To Tehran, With love

There is not a day passes when I don't think of my cyberfriend Selma, the former, brilliant multi-talented blogger who wrote with love from Tehran. Last I heard, she had to make a choice that no human being should be forced to make these days: her future or her independent voice. She chose her future and since then her voice went silent.

There are warring calls floating about, and existential fears. I fear for my country, Israel, the target of Iran's religiously mad regime with their genocidal threats and determination. I fear for my family and friends in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa. I fear for my friend and her family and friends in Tehran.

At no time does the power of friendship seem of so little consequence in this brutal and irrational world of ours.

Selma once told us that she is a great fan of Leonard Cohen. One of her favourite is this song.

This Saturday morning I want to think of Selma and to wish her all that is good and abiding.

Friendship is round and smooth, with no ends, no sharp angles. It is also fragile. When confronted with politics, it seems small and insignificant, irrelevant. Politics forces us to make choices that in a genuinely humanistic world concerned with human rights, we should no longer be making.