beyondzerosum

From the Guardian: Thousands of Israelis march in central Tel Aviv during a protest against the rising cost of living in Israel. Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

Richard Goldwasser translated a heartfelt reaction and reflection by one of Israel’s top writers, David Grossman (Yellow Wind, To the End of the Land) about his march on Saturday night, along with 300,000 others, in the demonstrations in Tel Aviv.  A sample paragraph seems to capture how many of us feel about the world around us today.  As a matter of fact, it strikes me that by changing a few names and places – and squinting into the future at the descriptions of the demonstrations actually taking place – this essay could just have easily been written about the situation right here in the USA:

And then also rises the amazement where were we until today? How did we allow this to happen? How have we put up with governments that we have chosen turning our health and our children’s education into luxuries? How did we not shout when the Treasury officials crushed the social workers, and before them – the disabled, the Holocaust survivors, the old, and the pensioners? How for years have we pushed the hungry and the poor into soup kitchens and charities and to lives of humiliation for generations. And how have we abandoned the foreign workers to the abuse of their persecutors and exploiters, to the slave trade and the trafficking of women. And how have we put up with the destructive instances of privatization, and among them the privatization of everything dear to us – solidarity, responsibility, mutual aid and the sense of belonging as a people?

I urge you to read the entire essay at Blog Zahav:  http://blogzahav.blogspot.com/2011/08/david-grossman-window-to-new-future.html#comments