Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il Paese che non dorme mai

Israele, dice questo articolo. Pare che siamo troppo bambino-
centrici.
http://babble.com/Life-in-Israel-gave-me-a-new-appreciation-for-sleep-training-The-Country-That-Never-Sleeps/
The Country That Never Sleeps
Lynn Harris
My OB in Jerusalem this summer showed up for our first appointment
wearing clamdiggers and a ratty backpack. Swear to God I thought he
was going to say, "Listen, can we meet back here in twenty? There's a
Hootie tribute at the Chagall windows." Bit of a shock, yeah, but I
loved it: he was a gracious, attentive doctor, and he embodied classic
Israeli informality at its refreshing, well, not-finest. It's the same
unfussiness, we think, that means doctors return calls (and emails) —
and, as we also learned, actually take calls, on their cells, during
their annual stints on active military reserve duty. Pre-natal
technology there is also tip-top; my quickie preliminary amnio results
came via a fancy technique that, as our doctor made sure to let us
know, is not yet available in the States.
And so it is that being pregnant in Jerusalem, as I was for three
months this summer while my husband was on sabbatical, immersed us
deeply in Israeli culture at its most magnificent — and also at its
most maddening.
Israelis, on the whole, are a famously tetchy bunch. Known for being
brusque, impatient, irritable, they even have a word — frier — for
those suckers who obey rules (traffic and otherwise) or, God forbid,
wait their turn.
In fact, in response to mounting chaos in post offices and waiting
rooms across the land — the other Middle East peace crisis — the
government finally installed those little number-taking machines, like
at Zabar's, to prevent the hordes from storming any given bureaucratic
Bastille. (So now what happens? Every waiting area — in my experience,
mostly the hospital billing office and blood lab — forms its own Lord
of the Flies society with a self-appointed Expediter announcing the
numbers aloud and destroying, with merely a glance, anyone who
hesitates, or shows weakness. He or she is encircled by hover-ers,
those too fidgety to sit out their turn even though it's fifty people
away. Once, mistakenly, I cut the line, and almost wound up with my
clueless Anglo head on a stake.)
And once, after meekly enduring just such a wait, we arrived —
somewhere in Hadassah Medical Center — for our pre-amnio genetic
counseling. After the counselor yelled at us for having been told to
find her in a different office, we had the following delicate
exchange:
COUNSELOR: Are you an only child?
ME: Yes, I —
COUNSELOR: Why?
Israeli kids, around whom the universe revolves (that axis, as it
turns out, is not in Park Slope) are also known for being wee tyrants,
mini-Expediters in the making. The classic kindergarten reproach:
"Children! Settle down! This is not the Knesset!" Practically every
parent we met was blown away that our near-two-year-old, Bess, said
"Please" (though primarily with regard to Bamba, the peanutty Cheeto-y
snack that, scandalously, is "the strongest children's brand name in
Israel"). And that Bess went to bed without complaint when WE put HER
down, and slept through the night. Yes, we made the rules, and yet no,
we are not raising a frier.
Which brings me to my modest proposal. Israel, my friends, is a nation
in need of a bedtime.
Now, I'm not going to far as to say that a peaceful two-state solution
can be achieved merely by Ferberizing. (Though Ferber is the closest
thing in our household to a grand rebbe.) And we know that Israelis,
in large part, come by their prickliness honestly. Could you blame
them? A stubbornly dismal political situation; vigilance, now, against
vigilante bulldozers: it doesn't exactly add up to a nice, laid-back
Mexican "ma?ana, ma?ana."
Some scholars, looking farther back, also explain that the original
state's founders and builders saw themselves as extended family.
"Saying what was on their minds, touching, revealing strong feelings,
disagreeing, interrupting and getting quickly to the point were not
seen as rude but as familial," noted a Jerusalem Post piece about
Israeli business culture, paraphrasing the work of Ben-Gurion
University research fellow Michael Feige. And let us not forget that
in Israel's collective memory — its very reason for being — lies the
experience of defending oneself from persecution. This is,
understandably, a nation with its hackles up.
o be fair, Israel is also a nation that — even with a six-day work
week — knows how to chill. Especially, but not only, in Jerusalem,
where everything shuts down on Saturday. (As a cab driver of ours
complained: "If I go out, I feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend!")
Buses don't run on Shabbat, even in secular Tel Aviv. People hang out,
go to the beach, visit family; that's it. A day of rest, for real.
But still! This we know: Sleep deprivation diminishes problem-solving
skills, attention span, impulse control. Perhaps even more to the
point, some sort of sleep routine, and related limit-setting, is
essential to child wellness — to their inner peace, if you will. And
just think: what if the now-adult natives had grown up with that sort
of reassuring predictability? The sense that if, God forbid, they
follow someone else's rules, they will live to tell? What if their
inner children had, in the words of the sleep gurus, learned to soothe
themselves?
Perhaps it's not too late. Not to turn Israel into Lake Wobegon, but
just to take a bit of the edge off. Memo to Israel: leave the "never
sleeps" stuff to New York. In a country faced with legitimate danger
every day, why not at least find a way to make the doctor's office a
safer place, to build calm and trust — and, yes, peace — at the post
office? If not now, then for future generations? I think I'll draft a
letter to Tzipi Livni outlining some sort of sleep-routine health
campaign. If they can be convinced that Bamba is healthy, then my God,
bedtime should be cake.

centrici.
oh ma gli Israeliani hanno molte cose in comune con gli Italiani. Questa, 
oltre al casino degli uffici postali e altre amenità (circolazione auto? 
parliamone) 

 parliamone)
riposto paragrafi di un meraviglioso articolo dal New York Times di
oggi. E no, non parla di cellulari, ma di democrazia.
On my 12th visit to Israel, I finally had my baptism by traffic
accident. I was sitting at a red light, when a bus turning the corner
honked at me to back up. When I did, I scraped the fender of the car
behind me. The driver — a young, hip-looking, alt-rocker dude — came
running out
of the car in a fury. He ran up to the bus driver and got into a
ferocious screaming match. Then he came up to me graciously and
kindly. We were brothers in the war against bus drivers. Then, as we
were filling out our paperwork, another bus happened by and honked.
The rocker ran out into the street and got into another ferocious
screaming match with this driver. Then he came back to me all smiles
and warmth.
Israel is a country held together by argument. Public culture is one
long cacophony of criticism. (...) At news conferences, Israeli
journalists ridicule and abuse their national leaders. Subordinates in
companies feel free to correct their superiors. People who move here
from Britain or the States talk about going through a period of
adjustment as they learn to toughen up and talk back.
(...) Israelis don’t observe the distinction between the public and
private realms.
They treat strangers as if they were their brothers-in-law and feel
perfectly comfortable giving them advice on how to live.
One Israeli acquaintance recounts the time he was depositing money
into his savings account and everybody else behind him in line got
into an argument about whether he should really be putting his money
somewhere else. Another friend tells of the time he called directory
assistance to get a phone number for a restaurant. The operator
responded, “You don’t want to eat there,” and proceeded to give him
the numbers of some other restaurants she thought were better.
(...)  This is a tough, scrappy country, perpetually fighting
for survival. The most emotionally intense experiences are national
ones, so the public-private distinction was bound to erode. Moreover,
the status system doesn’t really revolve around money. It consists of
trying to prove you are savvier than everybody else, that above all
you are nobody’s patsy.
(...) This culture of disputatiousness does yield some essential
fruits.
(...) it explains the genuine national unity. Israel is the most
diverse small country imaginable. Nonetheless, I may be interviewing a
left-wing artist in Tel Aviv or a right-wing settler in Hebron, and I
can be highly confident that they will have a few things in common: an
intense sense of national mission, a hunger for emotionally
significant moments, an inability to read social signals when I try to
suggest that I really don’t want them to harangue me about moving here
and adopting their lifestyle.
Most important, this argumentative culture nurtures a sense of
responsibility. The other countries in this region are more gracious,
but often there is a communal unwillingness to accept responsibility
for national problems. The Israelis, on the other hand, blame
themselves for everything and work hard to get the most out of each
person. From that wail of criticism things really do change.
(...) This conflict will go on for a generation or more. Israelis will
keep
up their insufferable and necessary barrage of self-assertion.

 oh ma gli Israeliani hanno molte cose in comune con gli Italiani. Questa,
l'Italia bambinocentrica? E dove sono i bambini?

person. From that wail of criticism things really do change.
e qui si fermano le somiglianze con l'Italia,. diciamolo chiaro, purtroppo 
per l'Italia