7 July 2006 (11 Tamuz 5766)
I have been trying in vain to explain people around me, including my friends and colleagues, about the difference between software and formats and to convince them to choose or switch software not for its appearance and fancy features but for the formats it supports. Unfortunately, few of them seem to understand what I mean as they seem to be trapped in or dazzled by the illusion of WYSIWYG. I have been nagging them not because I want to show off but because I do not want any of them to find themselves in the worst situation of being unable to reuse their precious digital data and/or in the so-called "vendor lock-in".
Software comes and goes. Even those programs that seem so popular and control the world now can fall some day as this befell a number of empires in our history. There are two types of accessibility to textual data stored either digitally or non-digitally (e.g., on paper on in some material): the language in which it is stored, and the way it is stored. Unfortunately, no human language is truly open, so certain pieces of textual data can become (easily) inaccessible to people in different time and place, but we can minimize the chance of losing the second type of accessibility. The best way to do so with digital data is to use open formats. As long as we use them, we do not have to worry about an adverse fate that befalls many programs.
Some of my friends and colleagues who have been recommended by me to stop using Microsoft Word and its format(s) for saving their documents may have thought that I am like a voice in the wilderness that tries to warn them about the doomsday. My recommendation/warning, however, is based not only a priori on the conclusion that can be easily drawn from the very nature of proprietary formats and the programs that use them but also a posteriori on my bitter experiences with Word format(s). I have not so much critical of Word itself as of its format(s). I cannot help feeling really sorry for people who are still stuck with these proprietary formats when better alternatives have been around, of course unless they intend to bury their digital data in oblivion.
14 July 2006 (18 Tamuz 5766)
Sometimes I feel like escaping from society and live on an uninhabited island because of a certain kind of egocentric people. Society is supposed to be where its members help each other instead of bothering each other. We do not always share interests with each other in private and public matters. The question is which party should concede when the interests clash.
Some people say that they will suffer if they do not do a certain thing, while if they do so, they cause suffering to other people around them. A typical example of such a relationship is that between smokers and non-smokers around them. Another example is a relationship between those who make noise using cellphones, musical instruments etc. and those who suffer from this noise.
I think there is a fundamental difference between these two kinds of suffering. They are not symmetrical. The suffering of smokers etc. often depends on themselves alone and it can usually be avoided in another time and place, while the suffering of non-smokers etc. depends mostly on those who inflict it on them as the former are often forced to share the same time and place with the latter. If one type of suffering is dependent on one's own free will, while the other is not, those who experience the first type of suffering should, in my opinion, concede to those whom they cause suffering, and the latter have the right to ask the former to do so.
People with manners and conscience would not dare to cause suffering to others in the first place in order to pursue their own interests. So it may be no wonder that those who feel no remorse for bothering others for their own pleasure seldom stop it when they are asked to. It is best to stay away from these people if we have a choice, but we cannot always choose with whom to share the same time and space; examples include co-passengers and neighbors. I can only bemoan the bad luck of having such a neighbor who has been torturing me with his noise in spite of my repeated requests.
21 July 2006 (25 Tamuz 5766)
Nowhere in Japan would I be able to imagine the kind of job I have been doing for the past two years in Israel, i.e., teaching university courses in Hebrew linguistics. This naturally adds to my satisfaction with life here in general terms. But in one area I feel so bad and cannot clearly plan my future here. It is my legal status as a guest worker in Israel.
For the first time in my life I fully realize the misery of having no citizenship of the country of residence. It is not that I experience disrimination by people on the street but that I am forced to feel that I am a second-rate citizen legally. Being a guest worker here means not only having to struggle with bureaucracy every year to extend a visa but also having far less privileges and rights while paying the same tax as ordinary citizens. It also means that he cannot work even in the university for more than five years and have to leave the job and the country then. Even without such a primitive occupational restriction I am not sure if I am ready to continue to live as a second-rate citizen.
28 July 2006 (3 Av 5766)
From Sunday until this morning I was in Moscow in order to participate in the 8th EAJS Congress in Moscow, or to be more precise, I attended this congress in order to visit Russia. I enjoyed this precious experience so much that I am still sorry that I could not visit St. Petersburg as well for lack of budget.
As was expected, there were not many new things in the presentations I heard, though I did enjoy some of them. But as a whole, this congress enabled me to taste the European approach to Jewish studies, which is different from the Israeli and American ones. The contrast between the European and American approaches was especially striking: generally speaking, researchers specializing in Jewish studies in the United States (and naturally in Israel) are predominantly Jewish, while there seem to be more non-Jewish researchers in European countries. I have an impression that in the United States (and Israel) you are constantly asked to explain why you major in Jewish studies unless you are Jewish, which I think is a very parochial way of thinking uncommon in European scholarship. Why should one not study anything simply because it is intellectually interesting? Do we need any other explanation? I also felt that the European approach is wider than its American counterpart in that specific areas of Jewish studies seem to be less compartmentalized from each other on the one hand and from neighboring non-Jewish disciplines on the other.
I enjoyed the city of Moscow itself more than the congress. The bookstores I planned to visit in Moscow and did do so did not disappoint me, though they are of course far smaller than the biggest ones in Tokyo. I was impressed with the scene I saw in the subway: many people read books, and nobody speaks on the cellphone or writes SMS. The trains themselves are quite old, so they make terrible noise, but this noise is far less unbearable than the noise of officious announcements from loudspeakers in Japan or of cellphone conversations in Israel. Compared to Moscow, Jerusalem seems really provincial, and unfortunately, people here look less cultured and far fatter in general.
I visited some famous sights such as the Kremlin, the Red Square, Tretyakovsky Gallery, etc., but the most unforgettable experience I had in Moscow was that in a certain pub I danced, sang and spoke with a couple of local people in Russian. It is always fascinating to meet and speak with people from a different cultural background and see what remains from nature and what results from culture. Having acquainted with those Muscovites and others, I realized why such a large percent of my friends in Jerusalem are from Russia. I feel I share a very similar, if not identical, "language" with them, unlike with certain non-"Russian" groups of people in Israel.
This visit to Moscow has given me impetus to brush up my Russian as I definitely want to visit Russia again, hopefully St. Petersburg next time. I also think that Russian will become a very important language in certain, if not all, areas of Jewish studies.