Natalia is asking me something like:
Are you asleep?

and big brother brotherly hails gmailing to save us with keen not for profit ads:
"Are you snoring?"
buy this.
"Sleep difficulties?
buy this.
"Learn how to sleep well."
buy this

I write back:
"Catastrophe! I was asleep!
"Catastrophe! I'm awake!"

And big brother brotherly gingerly googles non-sensical adsense:

"Fiddler on the Roof"
go see.
"Tickets to Fiddler on the Roof"
buy buy buy

Fiddler on the Roof? I'm not the one who wrote this story.

How deep they penetrate our inner thoughts, how far they reach, those ads.
Do they read Farsi as well, Mehdi? Or any of our other languages?

I am the one who's sent out Invites to gmail accounts, so who could I blame but myself? 

  Can you be an once-a-year-for-one month writer?

Last year, while confronted with the phenomenon, I did respond on the spot.
Now, reading Graham and Blogger's exalted recommendation of this Herculean attempt to "write a novel" in one month...
read on... 

  I'm a published Hebrew writer in Israel. TimeIn Tel-Aviv here has evolved into a multi-lingual blog:

Volunteer friends. Team Members, from different countries, are translating the English or the Hebrew pieces into their own languages.

All of us are now getting geared toward this new adventure you are amongst the first to encounter: A Team Members Forum in English to share our tidbits on life in our forty corners of the world:

If you do find your language here and would like to extend a helpful hand;
if you do not find your own language represented here and you do have an excellent command of it and are well read in English or Hebrew - you're welcome to join and enrich the blog and the forum with your one's culture nuances and colors.

Commenting is open to all, aboard or ashore...

Welcome!

 

  At the profile they show posts up to the 16th only.
Since then we've had so many more.

Today Vladi has posted 3 (three!) new posts, so now we have the Jelinek story already in five languages (Hebrew, English, Farsi, Hungarian, Russian).

I hope to post in the near future the Ma'ariv paper new article on "Noffey Haneffesh" in the English. Meanwhile Vladi has translated it into Russian from the Hebrew along with the "Welcome" piece taken from the website.

Vladi is generously preparing now translations for 3 posts already done in a few other languages: the Sharon Satire, the text on the back cover of "Noffey Haneffesh" which Natalia has recently translated into Polish and the one on the history of Hasofferett.

There is much fever talk here on the possibility of us having a Civil War, so I've written a satirical piece on this topic last night, which is quite popular, as I can see from the stats over there. So is the Hebrew blog on Elfriede.

How is your Hebrew by now, Natalionet?

Here is for all of you a new one: "Erev Tov!"
Good evening.
If you haven't noticed yet - The clock here is set at the Greenwich time. 

  Andi has published to-day the Elfriede post in Hungarian.

Vladi Dvoyris, a student in dentistry (there might be a better title in English), Israeli and at least bi-lingual, has joined us as team member of the Russian blog.
His first, translated from the Hebrew original, is Ioram Melzer's critic of "Sodot" (A Minyan of Lovers) at the "Ma'ariv" - an Israeli large daily - week-end cultural supplement. The English translation, by Michal Sapir, is here.

Ana C. from Portugal, a professional translator, has expressed her interest in joining our project.

By the end of the day, or rather the nights, I'm wandering around, getting to know bloggers and blogs from a rich variety of countries. There is room for more at our joint project.  

  Yesterday night I was working on the English version on my meeting with Elfride Jelinek, and then polished it today in the late morning.

In January 1996 I found, in London, a book by Elfriede Jelinek. A few months later, on Holocaust Memorial Day, I saw written in an Israeli newspaper, in an article on Anti-Semitism In The World Today, that she, or one of her parents, was Jewish; that there had been attacks on her and that she had been threatened by anti-Semites; that she had immigrated to Germany.

I wrote to her, "I see that you are living in Vienna. I hope that the story about the attacks is fantasy as well."

She wrote back... 

  In Israel we have Friday and Saturday.
From Friday afternoon (close to one hour before the first star appears) to Saturday night when the stars are with us again - we have no public transportation and very few shops stay open.

So now there is talk of adding Sunday to the week-end.

I've asked my source about Iran and it turns out that over there the week-end arrangement is really special: Tuesdays and Fridays are off.
I think it's like starting the week twice. You have at least eight weeks in a month and longevity prospers.

I do not know how the school vacations are in your places.
Here (one thing we have not yet copied from USA) - school is still open on Friday, which parents love - gives them a few hours of quiet.. While kids and teachers demand in one voice to have Friday off.
It's probably going to happen soon.
Then the fight for school off on Friday as well will start.

The Palestinian children are having so many school days off. It's not fair indeed...

10:00 P.M.
LAST MINUTE Update:
The week-end in Iran is Thursday to Friday.
My words here must have hit home with you-know-who-in-the-dark-chambers-where-longevity-is-a-forbidden-word.

...my source claims it was just a typing mistake. Now, who do you believe?!

 

  Natalia has just pointed me to a new post at The Brooding Persian: a full quotation of what seems as a most harsh statement on the Iranian situation.
Is it that harsh?

To my eyes, Anonymus' outcry is mild in comparison with Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

For sure the words of the "Anonymus" sound as coming from an agonized spirit of a whole generation, but who wouldn't voice them in such a stifling despairing situation?

The agony catches when you read behind the highly poetic utterance a call for help - and sit across waters with hands bound.

 

  First, let me start from the end: I've just posted at my Hebrew blog a few words and a link to Andi's blog.

And who is Andi?
Wait no longer and go visit her blog. You'll be as enchanted as myself.

And now to the beginning:
Last night I was lucky to happen upon Andi's blog. She wrote somewhere that she would like "to write, to translate..."

To-day she's answered graciously my question. Yes!

In youngish modern Hebrew we say, "Yesh!" יש!
The literal meaning is, "there is"; in slang it is a joyful expression. like when you are happy with a new discovery or achievement.
In both senses I proclaim today: Yesh Andi!
 

  even if by chance some civilians of all ages get killed or harmed as well, your very life is saved. Will you oppose the act then as well?"

Don't they see that the same ill logic can be partaken by the Palestinians - that by killing Israelis, soldiers and civilians alike, they will be saving their own lives?

The only way to stop the killing and save ourselves from the hands of insanity, is to go back to the negotiation table.

The reason it does not happen is not a fiery commitment to our security but a fiery commitment and primitive urge, on both sides, to possess land and more land, and get rid of The Other.

Hunger, Mad Hunger! 

  Columbus Day
It's encouraging that children are at least given a hint to it. 

  Haaretz, today:
Perpetum Mobile. 

  So now we have a head over our shoulders - not an easy feat nowadays...

I mean, the title for our Forum is here - to protect us from mischief.
Thanks to Janelle at Karisima.

There are still a few things to polish and unravel:
- Calendar does not show up - Blogger suggests we ask Janelle for help.
- Karisma's "last comments" & "up" button do not register as well.
- I've also asked Janelle to please have the window triangle inside the (formerly)green box and to have the font of our slogan ("Here we assemble...") in thin font (as at the translations blogger blogs). Apart from this I have a problem with Helen's photo - it was sent to me pasted on a CV Word document. My attempts to render it well were not that successfull. Any suggestions?