Friends talk about a bereaved mother

Politicians:
These condolence visits are screwing up my schedule. I’ve got exactly
six and a half minutes for my next condolence, the third this week.
Let’s hope its not burekas and grapefruit juice. When you visit the
bereaved, you can’t refuse the food on grounds of diet or heartburn.
What am I going to say to them? The Army’s prestige has slumped and no
one buys 'the long arm of our Army will reach the terrorists' any more.
Also 'we came to give you strength, and came away strengthened', went
down well last year, but rings false today.  Also 'he was a hero, loved
by his friends, an outstanding fighter', sounds like a line from
stand-up comedian. Must get the copywriters to create some new scripts
for bereavement. The current stock is out of date.

Army experts:
My rotten luck I have to stand here quietly with a
sympathetic smile and listen to strategic rubbish from this nincompoop
about the need to get out of Lebanon and her views on national security.
You’d think the old bag went to school with Clausewitz or played
hopscotch with Liddel Hart. She couldn’t tell the difference between a
cluster bomb and a bottle of bleach, but she stands tall on her son’s
tombstone and we all have to listen obediently.
Never mind, she’ll soon have used up her 15 minutes of glory, and be
flushed into oblivion.

Bureaucrats:
I don’t know what she wants from us.  After all, we gave
her everything she could need. Life insurance for her son, 60000
shekels, not a sum to be sniffed at, it would buy you three quarters of
a new car, she got. Telephone allowance, 194 shekels a year, she got.
3000 shekels to feed and water her guests during the Shiva, she got. 500
shekels a month pocket money she’ll get from now till the coming of the
Messiah. If one day she wants to be admitted to an old peoples’ home,
she’ll get a one- time payment of 50% off the price of a communal room
at the rate published in "Support", homes for the aged. Not to mention
she gets purchase-tax exemption on a colour TV, and she has the right to
buy a new one every ten years or every seven years if it’s black and
white. We even finance 50 % of a reinforced "Pladelet" front door. So,
what more does she want? What does she think, that she’s the only one
around here?
Since her episode we have had ten similar cases. Believe me I’ve been in
the business of bereaved parents, widows and orphans for 30 years and I
can tell you for certain she got her dues, and more. Stay home Ma’am and
let us get on with our job.

Media:
What’s this ten-day-old story you brought me? Don’t you know a
dead soldier is only news, front page with photo plus a small article on
the inside pages, on the day of the funeral? Unless the deceased was
someone, like the champion of Israel for ping-pong, or made a solo
crossing of the Amazon; then he may just get a colour article with photo
as well, during the period of the Shiva.  After that the story goes
stale. A generation comes, a generation goes. Remember, dead soldiers
don’t sell newspapers. In this country you can be sure of a constant
supply of bereaved mothers.

Friends and good souls:
Wonderful people, salt of the earth. He’s a lawyer, religious, from a
good family. She’s not religious, Italian I believe.  She’s gone off a
bit. What do you expect? My bother-in-law’s cousin went to yeshiva with
him. Unfortunately he moved a bit to the left because of her.  I hear
she writes articles for important papers and corresponds with Newt
Gingrich. Suddenly it seems she can open her mouth on any subject. It’s
all gone to her head.
You can see something happened to her.  She doesn’t look good. She was a
beautiful girl. Now she’s put on weight. Well, it’s only natural. I
wonder what their son, Yoni, the one who fell in Lebanon, would say
about it. He was a lovely boy.
Manoela Dviri

Manoela Dviri’s son Jonathan fell at Karkom post, Lebanon on 26 February 1998