WEBVTT

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I would hate to be called,
like some people do,

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some people say a "poet of
war," or a "poet of love,"

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a "poet of Jerusalem."

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And so on, and so on.

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And I think it's a very nasty
thing that sometimes critics

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do to us when they label us.

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And then if you are
a "poet of love,"

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you are not allowed to
write a poem about nature,

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about anything else, because
it upsets the whole system

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of critics, and it's really--

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But because I have been living
in Jerusalem for so long

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and I grew up there, and my
children were born there,

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so it became a natural place.

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And I really don't think
that only Jerusalem can

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be a good place to write poetry,
which is silly, because I think

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any place in the world
where people grow up

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and have a full life there
can be as valuable to them

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as Jerusalem to me,
or any other place.

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It's some kind of
romantic thing in lives

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that people think
that people living

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in Rome or Jerusalem or some
other very historical and much

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history-ridden
places, that it must

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be marvelous to live there
because from my balcony

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you can see the old city.

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It's a very old house.

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It's very beautiful
there, but it never

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comes to my mind
to think about it.

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It's the old city,
that's David's Citadel,

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and that's the Mount of
Zion, and so on and so on.

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It's just there, like
you see the mountains

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and, OK, you don't, and I
think it's a very good thing

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because otherwise it would be
terrible to live in a place

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where you have
constantly to be aware.

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And sometimes tourists
make you aware

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that you live there, that
this is the place where

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King David and Jesus
and the prophet Tisha

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Yahweh and [INAUDIBLE] walked.

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And to us, it's a place of life,
and the greatness of Jerusalem

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is that it has been
a city where life has

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been going on all these times.

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War and peace, and people
have been living there,

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and I don't think there's
anything wrong with it.

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If your laundry hangs up across
the streets of Jerusalem,

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and if you have
television masts up there,

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I think it's a sign
that people live there,

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and it's not a museum and
nothing there is precious,

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because every living
person is worth all

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the stones in the world.

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And I think it should be one
big principle in our lives.

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But of course I am
sometimes aware like you

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are aware of things
that have happened here

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in the past, in the far
past, in the near past,

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and I would like the
first poem of Jerusalem.

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I would like, it's a
poem about the wedding

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of a very good friend
who also happened

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to translate one of my books.

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He's an American poet who
belonged to the so-called New

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York School of poets and he came
to Israel about 20 years ago

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and since then has even
published two books of Hebrew

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poetry which is very original.

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And so when he married
about 12 or 15 years ago,

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I just wanted to
write them a poem.

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It's something which modern
poets don't do anymore.

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In the time of the
Renaissance they

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used very often to write poems
for weddings or for birthdays

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and so on, and I think
it's a very nice thing.

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Anyhow in this
week of his wedding

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I just was, I was also looking
for to give them a present.

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And so this poem didn't come
to save myself a present.

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[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]

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So it's but I just
was looking around

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and all things that came
my way I gathered together

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like wildflowers.

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Everything, I felt
so happy with it too.

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Schimmel is his name
and Varda is her name.

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We were very good friends.

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I mean I was so happy that
they got wed, that we,

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that everything
that came my way I

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put it into this bouquet,
which became a kind of--

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So there are
certain things here,

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which is, maybe you don't know.

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Only the name of the place
which is called Motza.

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It's a little village
right outside Jerusalem,

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which at that time had a
new highway running past.

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And because everything
is very rocky,

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so they had to blast out with
dynamite for this new road.

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And there are some other places
like the Russian compound,

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which is a place in Jerusalem
but you don't need it,

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and the Russian compound now
houses police headquarters

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and also it's a local jail
where all kinds of petty thieves

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and prostitutes spend
one or two nights.

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"Jerusalem in the Week of
the Marriage of Schimmel."

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"I saw a foreign beatnik
shoulder his red guitar

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like a rifle.

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I saw a beggar put out a
jingling hand at the entrance

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to the public pissoir
across from buttoning men.

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And in the Russian
compound, I heard at night

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fresh whores who sang and danced
in jail, Esty, Esty, Esty,

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take me.

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Jerusalem sung in
audio-visual love.

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Jerusalem still drunk, froth
of tourists on her lips.

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I take her temperature.

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38 degrees," which is
Celsius, centigrade.

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"38 degrees in the
shade of her armpits.

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One hundred degrees of joy in
the mouth of the gold ring.

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But Motza, Schimmel is preparing
Motza for his marriage.

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From the East, seven red
bulldozers cut the mountain

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like a great wedding cake.

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Ten yellow cement
mixers, 30 workers

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with flags and shirts of
phosphorescent orange.

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21 explosions in the afternoon.

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Mazel tov."

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[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]

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"Schimmel and Varda are
already descending slowly

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in the parachute of
the white synagogue.

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Now they are standing silent,
wrapped in the cellophane paper

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of God's mercy.

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Love in one clean room, like a
dream of years of good living

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compressed in one
minute of sleep.

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Schimmel and Varda,
two tranquilizer pills

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melting slowly in the mouth
of the excited and crumbling

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world."

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