One in a Million

If you've never seen one before, that's how a saint looks like.

Meet Prof. Leonard (Lenny) Bliden, the kind and energetic cardiologist. He really likes his job. That's why, at 73-years old he's still seeing his patients three times a week.

Somehow, he managed to keep his South-African elegant style and accent even after more than five decades in the aggressively raw Israel.

I was a few months old when my mother and grandmother brought me to his house in Ramat Hasharon on a Friday afternoon exactly 30 winters ago.

A few months later, my little blue face turned baby pink.

Throughout the years, I always liked coming to see Prof. Bliden. When I was six, I told him about my engagement with the art of ballet dancing. He asked that I demonstrate my first and second positions. There I was, 1.20 meters, dancing and spinning in his office. It was almost as if he cared to get to know ME, more than he was interested in learning about my health.

This month, at our 30 year - surprise reunion at Beilinson Hospital, I understood the rare brilliance of this man - with his patience and sensitivity - he gained the deepest understanding of my heart and knew exactly what to prescribe. More dancing!

Coming in for a check up, on a rainy day in a grey hospital turned out to be one of the highlights of my visit. We've both changed a lot since our first meeting but he remained exactly the same.

Before we left the hospital, my mom and I chatted with his secretary. "Tomorrow," she said, "is a very special day. He's very humble, you know, but Prof. Bliden is receiving a life achievement award at the Knesset."

Almost whispering, she continued, "some people here at the hospital recommended him. I guess management received a lot of letters over the years".

Before saying goodbye, we went back and congratulated him. He mumbled something uncomfortably and quickly changed the subject. He told us he's going to a yahrzeit for his best friend and tennis partner. He died last year, just hours after his second tennis match that week. But he didn't let us leave with a serious-sympathizer face.

"He was 94 years-old," the professor said and smiled.

Levant part 1

I arrived with the flotilla, it was quite the welcome home you'd expect after six month in New York. I tried write about it, but it was very challenging. I wrote, but never posted it.
I'm out of service and off-line and I'm loving it.
It's easier dealing with frustration here then there. It helps being closer to the eye of the storm sometimes.

Meanwhile
On the beach, business as usual.
Jellyfish and helicopters are the only threat to the Mediterranean's last pearl.

Two advils for two peoples.

“... and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin.”

Just like Samuel Beckett's famous answer to a theater critic - last Friday in East Jerusalem, the four hour tour was free - but aspirin was not included. Sadly, it was not a play. Reality's absurd exhibition.

On the super sunny- mid January - desert morning, a bus with people from China, Germany, USA, Holland and Israel, left the heart of the hectic 2,000 years- old capital, to see for themselves what is really going on along the "Jerusalem envelope".

Just 40 minutes away, there's a beautiful beach. What are they doing on a gorgeous day like this, looking at an nine meter cement wall?

The non for profit, non partisan (City of Peoples) Ir - Amim organization tour along the security barrier, wall, fence or however you wish to call it, was too short to cover the long and complicated issue, the political and social situation of the two peoples living in one big mess.

I though I saw the big picture, a big picture. But there are many more bigger and smaller pictures I never saw before that Friday.
I lived in Jerusalem as a child, I lived a quarter of a century in Israel. I voted, I religiously follow the news, but I didn't get around to see the significant difference of the way those buildings look like. I didn't see the streets, the kids, the neglected streets and wild west caos of construction in East Jerusalem. The Jewish Democratic city.

What did the Chinese tourist on the bus got out of the "study tour"? Did any of the foreigners understand how divided and in-dividable this city is?
And what would I have done if someone had built a wall in the middle of my sacred beach?

Two peoples build, one on top of another, trying to mark as much territory as fast as possible, before the other side gets there first, making more babies, building as many balconies.

One last stop before we went back home; overlooking Judea desert, it was such a clear day, you could see down town Amman. This how small the Middle East is.

By the end of the four hour field trip, a tour packed with information, facts stats and commentary, with no time to eat, drink - you knew a little bit more, and understood much less.
Past and present were very obvious. Future - not as much.

Knowledge IS power, but when you stare at the mountains of illegal construction, hills of refugee camps, and valleys of poverty and chaos, you don't feel neither wiser nor stronger. Just a big headache.

Even though no solution makes sense, it doesn't mean there's nothing we can do.
If you don't like Ir Amim's style, if you don't want to wake up at 7 am on your day off, you can still go there, with or without the narration, just go - the images speak for themselves.

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