General

A Fresh Start

I have been awake for quite a while this morning. Because of some pretty exciting news on he one hand but, on the other hand, probably as well because of things running wild in my mind.

When I started this blog in the beginning of 2008 I did so because I had found once the reverse cultural shock after coming back from Israel had diminished to the point of me actually being able to talk about Israel and what I had seen and experienced there, nobody was there to listen anymore. However what I was still finding out about the place had to get out; that’s probably what has driven people to write ever since.

This blog has given me a lot although, frankly, it has never quite attracted a crowd. Sad enough it were times of war that people found this blog and after the “show” was over most of them never returned. There are still many stories to tell, new and old ones. Stories that have to be told in the hope that one day it will be there to be read for somebody who’s interested. Just like the stories of other great bloggers where there to be read by me when I needed the information or the opinion or just the story so I didn’t feel that alone after I left a place that had made me feel at home.

Fact is, however, that during the two years of this blog my life has changed. I started this blog as an ambitious single student who had left Israel only in order to return. Today I am a grad school graduate, who has been transplanted to Germany for love and what had, at that time, looked like a Great New Life. I have, over the years, hurtfully learned to let go of Israel keeping the treasurous memories in my very heart and soul knowing that the time there has changed me forever. Had I an honest opportunity to return I’d probably leave here for good any minute but I have had to learn that this is not what life had planned for me – at least not for the time being.

Germany has changed me as well. As much warmth and welcoming I had found in Israel as much coldness and fear have I found in Germany. In the one and a half years I’ve been living here now I’ve made it all the way from confusion via depression to feeling sorry and grateful that I know life can be different. In a way, I feel, Germany has taught me that it is worth fighting for my Israel-self. This is how life always has a lesson to teach, even when you really aren’t looking for yet another lesson.

No, I’m not done with Israel. I’ve been collecting information on so many topics all the time – I just never got to publish it. Life has kept me busy with other things and Germany and what I have seen here has kept my mind busy with other topics as well. Topics I’ve always felt don’t fit this blog. However I don’t believe in exclusive decisions. I will keep up this blog, but I also found I have to move on and I need a space to do this.

I don’t yet know where “a Pagan Israelophile goes Australia” will take me and what it will be all about. It is my story, our story, after all. It is a journey I have been looking forward to for a while and, in many respects, have been scared of as well. However I have made it my Beltaine resolution that I will be working towards regaining my trust in the gods and the path they are leading me down.

My two blogs will be interconnected by RSS feeds, so if you’re interested in the other blog it will be easy to keep an eye on it without having to surf yet another blog.

with a crying and a laughing eye, as well as warm thanks to everybody who contributed to this blog in the last two years

yours,

Migdalit

Chaos and Confusion

Shalom everybody,

there is a comment I’ve had to approve for quite a while now. I don’t know whether you know how it works on WordPress: but basically you can choose to approve each comment right away or have the comments of first-time posters emailed for approval – which I think works great against spam. Posters already known to the blog, by their email address I’d suppose, get approved right away and all I get is a notification via mail. Which comes in pretty handy if you are a lazy bum like me not checking in on the blog as often as I probably should.

So this comment reached me during my mail account right after it was posted on April 23. I probably got it before coffee or during some other altered state of mind since when I skimmed through the comment that was supposed to go on the “about Migdalit” page I quickly decided “spam” and left it alone, again being too lazy to log into the blog just to spam one comment. It was only today that I logged in – because I got another very nice comment that made me aware that probably I should really write more often and that there are people out there who actually give a shit about this blog.

However, approving said second comment I came back at the “spam”-comment and, right before the moment I would have spammed it stopped. ‘Wow’, I thought, ‘that’s the first spam that replies to a former comment.’ It wasn’t spam, indeed, and I feel like I have to apologize to its author, Òlofur Björnsson, for the long wait. But then, reading it again I became a bit wary about what to do with it:

Hello Alan [Price] if the Nazis had succeeded in exterminating the entire Jewish population of the World perhaps that would solved the issue of ” the extraordinary chaos and confusion that has reigned ever since “, that you speak of. By the way Mr Price are you a racist scumbag ?

I can only assume this was meant to be rather sarcastic but still, it leaves behind a bad taste. And than attributing Alan, who by the way runs an interesting, though not easy blog himself, as a “racist scumbag”, isn’t quite following the netiquette (do today’s kids know about the netiquette, after all?). So Òlofur, if you come back to the blog and read this, would you please be so kind to clarify. I’d be especially interested in where you find Alan a “racist scumbag” as the comment you refer to just says:

I am interested in the history of the Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to statehood and all of the extraordinary chaos and confusion that has reigned ever since.

And even after more then a year in German exile, where everybody really is oversensitive to any syllable that might be racist I just can’t find any racism in there. I’d rather second Alan on the term “chaos and confusion” when talking about different historic narratives in the region – which of course doesn’t exclude the option that some of this “chaos and confusion” was brought about on purpose. For bot you, Òlofur and Alan I’ve kinda summed it up a while a ago – as far as all of this can be summed up in a single post, you’re welcome to resume any pending discussion there or in this post’s comment section, but for the time being, Òlofur, I’m not approving your comment on the “About Migdalit” page, as I really think it doesn’t belong there.

so long and hopefully being back with more soon

yours,

Migdalit