A day of small surprises, one of which may be triggering, so read with caution, please
This afternoon is all about answering emails and catching up on admin and dealing with an eye that is a bit worrying. If the ey gets more worrying I get to take myself back to hospital, but I'm hoping it will settle without this.
I do not know why this means I have a soundtrack of Jewish resistance songs from World War II. It may be because I get too many messages from the outside world about what I am supposed to be like, as someone Jewish. It may be that my internal rebel is outing. It's more likely because quite a few people on Twitter recently used pictures of Shoah victims to illustrate where the whole Border Force thing could go.
I don't object to the parallels being made of Abbott's with Hitler's early career (for they are obvious), I object to the use of the people in those photos in that way. It hurt. It hurt doubly because it was used by people who support BDS. It hurt triply because Australia has a very high number of survivors, of descendants, of people who might recognise kin in those piles of dead corpses. Those images should never be used so lightly. And so I play stirring and sad music, that reminds me that life really is complex and must follow Hillel's advice and be there for myself.
My Yiddish isn't as bad as it used to be, for I understand a surprising amount of the lyrics. I do not come from a Yiddish-speaking background (as I still have to explain far too often "English is my Jewish language"), so understanding the language at all is always a surprise to me.
While writing this post I was surprised by the telephone, too. A marketing call and the guy talked himself out of the call before I could talk him out of it. Normally I explain that this is a business number and they apologise profusely and hang up. There must be a notation somewhere, for the gentleman asked "Is this a business number?" and I said that it was and he apologised politely and hung up without any encouragement whatsoever.
Now I must return to my admin and to listening to the music.
I do not know why this means I have a soundtrack of Jewish resistance songs from World War II. It may be because I get too many messages from the outside world about what I am supposed to be like, as someone Jewish. It may be that my internal rebel is outing. It's more likely because quite a few people on Twitter recently used pictures of Shoah victims to illustrate where the whole Border Force thing could go.
I don't object to the parallels being made of Abbott's with Hitler's early career (for they are obvious), I object to the use of the people in those photos in that way. It hurt. It hurt doubly because it was used by people who support BDS. It hurt triply because Australia has a very high number of survivors, of descendants, of people who might recognise kin in those piles of dead corpses. Those images should never be used so lightly. And so I play stirring and sad music, that reminds me that life really is complex and must follow Hillel's advice and be there for myself.
My Yiddish isn't as bad as it used to be, for I understand a surprising amount of the lyrics. I do not come from a Yiddish-speaking background (as I still have to explain far too often "English is my Jewish language"), so understanding the language at all is always a surprise to me.
While writing this post I was surprised by the telephone, too. A marketing call and the guy talked himself out of the call before I could talk him out of it. Normally I explain that this is a business number and they apologise profusely and hang up. There must be a notation somewhere, for the gentleman asked "Is this a business number?" and I said that it was and he apologised politely and hung up without any encouragement whatsoever.
Now I must return to my admin and to listening to the music.
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