Voices from the north

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the Hebrew and English Israeli blogospheres. Someone pointed out in the comments that there is also a large blogosphere of Israelis who write in Russian, but since I don't know Russian I didn't bother following up.

During the war Veronika Kokhlova, who covers the Russian blogosphere for Global Voices, sent me the link to Israel North Voices. It turns out that a bunch of people volunteered to translate hundreds of blog posts from Russian to English. Again, and I don't know why, exactly, I didn't follow up. What a pity. A couple of nights ago I finally took the time to read those posts, and I was just blown away by the writing. The vast majority of it is utterly apolitical – just raw, intimate descriptions of personal experiences. Some examples are below:

How I spent the summer (August 6, by Renfry)

Remember how in school you had
assignments to read something or do something, and after that to made a
conclusion (from a book, life situation, school trip)? So I have to
tell you – I made a very important conclusion from this war, from my
current life situation. You have no right to postpone something. Thank
you, Hezbollah for our … shit, for this genius realization
If
you want to drink coffee – drink it now. Soon there would be another
siren, everyone would go to the bomb shelter and you would still want
to drink coffee. If you want to take a shower – do it now, but quickly.
If you want to have a dinner – do not postpone it, there will be no
time for that later.
And the most important thing: tell your children that you love them. Tell your husband that you love him. Tell everyone…

… Siren…

… I'm finishing this post. 15 minutes have passed

If you truly respect and value a person – tell him that. Right know.
Dear
friends! I respect you and I value you And I wish that you would
never hear sounds of sirens and explosions. And the very minimum – I
wish you to have a nice evening!

*******
July 22, by Julia Kohavit
Well, I'm fine, but a friend of mine has a problem.
She works for the company providing nursing services.
It
was supposed to be her last month before she takes her maternity leave,
and here the war comes.. The bosses fled and left the responsibility
and decision making for employees.
How could she leave her cancer
patient that needs at least once in two days to have her bandages
changed as well as that thing she has connected to her intestines?…
If
she does leave her, the woman can get infection and die. Oksana teels
me 'I cannot leave her, and I don't know what to do”…And keeps
visiting her once in two days on a taxi, pregnant, together with her
senoir daughter, because she's afraid to leave the girl home alone -
the alert can begin any minute again…

*****************

Beauty should be cherished even during the war. (July 21 by Lorique)

I’m thinking when I’m in the shower:
-
Galkin makes fun of one stupid TV commercial -”I shaved one leg – let
another one get hairy!” If I see a woman with legs like this … Yuck…
But it’s not funny anymore. If the siren would go off right now – I would be with only one shaved leg…
Just
when I washed away the shaving cream from the first leg – the siren
went off. So I run to the shelter with only one shaved leg… I noticed
that only one hour later when I came back home – to shave the second
leg.
So now I will dream of peace in the whole world. In the shower.

****************

Renfry, who escaped Haifa and went to Kfar Saba, in the centre, on July 25.

The airplanes first

The elder son is determined to become a
pilot. You can understand why. He has only one question that worries
him : Mom, our pilots bomb only bad guys?
We were thinking for long time. Wished all “good guys” to be in time to the bomb shelter. The son said : I hope so very much…
Burst out crying. something wrong with nerves.

Father
refused to go from Haifa. Even though there are friends and relatives,
of course I promised to get him from door to the door. No, he doesn't
want. Tired to run up and down the staircases, stays in the shelter,
took the laptop there. And table and two matresses we moved there
before – together. We are staying in touch on phone. He yells that I
have to stay, not to return yet…

When I was staying in
shelter, I was reading Bujold – space wars, explosions etc… In
Kfar-Saba I was choosing the book very long. I've chosen Jane Eyre.
Garantied – no missles and aviation.

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This entry was written by Lisa Goldman and posted on September 3, 2006 at 7:38 pm and filed under Main Page. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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11 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

The Allied bombing offensive of 1943-45 killed about 500,000 German civilians. Surely all those people were not card carrying Nazis (especially the children).
But, still I consider the men who dropped those bombs heroes and theirs, the greatest generation.
It was war, and war can't be refined. It is brutal, harsh, ruthless at its core.
But at times, it is still necessary, even in our modern age.
We can learn a lot from our greatest generation.

1. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
And how is this relevant to the post?

2. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
don't you recognize him? it's our local war fetishist who has looked up from his WWII toy soldier re-enactments long enough to comment on the internet on how all wars are exactly the same as the second world war.

3. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Actually a much better historical parrallel to how this war should have been fought is the American Civil War and Sherman's March to the Sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman's_March_to_the_Sea
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it;
—- General William Tecumseh Sherman
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/sherman/sherman-to-burn-atlanta.html

4. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Fetish is the right word. My mother grew up with rationing, carrying a gas mask around and sitting in a bomb shelter listening to German bombs falling around and devastating her town. She is certainly happy the allies won, and grateful to the Americans who gave their lives in Europe, but doesn't obsess about it and certainly does not view it as an exciting time. Only someone for whom it is only imagination could be so enthusiastic about it.

5. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“Mom, our pilots bomb only bad guys?”
That is how it is relevant to the post.
In war innocent people are killed. That's the way it is.
It is part of what makes war Hell.

6. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I agree with Anonymous. I think you mistook his/her
original comment.
That's EXACTLY what s/he means; war is trying
to be understood by us as if we are a young child
saying “only the bad guys will get hurt, right?”
And of course, war is not like that. Its ugly
and horrible. And in this insane world, sometimes
necessary to defend ourselves.

7. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I see what you mean (though we have had a fair amount of weapon-loving WWII invocation in the past few entries that has made me so furious).
I bellieve that we can't move beyond our holding patterns of violence unless we understand that old templates for war don't apply.
Yes, war is hell, but that doesn't mean we should step back and let all tactics unfold, uncriticized. Cluster bombs and suicide bombs can't be compared with trench warfare and bayonets.

8. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Those are really interesting excerpts. The lack of politics and the focus on intimate details makes them extremely powerful and thought provoking. It also surprises me as in English many Russian Israelis are very political. Makes me wish I knew more than just English and rusty Hebrew.

9. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
although this post was made a few days ago i didn't take the time to read it until now, and i am surprised at how few people commented on the writing. what beautiful, heartfelt and bare emotion! it made my heart break to read it.

10. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I have been reading the North Israel blog since it has started. I have also been reading the Russian portion (the translation was occasionally too hasty and lacking the nuances of the original).
One of the most interesting persons on that blog, imho, is sid75 (usually translated by muchnik) who lived through WWII in Russia as a girl and has now lived through the Second Lebanese war in Haifa as an old lady.
For those readers who understand Russian, the livejournal community samooborona may provide an interesting and instructive look at a group of (Russian-speaking) volunteers around Israel who organized and maintained a continuous stream of help distributing financial assistance, food, medicine, toys and other donated goods to needy people of the north.
As an aside note, the Russian segment of the Internet is vibrant and interesting, and Russian “livejournalists” are more mature, on average, than the rest of Live Journal.

11. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm

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By “They can either be eliminated, or we can learn to live together with them” | Lisa Goldman on January 14, 2009 at 10:04 am

[...] introduced me to the rich Russian-Israeli blogosphere during the Second Lebanon War. I blogged about Israel Northern Blog toward the end of the last war; by then I was emotionally exhausted, but [...]