Michael Benjamin's Blog, page 3

Where’s Tha Cloth Cap?

Mention Yorkshire to cognoscenti and expect a reference to Ilka Moor Bah Tat. Let me explain. Ilkley Moor is on Leeds’s doorstep. A most unexpected place to do any courting. The ballad portrays an unfolding romance in a bleak Jane Eyre like settings. Our bare-headed...

Call My Bluff

We were brought up in a dichotomy. Mum ruled, and we adopted her lingua franca. Mum had an internal and external dialect. The Yorkshire Polish princess spoke with a distinct Yorkshire accent, she knew the spoken dialect – she rarely used it. Her internal dialect...

Cock O T’North

My Mum, like me, was Yorkshire born and bred. Nevertheless, Granddad’s Polish Praszka was just around the corner. No; it was more — Praszka was always there — we never realized it. Our street, Potternewton Park View, was a shtetl. A cul-de-sac with a discreet...

Third Time Lucky

I remember the look on Mum’s face when I said I wanted to be a psychiatrist.  I had snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Right, I was to be ‘her son, the doctor.’ But a meshigginer doctor was open to comments in her...

Yesterday No More

Growing up in the North of England ensures that you are ‘music conscious.’ I associate events with songs. The Queen, recently, recalled hard times quoting the war-time song,’ We’ll Meet Again.’ In Leeds, we were envious of Liverpool. In my family even more so. My...

Corona, Cats and Unicorns

Way back in Leeds, as a schoolboy,  I struggled with physics. Later, at university in Aberdeen, I learned to love it. Same disciple but in different places, completely differing entities. In physics, we learned about a Cheshire cat with a difference. The original Cheshire kind...

We’ll Meet Again

Born in Leeds, I will be buried in Oranit, the Samarian village that I cofounded 35 years ago. Of late, the chances of being the founder member in the Oranit Cemetery have increased —thanks to Corona. I don’t feel old, but then, I do not...

The Second American Revolution

Every democratic election has the potential to be a revolution; a bloodless revolution; however, a revolution nonetheless. The Second American Revolution is similar in many respects to the first one.  Britain sowed the seeds.  In the first revolution, the Americans wished to remove themselves from Britain.  In the present one, they wish to imitate Britain.  […]

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A Letter To America

Chutzpah? Of course, it is. But chutzpah is an Israeli trait. As we are inveterate traders, I might as well give you two for the price of one. The primary chutzpah is to pretend my journal is comparable to Alistair Cooke. Weekly, the BBC broadcast his comments and observations on America. A lesser chutzpah, but […]

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God knows — or does He?

In the beginning, God created chutzpah. Well, not really — He appointed his legal adviser and the chaos was institutionalised. In my world — it’s Chutzpah. I am a retired shrink who loves writing. I am obsessed by Moshe and how this stuttering control freak caused so much lasting havoc. The point — I wrote […]

The post God knows — or does He? appeared first on The Blogs | The Times of Israel.