World
Wafa Al-Udaini, Palestinian Journalist, Told Story of Gaza That Was Full of Life
Before the answers to life’s questions fit in our pocket, you used to have to turn a dial. If you were lucky, Phil Donahue would be on, ready to guide you toward enlightenment. In a stroke of deluxe good fortune, Dr. Ruth Westheimer might have stopped by to be the enlightenment. He was the search engine. She was a trusted result.
Donahue hailed from Cleveland. The windshield glasses, increasingly snowy thatch of hair, marble eyes, occasional pair of suspenders and obvious geniality said “card catalog,” “manager of the ’79 Reds,” “Stage Manager in a Chevy Motors production of ‘Our Town.’” Dr. Ruth was Donahue’s antonym, a step stool to his straight ladder. She kept her hair in a butterscotch helmet, fancied a uniform of jacket-blouse-skirt and came to our aid, via Germany, with a voice of crinkled tissue paper. Not even eight years separated them, yet so boyish was he and so seasoned was she that he read as her grandson. (She maybe reached his armpit.) Together and apart, they were public servants, American utilities.
Donahue was a journalist. His forum was the talk show, but some new strain in which the main attraction bypassed celebrities. People — every kind of them — lined up to witness other people being human, to experience Donahue’s radical conduit of edification, identification, curiosity, shock, wonder, outrage, surprise and dispute, all visible in the show’s televisual jackpot: cutaways to us, reacting, taking it all in, nodding, gasping. When a celebrity made it to the “Donahue” stage — Bill Clinton, say, La Toya Jackson, the Judds — they were expected to be human, too, to be accountable for their own humanity. From 1967 to 1996, for more than 6,000 episodes, he permitted us to be accountable to ourselves.
What Donahue knew was that we — women especially — were eager, desperate, to be understood, to learn and learn and learn. We call his job “host” when, really, the way he did it, running that microphone throughout the audience, racing up, down, around, sticking it here then here then over here, was closer to “switchboard operator.” It was “hot dog vendor at Madison Square Garden.” The man got his steps in. He let us do more of the questioning than he did — he would just edit, interpret, clarify. Egalitarianism ruled. Articulation, too. And anybody who needed the mic usually got it.
The show was about both what was on our mind and what had never once crossed it. Atheism. Naziism. Colorism. Childbirth. Prison. Rapists. AIDS. Chippendales, Chernobyl, Cher. Name a fetish, Phil Donahue tried to get to its bottom, sometimes by trying it himself. (Let us never forget the episode when he made his entrance in a long skirt, blouse and pussy bow for one of the show’s many cross-dressing studies.) Now’s the time to add that “Donahue” was a morning talk show. In Philadelphia, he arrived every weekday at 9 a.m., which meant that, in the summers, I could learn about compulsive shopping or shifting gender roles from the same kitchen TV set as my grandmother.
Sex and sexuality were the show’s prime subjects. There was so much that needed confessing, correction, corroboration, an ear lent. For that, Donahue needed an expert. Many times, the expert was Dr. Ruth, a godsend who didn’t land in this country until she was in her late 20s and didn’t land on television until she was in her 50s. Ruth Westheimer arrived to us from Germany, where she started as Karola Ruth Siegel and strapped in as her life corkscrewed, as it mocked fiction. Her family most likely perished in the Auschwitz death camps after she was whisked to the safety of a Swiss children’s home, where she was expected to clean. The twists include sniper training for one of the military outfits that would become the Israel Defense Forces, maiming by cannonball on her 20th birthday, doing research at a Planned Parenthood in Harlem, single motherhood and three husbands. She earned her doctorate from Columbia University, in education, and spent her postdoc researching human sexuality. And because her timing was perfect, she emerged at the dawn of the 1980s, an affable vector of an era’s craze for gnomic sages (Zelda Rubinstein, Linda Hunt, Yoda), masterpiece branding and the nasty.
Hers was the age of Mapplethorpe and Madonna, of Prince, Skinemax and 2 Live Crew. On her radio and television shows, in a raft of books and a Playgirl column and through her promiscuous approach to talk-show appearances, she aimed to purge sex of shame, to promote sexual literacy. Her feline accent and jolly innuendo pitched, among other stuff, the Honda Prelude, Pepsi, Sling TV and Herbal Essences. (“Hey!” she offers to a young elevator passenger. “This is where we get off.”) The instructions for Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex says it can be played by up to four couples; the board is vulval and includes stops at “Yeast Infection,” “Chauvinism” and “Goose Him.”
On “Donahue,” she is direct, explicit, dispelling, humorous, clear, common-sensical, serious, vivid. A professional therapist. It was Donahue who handled the comedy. On one visit in 1987, a caller needs advice about a husband who cheats because he wants to have sex more often than she does. Dr. Ruth tells Donahue that if the caller wants to keep the marriage, and her husband wants to do it all the time, “then what she should do is to masturbate him. And it’s all right for him to masturbate himself also a few times.” The audience is hear-a-pin-drop rapt or maybe just squirmy. So Donahue reaches into his parochial-school-student war chest and pulls out the joke about the teacher who tells third-grade boys, “Don’t play with yourself, or you’ll go blind.” And Donahue raises his hand like a kid at the back of the classroom and asks, “Can I do it till I need glasses?” Westheimer giggles, maybe noticing the large pair on Donahue’s face. This was that day’s cold open.
They were children of salesmen, these two; his father was in the furniture business, hers sold what people in the garment industry call notions. They inherited a salesman’s facility for people and packaging. When a “Donahue” audience member asks Westheimer whether her own husband believes she practices what she preaches, she says this is why she never brings him anywhere. “He would tell you and Phil: ‘Do not listen to her. It’s all talk,’” which cracks the audience up.
But consider what she talked about — and consider how she said it. My favorite Dr. Ruth word was “pleasure.” From a German mouth, the word conveys what it lacks with an American tongue: sensual unfurling. She vowed to speak about sex to mass audiences using the proper terminology. Damn the euphemisms. People waited as long as a year and a half for tickets to “Donahue” so they could damn them, too. But of everything Westheimer pitched, of all the terms she precisely used, pleasure was her most cogent product, a gift she believed we could give to others, a gift she swore we owed ourselves.
I miss the talk show that Donahue reinvented. I miss the way Dr. Ruth talked about sex. It’s fitting somehow that this antidogmatic-yet-priestly Irish Catholic man would, on occasion, join forces with a carnal, lucky-to-be-alive Jew to urge the exploration of our bodies while demonstrating respect, civility, reciprocation. They believed in us, that we were all interesting, that we could be trustworthy panelists in the discourse of being alive. Trauma, triviality, tubal ligation: Let’s talk about it! Fear doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. Or if it did, it was never a deterrent. Boldly they went. — And with her encouragement, boldly we came.
Wesley Morris is a critic at large for The New York Times and a staff writer for the magazine.
World
Israeli president calls Trump a 'true friend' on Inauguration Day, praises his work to release hostages
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is praising Donald Trump on Inauguration Day, calling him a “true friend” of the country and thanking him for his efforts to secure the release of hostages from Hamas.
“On behalf of the people of Israel, I send my heartfelt congratulations to you, President Donald Trump on your inauguration as the 47th POTUS,” Herzog wrote on X.
“You are a true friend of Israel. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to building a better future for our region. A special thank you for your commitment to bringing all our hostages home,” he continued.
“We wish you and your administration great success in your service to the American people. Good luck!” Herzog added.
FREED ISRAELI HOSTAGE SPEAKS OUT FOR FIRST TIME
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and President Trump (Antonio Masiello/Valerie Plesch/Getty Images)
The comments come a day after Hamas released to Israel three hostages it has been holding in captivity for nearly 500 days, as part of a cease-fire and hostage release agreement.
In exchange, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank.
“Let’s face it, the fact that President Trump had a clear message, ‘By my inauguration, I want to see hostages coming out, or else there will be hell to pay,’ made a huge impact in the Middle East, and we are hopeful that with his leadership, we’re going to see all 98 hostages coming out starting today with the three female hostages,” Ronen Neutra, whose son Omer was killed by Hamas terrorists, told Fox News on Sunday.
ISRAEL RELEASES 90 PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AS PART OF CEASE-FIRE DEAL TO FREE HOSTAGES
Emily Damari, right, and her mother Mandy are seen near kibbutz Reim, southern Israel after Emily was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza on Sunday, Jan. 19. (AP/Israeli Army)
Trump said last week, “This EPIC cease-fire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies.
President Isaac Herzog shakes hands with President Biden while meeting at the White House on Nov. 12, 2024. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones,” he had written on Truth Social.
Fox News’ Taylor Penley contributed to this report.
Palestinians have recovered dozens of bodies buried under rubble in Gaza and are searching for thousands more as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold for a second day.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Monday that the bodies of 97 Palestinians have been recovered in the destroyed city of Rafah in southern Gaza since the ceasefire took effect the previous day with the release of the first three captives held by Hamas and 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails.
Israeli attacks on Gaza killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 111,000, according to local health authorities.
But the Palestinian Civil Defence agency said it estimated there are 10,000 bodies under destroyed structures across the strip.
At least 2,840 bodies were melted and there are no traces of them, said Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Services in Gaza.
Meanwhile, many displaced residents returning to their neighbourhoods found them almost unrecognisable due to the devastation from more than 15 months of war.
“[The level of destruction] was a big shock, and the amount [of people] feeling shocked is countless because of what happened to their homes. It’s destruction, total destruction,” Mohamed Gomaa, who lost his brother and nephew in the war, told the Reuters news agency.
“It’s not like an earthquake or a flood, no no. What happened is a war of extermination.”
Meanwhile, more than 630 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Monday, with at least 300 of those trucks going to the enclave’s north, where the UN said famine looms.
With a growing flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave, residents flocked into markets with some expressing happiness at the lower prices and the presence of new food items like imported chocolates.
“The prices have gone down, the war is over and the crossing is open to more goods,” Aya Mohammad-Zaki, a displaced woman from Gaza City sheltering in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Reuters.
Attention is also starting to shift to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave, which the Israeli military demolished in retaliation for Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Those assaults killed 1,139 people with about 250 taken captive into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing more than 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2bn.
A UN report from last year said rebuilding Gaza’s shattered homes could take at least until 2040 but could drag on for many decades. The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos because some refugee camps struck during the war are known to have been built with the material.
A UN Development Programme official said on Sunday that development in Gaza has been set back by 69 years as a result of the conflict.
Isolated incidents as ceasefire largely holds
Residents and officials in Gaza said on Monday that, for the most part, the ceasefire appeared to be holding – although there were incidents of violence.
Two Palestinian civilians, one of them a teenage boy, were killed by Israeli snipers in Rafah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Eight Palestinians, including children, were also injured on Monday as a result of Israeli gunfire in Rafah.
The Israeli military said it fired warning shots towards people who approached soldiers deployed according to the ceasefire agreement.
Meanwhile, Mohamad Elmasry, a media studies professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said Israeli media are now increasingly focusing on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war on Gaza.
“They’re calling this a spectacular failure,” he told Al Jazeera, stressing that Netanyahu failed to fulfil his promise to eliminate Hamas.
“And now he has to watch on all the TV screens Hamas fighters dressed in their fatigues escorting Israeli captives to their vehicles,” the academic added.
“He’s watching as Hamas will continue to govern Gaza and oversee the security situation, the humanitarian aid situation and all elements of this ceasefire. Hamas has not been eliminated, and this is very embarrassing for Netanyahu.”
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