I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

August 22, 2006 - 11:00 AM by

Elisheva is considering cancelling her Jerusalem Post subscription:

I’ve been a big newspaper reader – especially The New York Times – since high school. Since subscribing to an Israeli-centric paper, I realize that there is a major difference in American and Israeli papers. There is so much diversity, so many different issues to report in an American paper: the status of immigration, elections, news from your town, news from the next town over, latest trends – fashion or otherwise, education, nuclear threats, celebrities, 12 different sports, and on and on. It seems like Israeli papers have their priorities cut out for them – Hebrew or English – and they go like this: war -> peace process -> disappointment -> war -> peace process -> pain -> everything else. And the thing is, it’s all personal, even when it’s not war or peace process… Eeverything happening here is personal – from elections to Ethiopians to Maccabbe Tel Aviv. It’s all mine, and it’s all painful when it goes wrong.

The JPost print edition contains tidbits from the NYTimes a few days a week – Week in Review, Business, Op/Eds. Those niblets of American life for me are like finding the cashews in a package of mixed nuts. It’s a few minutes of reading about someone else’s troubles or joys. It’s a few minutes of feeling not-angry, not-frustrated, not-sad (concerning Israel).

In the States, when I used to read about Israel, emotions would flow, and I thought it was personal, but I never realized how personal it could be. Israel, no matter how much I loved her, was always a concept. Now, Israel is daily life, Israel is where I pay my taxes, Israel is the news I read, the only news that rings in my ears. Every. Single. Day.

Tags: • Category: Life 

Comments

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap