The Profound

The Haberman Institute last night had a wonderful program featuring legendary (I think I can call her that) Israeli teacher of poetry and literature, Rachel Korazim. She is in this country on a book tour, having (with a collaborator in Boston) published a book of the poetry and writings of Nathan Alterman, translated for the first time. The book contains 67 examples (of over 1200 possibilities) of Alterman’s work, in the original Hebrew, with its first English translation, and an introduction for each of the pieces. Korazim, who you probably have never heard of, is a master teacher, as she proved again last night. The program should be on YouTube within a few days, as are previous talks she has given for Haberman.

Alterman, who lived from 1910 to 1970, born in Warsaw, died in Tel Aviv, was a remarkable man in that he was a poet, a journalist, for a while a Communist, a Zionist, and a persistent critic of Israeli and Soviet leadership, even leadership in his own political party. He was, in effect, a prophet, perhaps a prophet who did not have the advantage of having a direct relationship with God, but a prophet nevertheless, who felt that Israel was, by and large, on the wrong track. There were many things he railed against, but perhaps the most important was his opposition to the way that Israel treated both its Arab population and those who had fled the country during the 1948 War of Independence. Not only did he write his poetry, which I assume was relatively widespread, but he wrote a weekly column, every Friday, in the newspaper Devar, where he could apparently talk about anything he wanted, and he often concentrated on moral failures of leadership and society. And his column was read widely.

But, for whatever reason, which might have included his position on the Arab question, his poetry was never translated into English or any other language. And it is this lack of translation, lack of availability, that Korazim and her partner in Boston are trying to remedy.

Yes, Alterman, during the 1950s and 1960s, was a presence in Israel, a country where literature and poetry does matter. But not in 2026, or in recent years. Because of his position, as an ardent Zionist who had a very different take on what the relationship between the Jews and Arabs should be, he has basically been banned from Israeli education. His work is not being taught in the schools today. No surprise, right?

And if you took Alterman and moved him from 1960 to 2026, what would he think of Israel today, the West Bank and Gaza?

You think you know? Well, there’s a twist. Alterman was alive during the 1967 War, and was shocked, realizing the peril that Israel was in. After Israel’s remarkable victory, when there was much discussion about what should be done about the conquered territories – then the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai peninsula. Alterman, surprisingly, apparently did not join those who wanted Israel to return the conquered land. Instead, according to Wikipedia, he joined those who wanted to hold on to the land, although he apparently did not change his view on equal treatment for all citizens, Jewish and Arab, and the right of at least some Arabs to return to land they had abandoned or been forced from.

So what would Alterman’s position be today? It is an interesting question, one obviously with no answer. Israel is still in a precarious position, yet is very strong; Arabs in Israel are still kept out of governing leadership, and treated differently in many respects from Jewish citizens, yet Arabs are a potential danger to Israeli society; the territories (Sinai being the exception) are still in Israeli hands, as Alterman suggested they should be, but the treatment of the non-Jewish citizens in both of those places is far from what Alterman would have wanted to see.

I guess all this shows is that since 1970, when Alterman died, the position of Israel is both more secure and more precarious, the treatment of Arabs in Israel and obviously more so in Gaza and the West Bank has become even harsher, and no one has an answer. But one thing is pretty clear: if Alterman were still writing, he would for sure have something to say. And that something to say would be worth listening to.

The Exasperating

A letter to DC Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis-George ….

Dear Jeneese:

Can I call you Jeneese, even though we have never met? After all, you are about 45 years younger than me, and age does have its privileges.

So, Jeneese, I wanted to talk to you about the Department of Motor Vehicles. It is strange that this is the subject of my first letter to you because, in the 57 years I have lived in the District of Columbia, I have never had a problem with the DMV. At all. But now……

My wife has a Disability Parking Placard, that she carries with her. We have two vehicles, but only one placard, so it can’t just stay in the car. And, after having this placard for, maybe, 15 years, it vanished a couple of weeks ago.

I downloaded the form for applying for a placard from the DMV website, we filled out our part of it, and my wife’s physician filled out the other part. On November 5, just over a week ago, per the instructions at the bottom of the form, we had the application faxed to the DMV from the doctor’s office.

My wife’s email address is on the form and, for reasons which should be obvious, I expected that she would get an acknowledgement that the form had been received, but she didn’t. So yesterday morning, I decided to call the DMV to make sure they had received it.

I first talked to a 311 operator with a great voice. In fact, based on my conversation with him, I would suggest that he is in the wrong business, and should be in radio. I told him why I was calling, and he asked: “Does she have a driver’s license or a non-driver ID?” I couldn’t figure out the relevance of the question, so I told him again why I was calling. He told me he needed the driver’s license number in order to look up the file. I said, “Oh, okay, just a minute; I have to go get it.” He said, “Nevermind, I can just use her name.” I knew I was in trouble.

He told me that he couldn’t tell me whether the fax had been received because there was a “hold” on her account. “What kind of hold?”, I asked, and he responded with “Insurance”. Insurance? “Yes”, he said, it has to do with “your 2019 vehicle” which had no insurance from August 3 to August 10. “

“We don’t have a 2019 vehicle”, I told him, “We traded it in for a new vehicle in July. So, naturally there was no insurance from “August 3 to August 10.” (After the phone calls, I went to look to confirm. We traded it in on July 25.)

He said that you must have neglected to cancel your tag. I didn’t know what that meant, and asked “turn in my old license plate?” “No”, he said, cancel the registration. I told him I have never had to do that separately from turning title of the car to the dealer, and he said I should have done it online and not left it to the dealer? “What?”, I asked, I had never done that with all the cars that I have given up in the last 57 years. And what happened on August 3 and stopped happening on August 10 regarding my insurance?

I was then told that I could “clear” this in two ways. I could show documentation or I could pay a fine of $150. I told him I was pretty confused. What documentation could I show him about insurance between those dates on a 2019 car I didn’t own on those two dates? And was the $150 a fine? For what?

He then told me that he was looking at the file and it said a fine of $150. And, by the way, he added, you can’t pay the fine on line or send in the documentation. You have to go physically to the DMV. I was again incredulous. “You can do everything on line with the DMV, certainly pay a fine.” And I asked him to repeat what I had to do.

He then said, “Listen, are you writing any of this down?” I told him I was writing all of it down. “Then why are you asking me questions I already answered?” “Because your answers aren’t really making sense to me, so I want to be sure I am hearing this correctly, and because I don’t want to spend hours at the DMV and then be told that I didn’t bring the right thing and I would have to come again, or that I didn’t have to come at all.”

He then asked if I wanted to speak with another representative. I told him I thought that would be a good idea. At this point, I assumed his problem was his inability (even with his radio voice) to tell me what the problem was. I assumed there must be a problem.

I called again and this time talked to a woman, named Sharon. I told her of my previous conversation and she was just as confused as I was. She told me that a disability placard had nothing to do with an insurance issue on a vehicle. And as to the insurance issue, she said, it will show up as a $150 charge when it’s time to renew your vehicles next fall. She suggested I wait and deal with it then. It certainly won’t hold up the placard.

Made sense to me.

As to the placard, she said that when an application is faxed in from a doctor’s office, there is no procedure to acknowledge receipt, but that it takes about ten days to process. She told me that she couldn’t tell if it was received, but if it was faxed in, it must have been received, and that we should hear something from the DMV within another week or ten days. Call back, she said, at the end of the next week if you don’t have it. “But I bet you will.”

So, Janeese, my suggestions. 1. When the DMV gets a fax request for a disability placard, having them send an acknowledgement to the email address on the application; why else would it be there? 2. When there is an “insurance hold” , have the DMV tell the individual that there is an insurance hold (whatever that means); why wait until the next application for registration, which could be a year or so away, and the problem could be resolved sooner? and 3. Search out that guy with the radio voice, and suggest that it is really time for him to get another career – you really don’t need someone manning an information line for the DC government who only knows how to give out false information.

Thanks, Janeese.

Sincerely,

Artis80.