am
kissing your shoes...
(Crawls to his feet, kisses his shoes, he grabs her face)
The Father: How long it’s been since I touched a woman.
(He holds her face as she sobs quietly)
Bride: You killed the man who was dearer to me than anybody.
You just killed.
If you knew how innocent he was.
He never even slept with a woman.
How could he have killed?
We had a moment of pleasure,
such a lovely start.
The Father: I’ll never quench this thirst: to kill.
(Clasps her in his arms)
Bride: Take pity on me! Please!
The Father: I came to disturb the peace.
Wherever I see it,
I’ll destroy it.
(Knocks her down and lies on top of her)
Bride: No!...No!...
The Father: Understand: I don’t give a damn
about brides and grooms,
and little babies and mothers,
and life altogether.
I don’t give a damn about nature,
and its wonderful landscapes.
The world pains me,
peace wounds my rest.
You cry and your tears tempt me.
Bride: No!...No!...
Please!...
(The Father rapes her. At first she resists. Her resistance subsides. The Father finishes and gets up. She continues lying, whimpering softly like a baby)
The Father: Why do your eyes keep staring at me?
Why don’t you scream?
Why don’t you get up and run away?
(The Bride lies still on her back, groaning softly)
You’re breaking my heart,
my girl. My boy.
My children.
(Aims the gun at her face. She whispers, almost swoons)
Bride: Why?...Why?...
The Father: “Why.” We’re long past the question “why.”
The question “why” shouldn’t be asked.
The question “why” belongs to other times.
(He shoots her in the face and exits. Enter the Girl, on her way back to the party. She comes on the two corpses, looks at them with her mouth gaping open, runs out, comes back with the Father of the Groom and other guests)
Father of the Groom:What...what...what...
How!...How!...
I don’t believe
what my eyes see!
I can’t digest it!
What...what...what...
What my eyes see, it’s not true!
Guest: Give him some water, and then give him some time.
To digest facts like these takes time.
Father of the Groom:My son is murdered at his wedding?
My son and daughter-in-law at their wedding?
How?! Who?! What for?!
Why did they kill my innocent children
on the day of their happiness?!
Guest: Give a man time to digest the death of his dear ones.
Give him time for shock..
Then give him time to collapse.
Then give him time for mourning,
for breaking down, for shrivelling with grief,
for the endless crushing of his heart.
The Father: (Shouts)
They murdered my children!
The earth is quaking!
They murdered my children!
Guest: (Quietly, to himself)
Give him time.
The earth seems to be quaking,
but not really.
The earth is quiet,
and the night is clear and calm.
END OF ACT TWO
MURDER/by Hanoch Levin（ACT 1）
MURDER
A Play in Three Acts and an Epilogue
by Hanoch Levin
Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav
ACT ONE
(Boy’s house. Boy. Three soldiers. The Boy is wounded all over. Twitches. Finally falls silent)
Pale Soldier: He dead or just...?
Flushed Soldier: Dead.
Pale Soldier: ‘Cause if he’s not dead...
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead, it’s checked out.
Pale Soldier: I never saw a dead person.
Flushed Soldier: Finally you did.
Tanned Soldier: (Hums to himself)
A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles,
between your balls it twines and tickles.
Boy: (Mumbles)
Have pity on me!...
Pale Soldier: He’s alive!
Flushed Soldier: See him as dead.
Boy: I want Papa!...
He’ll take me to the doctor!...
Tanned Soldier: A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles,
between your balls it twines and tickles
Boy: Have pity on me!
I want Papa!...
Pale Soldier: I can’t listen to any more of that begging!
Flushed Soldier: Really how much can you take?
What’s the big deal he’s begging for.
Garbage all around and this guy’s gurgling “Papa.”
Pale Soldier: Let’s go, we’ve got nothing to do here.
We won’t hear him.
Flushed Soldier: You’ve got something there. He’s a big boy,
he can die all by himself.
Tanned Soldier: Down deep inside he’s a boy who still needs a banana.
Flushed Soldier: They didn’t supply us with bananas.
Where’ll we get him a banana?
Tanned Soldier: (Points his toe at the boy’s crotch)
Pick him a banana and put it in his mouth.
Flushed Soldier: (To Pale Soldier)
Pick him a banana and put it in his mouth.
Pale Soldier: (Fascinated by the boy, looks at him as if hypnotized)
God Almighty, we really can do anything!
(Bends over the boy, touches him gingerly)
I’m touching him and he lets me.
No protest, no revolt,
Like his flesh isn’t his anymore.
I don’t understand it.
Still a human being and not anymore.
I don’t understand it.
You can do anything to him, anything!
Tanned Soldier: The world’s a big place.
Flushed Soldier: [The world’s outside, the brain’s inside --]
No limit to the possibilities.
(Bends over the boy and quickly takes down his pants. The Tanned Soldier pulls out a knife and also bends over. The Boy’s Father enters, stands in the door)
The Father: Anybody seen my boy?
(The Soldiers get up off the boy’s corpse, the Tanned Soldier hides his knife)
Flushed Soldier: You mean this?
The Father: I don’t know.
I can’t see from here.
I’m afraid that will be him.
What will I do if it is him?
(Approaches the body, recognizes his son)
Oh!...
(Sinks down on the body, groans)
Oh, boy, boy, what can I do!...
(Falls silent. Lifts his eyes to the Soldiers)
I think he needs a doctor.
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead.
The Father: Dead? My boy—and death?
Get up, boy! Boy, get up!
Boy, open your eyes it’s your father, boy!
Boy, say something!
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead.
Pale Soldier It’s checked out.
The Father: (Is silent a moment over the boy’s corpse, raises his eyes to the Soldiers)
Why?
Flushed Soldier: There is no why here.
You understand yourself.
We came here to make a search,
he resisted.
We tried to calm him down.
He didn’t calm down,
he cursed and hit.
All of a sudden he pulled out a knife.
There was a struggle, he fell.
In the end, he died.
The Father: This eye of his...
Flushed Soldier: There was a struggle.
The Father: The eye is outside. It’s gouged out.
Somebody stabbed him in the eye.
Flushed Soldier: Somebody stabbed him in the eye?
The Father: How can you stab a person in the eye?
Everybody knows what an eye is.
If a grain of dust gets in,
the eye can’t stand it,
and here...
Flushed Soldier: In the heat of the struggle, maybe.
The Father: How can the hand gouge out an eye?
Flushed Soldier: In the heat of the struggle, I’m telling you.
It couldn’t be foreseen.
Knives were pulled out, he fell
with the eye on a knife.
The Father: Look what you did to my boy.
Look at his face.
How could you ruin a boy such a beautiful boy.
Everybody loved him!
(Turns him over)
And here he’s stabbed in the back.
Somebody stabbed him in the back when he didn’t see.
Somebody hit him from behind and smashed his head.
There isn’t a place you didn’t hit.
Flushed Soldier: He went wild, and we’re not experienced.
The Father: You’re soldiers. There were three of you.
Three soldiers can stop a boy going wild.
Flushed Soldier: Yes, after the fact, when you think about it,
it could have been this or maybe that.
But in the reality of battle things happen.
The Father: (Again bends over the boy’s corpse)
Somebody burned his upper lip with a cigarette.
Somebody hurt him very much before he died.
The upper lip, everybody knows how much it hurts there.
Did you forget, or what?
I don’t understand it.
(Gets up and stands facing the Tanned Soldier, who begins to hum)
Tanned Soldier: A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles, Between your balls it twines and tickles...
The Father: (Turns his face to the Pale Soldier)
A boy. You’re only a boy, too.
Pale Soldier: Look, man, there was a mistake, but understand us,you’re right, I’m a boy too,it’s night, everybody’s groggy,the conditions aren’t right,normal men are sleeping,normal men are hugging a woman,night isn’t meant for searches.
The Father: Look how much he looks like all of you.
What you wanted—
he also wanted:
air to breathe, a little love,
that nobody should spit in his face.
Even the funny hair poking up from his eyebrow,
you’ve got one like that too.
Flushed Soldier: Go, bury him.
What’s done is done. Enough.
Don’t nudge us. He’s your boy,
but he’s dead.
You must have others,
or will have others.
The world’s full of children.
Pale Soldier: If you please, be a man.
You’re crazy with grief,
but it doesn’t work that way.
He’s dead. Dead.
The Father: Look how much he looks like you!
Tanned Soldier: (Becomes furious, grabs him by the throat)
Get him out of here and bury him!
Flushed Soldier: (Pulls the Tanned Soldier away from the The Father)
Shut up!
Tanned Soldier: (Doesn’t calm down)
You lost a son and you’re whining!
Learn to stoop!
Get him out of here and bury him!
Flushed Soldier: Shut up!
The Father: You’re got power now and all I have left is to obey.
Flushed Soldier: Yes, obey.
And when peace comes someday,
we’ll be neighbors and we’ll come visit.
We’ll meet at memorial services and things like that. Finally we’ll become friends.
(He pushes aside the Tanned Soldier, who whispers to him)
Tanned Soldier: Talk to him, while I go around him from behind.
Flushed Soldier: (Puts a hand on the The Father’s shoulder as the Tanned Soldier goes around him)
When I look in your eyes,
I can definitely identify with you.
I’m trying to imagine:
My father is standing here,
and I’m at his feet, dead.
The Father: You’re going to kill me,
but I don’t care.
Death will be a relief to me.
Flushed Soldier: We don’t kill old men,
and we don’t stick knives in backs.
(The Tanned Soldier brandishes his knife over the Father. Enter the Messenger)
Messenger: The time of murder is over.
The time of murder is over.
The furious rage has come to an end,
winds of reconciliation are blowing,
the time of murder is finished.
People look at the bad times
and ask: How could we?
How was that possible?
Our children will not understand,
our grandchildren will laugh,
our great-grandchildren will not know
what it’s about.
They will study history
with a shrug.
With a smile of waking
from a deep sleep,
people say to one another: Peace.
(Exits)
Soldiers: Peace, peace.
Tanned Soldier (Quietly)
Landed all of a sudden sooner than we thought,
grabbed us by the balls, that peace.
The Father: Peace?
You say “Peace,”
and wound my heart.
If it’s peace, why is it an hour late?
And if it’s late and my son is already dead,
what good is peace to me?
No, the word “peace” pains me.
I hear cheers, and they stab me.
I hear laughter, and I drop my face
into my hands and weep.
I lost my son.
Those aren’t just words:
“my son,” “I lost.”
That was my son,
you killed him,
how will I ever have peace?
I would like all fathers
to lose their sons,
so I wouldn’t see a smile on any lips,
and the word “joy” will vanish.
Flushed Soldier: Nevertheless, peace unto you.
(Hugs him)
You’re our brother. You’re our father.
You were our enemy, and from now on—
our brother and our father.
Tanned Soldier: (Holds out his hand)
The circumstances were different.
Everyone who judges us has to understand:
the circumstances were different.
Pale Soldier: (Stands before him without hugging him)
I’m not telling you to forgive me.
I’m not asking you to forget.
I’m not telling you anything.
(He turns away from him. The three Soldiers walk to the side)
Flushed Soldier: What’re the plans?
Tanned Soldier: Steak with all the trimmings.
Flushed Soldier: IdiotI Why do you need steak?
Two blocks away there’s a luncheonette with fresh rolls and tuna salad.
They slice up fresh vegetables for you with onion and virgin olive oil,
you sit on the balcony with fresh air, you look out over the sea...
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about. How much is it?
Flushed Soldier: Anyway, less than steak.
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about.
Flushed Soldier: And why do you need fried foods and all that anyway?
You eat a fresh tuna salad,
with fresh vegetables and virgin olive oil,
everything’s healthy, fresh air...
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about.
(The three Soldiers turn to leave)
The Father: Wait. Just a minute.
There’s one more thing you didn’t mention.
His pants are down,
and there’s a cut here that somebody started around his penis.
I won’t ask who did it, or what for.
You won’t be able to answer“in the heat of the struggle.”
That’s a cut that they started when he was already lying unconscious or dead.
I won’t ask what for.
I only want to ask what were his last words.
Flushed Soldier: We told you: he cursed when he tried to struggle.
So that’s why it happened.
The Father: But his real last words, after he was lying flat,give me his last words.
Flushed Soldier: He cursed.
The Father: And then?
Flushed Soldier: And then he died.
(To the Tanned Soldier)
No?
Tanned Soldier: Absolutely. He died.
(The Soldiers exit. The Father lies down on top of the Boy’s corpse)
The Father: You left me with the corpse.
Now the pain starts.
When the turmoil dies down,
and you’re left alone: you and the corpse.
He and you. And afterward—
you and the grave.
You and the ghost slipping away from you, but it doesn’t relent,
it demands its own, demands all of you.
And it’s right, my son,
that from now on, I’m not my own master.
You rule me from now on until the day I die.
(Enter The Officer)
The Officer: Who murdered him?
The Father: Soldiers, sir.
The Officer: And who are you?
The Father: His father.
The Officer: You saw who killed him?
The Father: No, sir. I came in
when the room was empty.
I saw them going away.
The Officer: Take the corpse and bury it
without any noise or fuss.
We won’t allow demonstrations.
The Father: Before, you didn’t allow demonstrations because of the war.
The Officer: Right. And now because of the peace.
We’re generally in favor of quiet.
The Father: Yes, sir.
My son is quiet and I am quiet.
From now on, quiet will reign here.
(Hoists the Boy’s corpse on his back and exits with it)
END OF ACT ONE
A Play in Three Acts and an Epilogue
by Hanoch Levin
Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav
ACT ONE
(Boy’s house. Boy. Three soldiers. The Boy is wounded all over. Twitches. Finally falls silent)
Pale Soldier: He dead or just...?
Flushed Soldier: Dead.
Pale Soldier: ‘Cause if he’s not dead...
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead, it’s checked out.
Pale Soldier: I never saw a dead person.
Flushed Soldier: Finally you did.
Tanned Soldier: (Hums to himself)
A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles,
between your balls it twines and tickles.
Boy: (Mumbles)
Have pity on me!...
Pale Soldier: He’s alive!
Flushed Soldier: See him as dead.
Boy: I want Papa!...
He’ll take me to the doctor!...
Tanned Soldier: A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles,
between your balls it twines and tickles
Boy: Have pity on me!
I want Papa!...
Pale Soldier: I can’t listen to any more of that begging!
Flushed Soldier: Really how much can you take?
What’s the big deal he’s begging for.
Garbage all around and this guy’s gurgling “Papa.”
Pale Soldier: Let’s go, we’ve got nothing to do here.
We won’t hear him.
Flushed Soldier: You’ve got something there. He’s a big boy,
he can die all by himself.
Tanned Soldier: Down deep inside he’s a boy who still needs a banana.
Flushed Soldier: They didn’t supply us with bananas.
Where’ll we get him a banana?
Tanned Soldier: (Points his toe at the boy’s crotch)
Pick him a banana and put it in his mouth.
Flushed Soldier: (To Pale Soldier)
Pick him a banana and put it in his mouth.
Pale Soldier: (Fascinated by the boy, looks at him as if hypnotized)
God Almighty, we really can do anything!
(Bends over the boy, touches him gingerly)
I’m touching him and he lets me.
No protest, no revolt,
Like his flesh isn’t his anymore.
I don’t understand it.
Still a human being and not anymore.
I don’t understand it.
You can do anything to him, anything!
Tanned Soldier: The world’s a big place.
Flushed Soldier: [The world’s outside, the brain’s inside --]
No limit to the possibilities.
(Bends over the boy and quickly takes down his pants. The Tanned Soldier pulls out a knife and also bends over. The Boy’s Father enters, stands in the door)
The Father: Anybody seen my boy?
(The Soldiers get up off the boy’s corpse, the Tanned Soldier hides his knife)
Flushed Soldier: You mean this?
The Father: I don’t know.
I can’t see from here.
I’m afraid that will be him.
What will I do if it is him?
(Approaches the body, recognizes his son)
Oh!...
(Sinks down on the body, groans)
Oh, boy, boy, what can I do!...
(Falls silent. Lifts his eyes to the Soldiers)
I think he needs a doctor.
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead.
The Father: Dead? My boy—and death?
Get up, boy! Boy, get up!
Boy, open your eyes it’s your father, boy!
Boy, say something!
Flushed Soldier: He’s dead.
Pale Soldier It’s checked out.
The Father: (Is silent a moment over the boy’s corpse, raises his eyes to the Soldiers)
Why?
Flushed Soldier: There is no why here.
You understand yourself.
We came here to make a search,
he resisted.
We tried to calm him down.
He didn’t calm down,
he cursed and hit.
All of a sudden he pulled out a knife.
There was a struggle, he fell.
In the end, he died.
The Father: This eye of his...
Flushed Soldier: There was a struggle.
The Father: The eye is outside. It’s gouged out.
Somebody stabbed him in the eye.
Flushed Soldier: Somebody stabbed him in the eye?
The Father: How can you stab a person in the eye?
Everybody knows what an eye is.
If a grain of dust gets in,
the eye can’t stand it,
and here...
Flushed Soldier: In the heat of the struggle, maybe.
The Father: How can the hand gouge out an eye?
Flushed Soldier: In the heat of the struggle, I’m telling you.
It couldn’t be foreseen.
Knives were pulled out, he fell
with the eye on a knife.
The Father: Look what you did to my boy.
Look at his face.
How could you ruin a boy such a beautiful boy.
Everybody loved him!
(Turns him over)
And here he’s stabbed in the back.
Somebody stabbed him in the back when he didn’t see.
Somebody hit him from behind and smashed his head.
There isn’t a place you didn’t hit.
Flushed Soldier: He went wild, and we’re not experienced.
The Father: You’re soldiers. There were three of you.
Three soldiers can stop a boy going wild.
Flushed Soldier: Yes, after the fact, when you think about it,
it could have been this or maybe that.
But in the reality of battle things happen.
The Father: (Again bends over the boy’s corpse)
Somebody burned his upper lip with a cigarette.
Somebody hurt him very much before he died.
The upper lip, everybody knows how much it hurts there.
Did you forget, or what?
I don’t understand it.
(Gets up and stands facing the Tanned Soldier, who begins to hum)
Tanned Soldier: A merry shit ‘mid thorns and prickles, Between your balls it twines and tickles...
The Father: (Turns his face to the Pale Soldier)
A boy. You’re only a boy, too.
Pale Soldier: Look, man, there was a mistake, but understand us,you’re right, I’m a boy too,it’s night, everybody’s groggy,the conditions aren’t right,normal men are sleeping,normal men are hugging a woman,night isn’t meant for searches.
The Father: Look how much he looks like all of you.
What you wanted—
he also wanted:
air to breathe, a little love,
that nobody should spit in his face.
Even the funny hair poking up from his eyebrow,
you’ve got one like that too.
Flushed Soldier: Go, bury him.
What’s done is done. Enough.
Don’t nudge us. He’s your boy,
but he’s dead.
You must have others,
or will have others.
The world’s full of children.
Pale Soldier: If you please, be a man.
You’re crazy with grief,
but it doesn’t work that way.
He’s dead. Dead.
The Father: Look how much he looks like you!
Tanned Soldier: (Becomes furious, grabs him by the throat)
Get him out of here and bury him!
Flushed Soldier: (Pulls the Tanned Soldier away from the The Father)
Shut up!
Tanned Soldier: (Doesn’t calm down)
You lost a son and you’re whining!
Learn to stoop!
Get him out of here and bury him!
Flushed Soldier: Shut up!
The Father: You’re got power now and all I have left is to obey.
Flushed Soldier: Yes, obey.
And when peace comes someday,
we’ll be neighbors and we’ll come visit.
We’ll meet at memorial services and things like that. Finally we’ll become friends.
(He pushes aside the Tanned Soldier, who whispers to him)
Tanned Soldier: Talk to him, while I go around him from behind.
Flushed Soldier: (Puts a hand on the The Father’s shoulder as the Tanned Soldier goes around him)
When I look in your eyes,
I can definitely identify with you.
I’m trying to imagine:
My father is standing here,
and I’m at his feet, dead.
The Father: You’re going to kill me,
but I don’t care.
Death will be a relief to me.
Flushed Soldier: We don’t kill old men,
and we don’t stick knives in backs.
(The Tanned Soldier brandishes his knife over the Father. Enter the Messenger)
Messenger: The time of murder is over.
The time of murder is over.
The furious rage has come to an end,
winds of reconciliation are blowing,
the time of murder is finished.
People look at the bad times
and ask: How could we?
How was that possible?
Our children will not understand,
our grandchildren will laugh,
our great-grandchildren will not know
what it’s about.
They will study history
with a shrug.
With a smile of waking
from a deep sleep,
people say to one another: Peace.
(Exits)
Soldiers: Peace, peace.
Tanned Soldier (Quietly)
Landed all of a sudden sooner than we thought,
grabbed us by the balls, that peace.
The Father: Peace?
You say “Peace,”
and wound my heart.
If it’s peace, why is it an hour late?
And if it’s late and my son is already dead,
what good is peace to me?
No, the word “peace” pains me.
I hear cheers, and they stab me.
I hear laughter, and I drop my face
into my hands and weep.
I lost my son.
Those aren’t just words:
“my son,” “I lost.”
That was my son,
you killed him,
how will I ever have peace?
I would like all fathers
to lose their sons,
so I wouldn’t see a smile on any lips,
and the word “joy” will vanish.
Flushed Soldier: Nevertheless, peace unto you.
(Hugs him)
You’re our brother. You’re our father.
You were our enemy, and from now on—
our brother and our father.
Tanned Soldier: (Holds out his hand)
The circumstances were different.
Everyone who judges us has to understand:
the circumstances were different.
Pale Soldier: (Stands before him without hugging him)
I’m not telling you to forgive me.
I’m not asking you to forget.
I’m not telling you anything.
(He turns away from him. The three Soldiers walk to the side)
Flushed Soldier: What’re the plans?
Tanned Soldier: Steak with all the trimmings.
Flushed Soldier: IdiotI Why do you need steak?
Two blocks away there’s a luncheonette with fresh rolls and tuna salad.
They slice up fresh vegetables for you with onion and virgin olive oil,
you sit on the balcony with fresh air, you look out over the sea...
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about. How much is it?
Flushed Soldier: Anyway, less than steak.
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about.
Flushed Soldier: And why do you need fried foods and all that anyway?
You eat a fresh tuna salad,
with fresh vegetables and virgin olive oil,
everything’s healthy, fresh air...
Tanned Soldier: Something to think about.
(The three Soldiers turn to leave)
The Father: Wait. Just a minute.
There’s one more thing you didn’t mention.
His pants are down,
and there’s a cut here that somebody started around his penis.
I won’t ask who did it, or what for.
You won’t be able to answer“in the heat of the struggle.”
That’s a cut that they started when he was already lying unconscious or dead.
I won’t ask what for.
I only want to ask what were his last words.
Flushed Soldier: We told you: he cursed when he tried to struggle.
So that’s why it happened.
The Father: But his real last words, after he was lying flat,give me his last words.
Flushed Soldier: He cursed.
The Father: And then?
Flushed Soldier: And then he died.
(To the Tanned Soldier)
No?
Tanned Soldier: Absolutely. He died.
(The Soldiers exit. The Father lies down on top of the Boy’s corpse)
The Father: You left me with the corpse.
Now the pain starts.
When the turmoil dies down,
and you’re left alone: you and the corpse.
He and you. And afterward—
you and the grave.
You and the ghost slipping away from you, but it doesn’t relent,
it demands its own, demands all of you.
And it’s right, my son,
that from now on, I’m not my own master.
You rule me from now on until the day I die.
(Enter The Officer)
The Officer: Who murdered him?
The Father: Soldiers, sir.
The Officer: And who are you?
The Father: His father.
The Officer: You saw who killed him?
The Father: No, sir. I came in
when the room was empty.
I saw them going away.
The Officer: Take the corpse and bury it
without any noise or fuss.
We won’t allow demonstrations.
The Father: Before, you didn’t allow demonstrations because of the war.
The Officer: Right. And now because of the peace.
We’re generally in favor of quiet.
The Father: Yes, sir.
My son is quiet and I am quiet.
From now on, quiet will reign here.
(Hoists the Boy’s corpse on his back and exits with it)
END OF ACT ONE
Mar 15, 2009
Arab character's evolve in Israeli drama
The play Chaim(a community play written for Kibbutz Tel Amal), by Menachem Badar (1942), comprises a series of scenes running through the mind of its dying hero who has been shot by an Arab. In the play, the European oppressor, and in particular to the Arab, who objects to ploughing the land at Tel-Shuk. Facing the European oppressor and against the aggressive Arab stands the exemplary figure of Zionism.
Later, from the standpoint of ‘native-born’ playwrights, the‘Arab question’ almost didn’t exist and one could define it as concealed. The only play with an Arab figure – They’ll Arrive Tomorrow – by Natan Shacham (1950), in which an Arab is murdered on stage, was ‘rectified’ in a later version and the presence of the Arab characters was removed.
The sketch ‘Samatocha’ in Levin's The Queen of Bathtub (1970) created a new prototype of Arab character in Israel drama. Samatocha the Arab is a waiter and dishwasher at an Israeli cafe. He is 'smart and obedient and doesn't harm the Jews. The Jews know that Samatocha won't plant any bombs and is not a terrorist, and they are complacent with their own image: they are not primitive types who cannot distinguish between a bomb-planting Arab and a harmless one; and they let him get back to the kitchen to wash the dishes. The dependence upon the Arab, due to his willingness to work at menial jobs, is what saves Samatocha from clashes: 'Don't hurt the Arab, there's a pile of dirty cups in the kitchen' .
The sketch presents for the first time on an Israeli stage the economic exploitation of the Arabs that took place when the restrictions imposed by the military government were lifted and they were able to enter the Israeli labour-market and find employment in jobs at which Israeli Jews were unwilling to work.
The Queen of Bathtub aroused criticism and even controversy, apparently expressing concern over a split in the Jewish-Zionist consensus regarding 'The Arab Question', which had lost its status in Israeli cultural concepts - and in a public theatre.
Towards the end of the 1980s, women playwrights have begun to gain a place in mainstream theatre. Kainy designed a different image for her female characters, she challenged the centrality of the Israeli man in the theatrical narrative, introducing the Arab male as a potent rival to the Jewish-Israeli male (who is portrayed as suffering from impotence). Alona and Ayala, respectively, in Kainy’s plays The Return (1973, 1975) and Like A Bullet in the Head (1981), prefer the Arab to the Jew. The choice of an Arab is not coincidental, but rather a demonstrative act, since the Arab man is seen as the polar opposite of the Jewish-Israeli male on the map of Jewish-Israeli culture.
Later, from the standpoint of ‘native-born’ playwrights, the‘Arab question’ almost didn’t exist and one could define it as concealed. The only play with an Arab figure – They’ll Arrive Tomorrow – by Natan Shacham (1950), in which an Arab is murdered on stage, was ‘rectified’ in a later version and the presence of the Arab characters was removed.
The sketch ‘Samatocha’ in Levin's The Queen of Bathtub (1970) created a new prototype of Arab character in Israel drama. Samatocha the Arab is a waiter and dishwasher at an Israeli cafe. He is 'smart and obedient and doesn't harm the Jews. The Jews know that Samatocha won't plant any bombs and is not a terrorist, and they are complacent with their own image: they are not primitive types who cannot distinguish between a bomb-planting Arab and a harmless one; and they let him get back to the kitchen to wash the dishes. The dependence upon the Arab, due to his willingness to work at menial jobs, is what saves Samatocha from clashes: 'Don't hurt the Arab, there's a pile of dirty cups in the kitchen' .
The sketch presents for the first time on an Israeli stage the economic exploitation of the Arabs that took place when the restrictions imposed by the military government were lifted and they were able to enter the Israeli labour-market and find employment in jobs at which Israeli Jews were unwilling to work.
The Queen of Bathtub aroused criticism and even controversy, apparently expressing concern over a split in the Jewish-Zionist consensus regarding 'The Arab Question', which had lost its status in Israeli cultural concepts - and in a public theatre.
Towards the end of the 1980s, women playwrights have begun to gain a place in mainstream theatre. Kainy designed a different image for her female characters, she challenged the centrality of the Israeli man in the theatrical narrative, introducing the Arab male as a potent rival to the Jewish-Israeli male (who is portrayed as suffering from impotence). Alona and Ayala, respectively, in Kainy’s plays The Return (1973, 1975) and Like A Bullet in the Head (1981), prefer the Arab to the Jew. The choice of an Arab is not coincidental, but rather a demonstrative act, since the Arab man is seen as the polar opposite of the Jewish-Israeli male on the map of Jewish-Israeli culture.
about Hebrew Drama History
1. The rebirth of the Hebrew theatre, When and why?
The rebirth of the professional Hebrew theatre which included both written and performed drama staged during the period of Settlement(1882-1948),served the purposes of secular Zionism. The rebirth of Hebrew theatre accompanied with the rebirth of the Hebrew language in Palestine and the Diaspora. Before that time, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Hebrew was not a "living" language, and Hebrew drama was a literary rather than theatrical issue. At the beginning of the 20th, a new generation of writers arose, laying the foundations for a new era in Hebrew theatre, which was launched in 1918 with the establishment in Moscow of "Habima". The rebirth of Hebrew theatre was as part of the general renaissance of the Hebrew culture.
2. What were the themes it dealt with? Who is the main protagonist? What was the ideology behind these plays?
Throughout this period the Hebrew stage and a great portion of its repertoire were committed to adapting Hebrew as an ideological artistic language and element in the process of creating the Hebrew settlement. Many plays about the renewal of the Hebrew settlement and its symbols were written and presented on school and community stages, with most aimed at reinforcing the nationalist awareness of their creators and audiences.
Almost 80 plays about "life in the Land of Israel" were published before 1948, and an even greater number were staged although never published. A lively dramatic activity was carried on, harnessed to the purposed of promoting the Zionist ethos.
Chaim by Menachem Badar (1942), is an exemplary play in that it incorporates many elements characteristic of other plays of the period.
3. Who are the Dor ba'aretz writers and what typifies them?
Dor ba-haretz means‘a-generation-born-on-the-land’writers, who wrote plays after the War of Independence (1948) and establishment of the State of Israel. They are the second generation, the ‘sabra generation’, the children of those who had immigrated to the Land of Israel before establishment of the State, and the children of refugees from the holocaust. They were Hebrew-speakers who had been educated according to the halutz idealist-Zionist pioneering ethos. Most were members of youth movements, who volunteered to realize this ethos through settlement on the land and who fought in the War of Independence.
Among the works of the first ‘native-born’ generation of playwrights (Yigal Mossinson (1917- 1994), Moshe Shamir (1921-2004), Natan Shacham (b.1925), Aharon Meged (b.1920) and others, the stalwart tie of sabra youth to the group and to the Land of Israel is portrayed as indigenous culture.
4. How was the question of Ashkenazim and Sephardim dealt with up to and after the 1960's?
Until the middle of the 1960s the Ashkenazim (Jews from Europe) perceived the Mizrahim (Jews from Arab countries) as inferior and socially threatening, and pressurized them to assimilate into the Ashkenazi hegemonic culture.
Towards the end of the 1960s, as a reaction to the cultural change undergone by the Mizrahim, their increasing protest, and the influence of the ethnic pluralism prevalent in the U.S., the Ashkenazi standpoint became somewhat moderated. These changes are represented in the play Kazablan by Yigal Mossinsohn.
The rebirth of the professional Hebrew theatre which included both written and performed drama staged during the period of Settlement(1882-1948),served the purposes of secular Zionism. The rebirth of Hebrew theatre accompanied with the rebirth of the Hebrew language in Palestine and the Diaspora. Before that time, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Hebrew was not a "living" language, and Hebrew drama was a literary rather than theatrical issue. At the beginning of the 20th, a new generation of writers arose, laying the foundations for a new era in Hebrew theatre, which was launched in 1918 with the establishment in Moscow of "Habima". The rebirth of Hebrew theatre was as part of the general renaissance of the Hebrew culture.
2. What were the themes it dealt with? Who is the main protagonist? What was the ideology behind these plays?
Throughout this period the Hebrew stage and a great portion of its repertoire were committed to adapting Hebrew as an ideological artistic language and element in the process of creating the Hebrew settlement. Many plays about the renewal of the Hebrew settlement and its symbols were written and presented on school and community stages, with most aimed at reinforcing the nationalist awareness of their creators and audiences.
Almost 80 plays about "life in the Land of Israel" were published before 1948, and an even greater number were staged although never published. A lively dramatic activity was carried on, harnessed to the purposed of promoting the Zionist ethos.
Chaim by Menachem Badar (1942), is an exemplary play in that it incorporates many elements characteristic of other plays of the period.
3. Who are the Dor ba'aretz writers and what typifies them?
Dor ba-haretz means‘a-generation-born-on-the-land’writers, who wrote plays after the War of Independence (1948) and establishment of the State of Israel. They are the second generation, the ‘sabra generation’, the children of those who had immigrated to the Land of Israel before establishment of the State, and the children of refugees from the holocaust. They were Hebrew-speakers who had been educated according to the halutz idealist-Zionist pioneering ethos. Most were members of youth movements, who volunteered to realize this ethos through settlement on the land and who fought in the War of Independence.
Among the works of the first ‘native-born’ generation of playwrights (Yigal Mossinson (1917- 1994), Moshe Shamir (1921-2004), Natan Shacham (b.1925), Aharon Meged (b.1920) and others, the stalwart tie of sabra youth to the group and to the Land of Israel is portrayed as indigenous culture.
4. How was the question of Ashkenazim and Sephardim dealt with up to and after the 1960's?
Until the middle of the 1960s the Ashkenazim (Jews from Europe) perceived the Mizrahim (Jews from Arab countries) as inferior and socially threatening, and pressurized them to assimilate into the Ashkenazi hegemonic culture.
Towards the end of the 1960s, as a reaction to the cultural change undergone by the Mizrahim, their increasing protest, and the influence of the ethnic pluralism prevalent in the U.S., the Ashkenazi standpoint became somewhat moderated. These changes are represented in the play Kazablan by Yigal Mossinsohn.
Mar 13, 2009
Prophets
In Qur'an, the stories of prophets are more or less the same with which in Bible. In a Muslim's view, this doesn't mean Qur'an copied the holly Bible. Because they are the some prophets, same stories--which God first told in Torah, then in Bible, at last in Qur'an. God needed to tell them several times for humans to remember.
Prophets' two missions:
1. announce the uniqueness of God (Mubashshir)
2. to threaten you: either become a believer or take a risk--risk the punishment from God (Nadhir)
Prophets' two missions:
1. announce the uniqueness of God (Mubashshir)
2. to threaten you: either become a believer or take a risk--risk the punishment from God (Nadhir)
the Meaning of "Islam"
What did Muhammad Mean When He Called his Religion "Islam"?
The Original Meaning of Aslama and its Derivatives
by D.Z.H. Baneth
The sufficient existing explanations of Islam(including some far-fetched):
1. the so-called false prophet;
2. meaning of salvation;
3. covenant between God and man;
4. defiance of death, self-sacrifice(for the sake of God and his prophet).
The root s l m not only in the Qur'an, but also in the Hadith, in Old Arabic poetry and other ancient Arabic sources.
aslama means "to give oneself entirely to God"( Professor Ringgren) , so when you give something to somebody entirely, you give it to him exclusively.
The fundamental change required by Muhammad was the abandonment of polytheism, to serve one god only, the god which they already previously known under the name Allah.
What's the Muhammad conception of polytheism, is that people served other gods in addition to Allah and acknowledged them as partners to him. So the word Islam is a signification that expresses the opposite idea.
Conclusion:
The word from the root s l m, means "belonging to one only" or "exclusive property of one"; "to belong to, or to seve, Allah alone".
The Original Meaning of Aslama and its Derivatives
by D.Z.H. Baneth
The sufficient existing explanations of Islam(including some far-fetched):
1. the so-called false prophet;
2. meaning of salvation;
3. covenant between God and man;
4. defiance of death, self-sacrifice(for the sake of God and his prophet).
The root s l m not only in the Qur'an, but also in the Hadith, in Old Arabic poetry and other ancient Arabic sources.
aslama means "to give oneself entirely to God"( Professor Ringgren) , so when you give something to somebody entirely, you give it to him exclusively.
The fundamental change required by Muhammad was the abandonment of polytheism, to serve one god only, the god which they already previously known under the name Allah.
What's the Muhammad conception of polytheism, is that people served other gods in addition to Allah and acknowledged them as partners to him. So the word Islam is a signification that expresses the opposite idea.
Conclusion:
The word from the root s l m, means "belonging to one only" or "exclusive property of one"; "to belong to, or to seve, Allah alone".
Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion
Here are some notes from Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion, by Joseph Henninger
To describe the religion of pre-Islamic Arabia, and especially the pre-Islamic Bedouin religion, is no less than portraying ancient Bedouin society, because of serious lacunae in documentation. Since the classical and biblical references were too few and the cuneiform inscriptions still unknown, it was impossible to consider undertaking such a project before the Arabic sources became at least partially accessible in the West. Information on pre-Islamic Arabia is to be found for the most part in works by Muslim histoians, traditionists, and jurists, which did not come to the attention of Christian Europe until the Renaissance, and then only gradually.
Arab and Bedouin Religion
It's necessary to give a purely descriptive of pre-Islamic Bedouin religion as we are able to oberve it immediately prior to the rise of Islam.
research difficulties:
1. a large number of inferences by which the authors have attempted to compensate for the lacunae in the existing data;
2. great difficulty distinguishing clearly between the religious practices of the nomads and those of the settled people(sedentary communities), for many of the tribes were partly nomadic, partly settled. The religious practices of pre-Islamic Arabia has to do primarily with the cultic centers located at oases, to which the Bedouins came as pilgrims, associating themselves with the religious practices of the settled groups.
two tendencies:
1. Bedouin's gods were borrowed from more advanced civilizations;
2. Nomads represent a more primitive form of Semitic religion, which considers the Bedouin religion to be older than that of the settled peoples.
Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion
religious indifference of the Bedouins?
--Incomparison with South Arabia where a very large body of data bears directly on the religious life. Bedouin were never particularly zealous in the practice of Islam, which is not surprising in view of the fact that Islam is markedly urban in character. Nevertheless, to conclude from this a total absence of religious sentiment is to go too far. See some expressions of Bedouin religion:
1. sacred stones--fetishism
the material object is not venerated for itself but rather as the dwelling of either a personal being(god, spirit) or a force.
2. the collective and anonymous phenomenon of the jinn.
3. the existence of a cult of ancestors.
4. local divinities.
5. astral divinities were in South Arabia, not central Arabia.
6. the final divinity to be considered is Allah who was recognized before Islam as god, and if not as the only god at least as a supreme god.
Practices of the pre-Islamic cult:
1. Prayer does not seem to have been very important. More frequently mentioned are the sacrifices: bloody sacrifices.
2. How about cultic officials? The priests mentioned in the Arabic sources were not sacrificers but rather guardians of the sanctuaries, for each man was allowed to slaughter his own victim. The absence of a special class of priests recalls the primitive situation of the Semites and other shepherd nomads.
Conclusion
A. Brelich, 1958: one cannot speak of polytheism in proto-Semitic civilization, but one does find the belief in a supreme being, coupled with animism.
Writer of this paper: inclined to accept this formula, with a few slight modifications: one must attribute a little less importance to animism(belief in nature spirits), and emphasize ancestor worship a little more.
Here then are the elements of this religion: Allah, creator of the world, supreme and undisputed lord, but relegated to the background in the cultic and practical life of the people; next, manifesting the rudiments of a polytheism, several astral divinities(at least that of the planet Venus) and atmospheric divinities(perhaps the attributes of a creator god which have been hypostatized); finally, ancestors and jinn, these last having more importance in the belief system than in the cult. All of this, moreover, is somewhat vague and far from being organized into a real pantheon or hierarchical system. the cultic practices as well were characterized by very little ritual and in turn reflected the individualism of the Bedouin and the lack of rigidity in their entire social system.
Islam whicn followed this religion did not grow out of a void, nor was it of purely foreign origin. It was not a Bedouin religion, for its principal roots are to be found in the biblical religions; however, in Arabia it found not only human values but also religious values it could and did incorporate.
To describe the religion of pre-Islamic Arabia, and especially the pre-Islamic Bedouin religion, is no less than portraying ancient Bedouin society, because of serious lacunae in documentation. Since the classical and biblical references were too few and the cuneiform inscriptions still unknown, it was impossible to consider undertaking such a project before the Arabic sources became at least partially accessible in the West. Information on pre-Islamic Arabia is to be found for the most part in works by Muslim histoians, traditionists, and jurists, which did not come to the attention of Christian Europe until the Renaissance, and then only gradually.
Arab and Bedouin Religion
It's necessary to give a purely descriptive of pre-Islamic Bedouin religion as we are able to oberve it immediately prior to the rise of Islam.
research difficulties:
1. a large number of inferences by which the authors have attempted to compensate for the lacunae in the existing data;
2. great difficulty distinguishing clearly between the religious practices of the nomads and those of the settled people(sedentary communities), for many of the tribes were partly nomadic, partly settled. The religious practices of pre-Islamic Arabia has to do primarily with the cultic centers located at oases, to which the Bedouins came as pilgrims, associating themselves with the religious practices of the settled groups.
two tendencies:
1. Bedouin's gods were borrowed from more advanced civilizations;
2. Nomads represent a more primitive form of Semitic religion, which considers the Bedouin religion to be older than that of the settled peoples.
Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion
religious indifference of the Bedouins?
--Incomparison with South Arabia where a very large body of data bears directly on the religious life. Bedouin were never particularly zealous in the practice of Islam, which is not surprising in view of the fact that Islam is markedly urban in character. Nevertheless, to conclude from this a total absence of religious sentiment is to go too far. See some expressions of Bedouin religion:
1. sacred stones--fetishism
the material object is not venerated for itself but rather as the dwelling of either a personal being(god, spirit) or a force.
2. the collective and anonymous phenomenon of the jinn.
3. the existence of a cult of ancestors.
4. local divinities.
5. astral divinities were in South Arabia, not central Arabia.
6. the final divinity to be considered is Allah who was recognized before Islam as god, and if not as the only god at least as a supreme god.
Practices of the pre-Islamic cult:
1. Prayer does not seem to have been very important. More frequently mentioned are the sacrifices: bloody sacrifices.
2. How about cultic officials? The priests mentioned in the Arabic sources were not sacrificers but rather guardians of the sanctuaries, for each man was allowed to slaughter his own victim. The absence of a special class of priests recalls the primitive situation of the Semites and other shepherd nomads.
Conclusion
A. Brelich, 1958: one cannot speak of polytheism in proto-Semitic civilization, but one does find the belief in a supreme being, coupled with animism.
Writer of this paper: inclined to accept this formula, with a few slight modifications: one must attribute a little less importance to animism(belief in nature spirits), and emphasize ancestor worship a little more.
Here then are the elements of this religion: Allah, creator of the world, supreme and undisputed lord, but relegated to the background in the cultic and practical life of the people; next, manifesting the rudiments of a polytheism, several astral divinities(at least that of the planet Venus) and atmospheric divinities(perhaps the attributes of a creator god which have been hypostatized); finally, ancestors and jinn, these last having more importance in the belief system than in the cult. All of this, moreover, is somewhat vague and far from being organized into a real pantheon or hierarchical system. the cultic practices as well were characterized by very little ritual and in turn reflected the individualism of the Bedouin and the lack of rigidity in their entire social system.
Islam whicn followed this religion did not grow out of a void, nor was it of purely foreign origin. It was not a Bedouin religion, for its principal roots are to be found in the biblical religions; however, in Arabia it found not only human values but also religious values it could and did incorporate.
Mar 12, 2009
some terms of Islam(part 1)
wahy (Arabic: وحي waḥy) : the revelation given to Muhammad.
The revelation and inspirations are given from Allah to his prophets, and all humankind.
tawrat(Tawrah or Taurat, Arabic: توراة): the Arabic transliteration of Hebrew word Torah( תּוֹרָה ), which Muslims believe that it is the holly book of Islam given by God to Moses.
Injil (Arabic إنجيل or Injeel): one of the five Islamic holly books that Qur'an records as revealed by God. Bible.
tanzil(Arabic تنزيل): send from up(sky) to down(ground). It refers to the act of descent of the pre-existing Qur'an. It is the process by which divine messages come to the heart of the messenger of God.
tawhid (Arabic: توحيد tawḥīd ): the concept of monotheism in Islam. It holds God is one and unique.
Qur'an says: God is one. God was not born, and didn't give birth.
Al-Lāt ,ʕUzzā, Manāt: three goddess in pre-Islam Arab, Mecca. In pre-Islam time, people think they are the daughters of creator-God Allah.
The revelation and inspirations are given from Allah to his prophets, and all humankind.
tawrat(Tawrah or Taurat, Arabic: توراة): the Arabic transliteration of Hebrew word Torah( תּוֹרָה ), which Muslims believe that it is the holly book of Islam given by God to Moses.
Injil (Arabic إنجيل or Injeel): one of the five Islamic holly books that Qur'an records as revealed by God. Bible.
tanzil(Arabic تنزيل): send from up(sky) to down(ground). It refers to the act of descent of the pre-existing Qur'an. It is the process by which divine messages come to the heart of the messenger of God.
tawhid (Arabic: توحيد tawḥīd ): the concept of monotheism in Islam. It holds God is one and unique.
Qur'an says: God is one. God was not born, and didn't give birth.
Al-Lāt ,ʕUzzā, Manāt: three goddess in pre-Islam Arab, Mecca. In pre-Islam time, people think they are the daughters of creator-God Allah.
Three sources of Islam studies
First, al-Qur'an
From Wiki: The Qur’an[1] (Arabic: القرآن al-qur’ān, literally “the recitation”; also sometimes transliterated as Quran, Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran or Al-Qur’ān) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God.[2][3][4][5]
Qur'an is the holly book of Islam, including the first edition to the latest edition, including every words the God said and angle Gabriel(גבריאל） delivered to humans, which can't be wrong and can't be changed. People should never challenge the order of God.
However, Qur'an is not a reliable source of history of Islam.
Second, Tafsir
From Wiki: Tafsir (Arabic: تفسير, tafsir, "interpretation") is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. It does not include esoteric or mystical interpretations, which are covered by the related word Ta'wil. An author of tafsir is a mufassir (Arabic: 'مُفسر, mufassir, plural: Arabic: مفسرون, mufassirūn).
Third, Sirah
From Wiki: Sīrah Rasūl Allāh (Life of the Messenger of God; Arabic: سيرة رسول الله) or Sīrat Nabawiyya (Life of the Prophet; Arabic: سيرة نبوية) (from Arabic سيرة) is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad, from which most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived. The name is often shortened to "Sīra" or "Sīrah" ("life" or "journey"; Arabic: سيرة).
Every Muslim should obey what the prophet said, why? Because it is not him who saying the words, it is God. Prophet just delivered the words from God.
From Wiki: The Qur’an[1] (Arabic: القرآن al-qur’ān, literally “the recitation”; also sometimes transliterated as Quran, Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran or Al-Qur’ān) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God.[2][3][4][5]
Qur'an is the holly book of Islam, including the first edition to the latest edition, including every words the God said and angle Gabriel(גבריאל） delivered to humans, which can't be wrong and can't be changed. People should never challenge the order of God.
However, Qur'an is not a reliable source of history of Islam.
Second, Tafsir
From Wiki: Tafsir (Arabic: تفسير, tafsir, "interpretation") is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. It does not include esoteric or mystical interpretations, which are covered by the related word Ta'wil. An author of tafsir is a mufassir (Arabic: 'مُفسر, mufassir, plural: Arabic: مفسرون, mufassirūn).
Third, Sirah
From Wiki: Sīrah Rasūl Allāh (Life of the Messenger of God; Arabic: سيرة رسول الله) or Sīrat Nabawiyya (Life of the Prophet; Arabic: سيرة نبوية) (from Arabic سيرة) is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad, from which most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived. The name is often shortened to "Sīra" or "Sīrah" ("life" or "journey"; Arabic: سيرة).
Every Muslim should obey what the prophet said, why? Because it is not him who saying the words, it is God. Prophet just delivered the words from God.
Mar 11, 2009
First Discipline
Our teacher of Introduction to the Religion of Islam, Dr. A.Hakim, is 100% Jewish but always says he will convert all of us to Islam at the end of the semester. He is a nice person and quite popular in students with his jokes. Generally, most of the students in our class are Jewish, doing their second or third year in college in US, and exchange to Tel Aviv University for a semester. None of us know much about Islam before.
At the first class, Hakim said, if you want to study Islam, you need to understand Muslims; if you want to understand them, you need to accept their ideas first. The only way to study Islam as a religion, is to take a Muslim's view.
"So, I'm a Muslim." he said very seriously that we almost believed him. "And all of you are Muslim now." then he said, and we all laughed.
It's the beginning of our class. Actually later we all realized what he said was really important.
"You are born in a free country, whose constitution are written by men, by human beings. That means you can change them when you think differently. But for Muslims, they are not live under any man-made law or constitution, they live by the words of God. It is a belief which means you never doubt, never ask why. " Hakim said, "if you don't think this way, you'll never understand Islam. Never question God, this is the first discipline in our class."
He speaks English with a Middle East accent, but always slowly and clearly, which is very good for the non-English speakers to understand. I'm happy for this. Last semester I had a famous and great teacher for Middle East history, whose fast English I can never understand. I also realize that if I don't start to practise writing in English now I will never manage it. Hope this notebook may be helpful.
At the first class, Hakim said, if you want to study Islam, you need to understand Muslims; if you want to understand them, you need to accept their ideas first. The only way to study Islam as a religion, is to take a Muslim's view.
"So, I'm a Muslim." he said very seriously that we almost believed him. "And all of you are Muslim now." then he said, and we all laughed.
It's the beginning of our class. Actually later we all realized what he said was really important.
"You are born in a free country, whose constitution are written by men, by human beings. That means you can change them when you think differently. But for Muslims, they are not live under any man-made law or constitution, they live by the words of God. It is a belief which means you never doubt, never ask why. " Hakim said, "if you don't think this way, you'll never understand Islam. Never question God, this is the first discipline in our class."
He speaks English with a Middle East accent, but always slowly and clearly, which is very good for the non-English speakers to understand. I'm happy for this. Last semester I had a famous and great teacher for Middle East history, whose fast English I can never understand. I also realize that if I don't start to practise writing in English now I will never manage it. Hope this notebook may be helpful.
Arabic in Latin Characters
ﺁ ’ ﺩ d ﺽ d ﻙ k
ﺏ b ﺫ dh ﻁ t ﻝ l
ﺕ t ﺭ r ﻅ z ﻡ m
ﺙ th ﺯ z ﻉ ‘ ﻥ n
ﺝ j ﺱ s ﻍ gh ﻩ h
ﺡ h ﺵ sh ﻑ f ﻭ w
ﺥ kh ﺹ s ﻕ q ﻯ y
ﺏ b ﺫ dh ﻁ t ﻝ l
ﺕ t ﺭ r ﻅ z ﻡ m
ﺙ th ﺯ z ﻉ ‘ ﻥ n
ﺝ j ﺱ s ﻍ gh ﻩ h
ﺡ h ﺵ sh ﻑ f ﻭ w
ﺥ kh ﺹ s ﻕ q ﻯ y
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