You are the sandwich. The horrors of the holocaust and Russian repression for the bottom layer. The horrors of October 7th for the top layer. The complicity of your former friends and neighbours as the bitter sauce and the sour pickle of government of your country and the international institutions established to prevent the recurrence of jew hate as the garnish.
Don,t eat the sandwich. Dance again. Sing that " od yiyeh tov". Enjoy the heat and the ocean and your still unbroken children. That is the only way to escape the fate wished upon us by both the evil and the stupid and bequeathed to us by our damaged parents.
thanks! and for reading The Lost Expert. Published by the great Cormorant Books, people. Copies still available, get them before I'm cancelled for a 3rd time!
Thanks for all of this, Hal. So keenly observed. Improbably, the word that brought a lump to my throat was "klops." I hadn't heard or thought of that word since the mid-1990s, when my dad brought his mother, who was in the early stages of dementia, to live in our house. In a case of role reversal, he, an only child, was now the one preparing klops for her.
I'm in Tucson on what was meant to be a fun solo break from winter, but the news from Israel has hit hard, even in a magical desert landscape.
Enjoy the desert, I'm jealous. There's always time for misery. The only person I know who still makes klops is my cousin Bradley, he does them up for his chicken soup and every time laments that he isn't grinding his own meat by hand like our bubby used to!
What my dad was calling klops was actually turkey meat loaf. No idea if that qualifies. I'm sure it means different things across long-dissolved borders that exist only in the heart and mind (like the gefilte fish line).
Klops in my family was a giant meatball made out of half ground chicken and half ground beef mixed with onion then cooked in chicken stock. This mad meatball was then added to a bowl of chicken soup or served as part of the after chicken soup dinner, depending on whether or not there were kreplach, which is a whole other story.....
You are the sandwich. The horrors of the holocaust and Russian repression for the bottom layer. The horrors of October 7th for the top layer. The complicity of your former friends and neighbours as the bitter sauce and the sour pickle of government of your country and the international institutions established to prevent the recurrence of jew hate as the garnish.
Don,t eat the sandwich. Dance again. Sing that " od yiyeh tov". Enjoy the heat and the ocean and your still unbroken children. That is the only way to escape the fate wished upon us by both the evil and the stupid and bequeathed to us by our damaged parents.
Enjoyed this and am also plowing through your book "Lost Expert". It's really good. Am also ill so my word machine is broken and this review is lame.
thanks! and for reading The Lost Expert. Published by the great Cormorant Books, people. Copies still available, get them before I'm cancelled for a 3rd time!
I’m glad you have a substack
Thanks Alan, I'm honored you are taking the time to read it.
Thanks for all of this, Hal. So keenly observed. Improbably, the word that brought a lump to my throat was "klops." I hadn't heard or thought of that word since the mid-1990s, when my dad brought his mother, who was in the early stages of dementia, to live in our house. In a case of role reversal, he, an only child, was now the one preparing klops for her.
I'm in Tucson on what was meant to be a fun solo break from winter, but the news from Israel has hit hard, even in a magical desert landscape.
Enjoy the desert, I'm jealous. There's always time for misery. The only person I know who still makes klops is my cousin Bradley, he does them up for his chicken soup and every time laments that he isn't grinding his own meat by hand like our bubby used to!
What my dad was calling klops was actually turkey meat loaf. No idea if that qualifies. I'm sure it means different things across long-dissolved borders that exist only in the heart and mind (like the gefilte fish line).
Klops in my family was a giant meatball made out of half ground chicken and half ground beef mixed with onion then cooked in chicken stock. This mad meatball was then added to a bowl of chicken soup or served as part of the after chicken soup dinner, depending on whether or not there were kreplach, which is a whole other story.....