Living and Writing in Israel

HAVE KINDLE WILL READ

2012-01-30T16:05:00.000+02:00

I read a book this week – It took me just two days and I read it entirely while traveling by bus to and from my day-job and waiting in line at the post-office.
I know, you’re thinking big-deal! Lots of people read on buses. But I never did, mainly because I never wanted to shlep a book with me. I carry enough as it is and didn’t want to add to the load.
But now with my Kindle ( substitute any e-reader) it’s always in my small hand-bag, weighs next-to-nothing and contains several books I want to read.

I was also amazed at how many free books are available on Kindle. I had assumed that all the freebies would be – forgive me for saying it – junk. But that’s simply not the case.
I have downloaded several books that were on my to-read list, free of charge and I've bought several others at ridiculously low prices.
There are several sites for free and cheap e books. Amazon have a monthly list of 100 free books and on Twitter you can follow @pixelofink and #freekindlebooks and get daily updates, some of which are new books.

Friends have said – well you can’t use it on Shabbos (the Sabbath when we're not allowed to use electronic devices) so why bother, but the truth is I read completely different material on Shabbos anyway and I’m sure we’ll always have bookshleves full of ‘real’ books, but there is definitely a place in my life for a Kindle.

And by the way, I’ve also downloaded a free Siddur and Sefer Tehiilim so that’s another couple of items I don’t need to carry with me during the week.

If anyone has any more ideas / links I’ll be happy to hear.

WEDDINGS AND DEADLINES

2012-01-24T16:28:00.000+02:00

What do you do when your daughter’s wedding and a writing deadline fall on the same day?
Well you can’t postpone the wedding, so you have to bring the deadline forward, at least psychologically, and I had to tell myself that I had to send the copy and photos in a week early.
I knew if I left it any later, it would never get done – as it was, it was touch and go.
The big plus was that the articles that needed to be written were all about places in my hometown of Jerusalem, so I didn’t have far to travel for research and photographs.
My sister had already arrived from the States for the wedding and so I persuaded her to accompany me on a walk around Mishkenot Shaananim while we chatted about family and I made notes and took photos.
Montefiore’s Windmill

Artists’ Quarter in Yemin Moshe

Then we went for a walk amongst the beautiful alleyways of Nachlaot

and found some surprising parks hidden away

On we went to town Nachlat Shiva, one of the first neighborhoods to be built outside the Old City walls in the beginning of the 20th century, to visit some of the attractive shops and restaurants.

Then it was off home to write it all up, chose the best of the hundreds of photos I’d taken – leave for a day and re-read……….. and click ‘send’.
And then I could concentrate on the last minute arrangements for the wedding.

ANCIENT JAFFA–Tel Aviv’s sister city

2011-12-08T21:07:00.003+02:00

Jaffa is as beautiful and ancient,as Tel Aviv is brassy and modern – so near physically yet so far architecturally and in atmosphere.

View from Jaffa overlooking Tel Aviv
Jaffa is reputed to be the oldest port in the world, and is the spot from where Jonah the Prophet fled on his ill fated voyage.

It is full of cobbled alleyways, surprise turnings, workshops of ancient crafts,art galleries, breathtaking look-outs and unforgettable sunsets over the Mediterranean.

The zodiac motif runs through the whole area. Below is the new zodiac fountain recently added to Kedumim Square where the newly renovated Tourist Information office is situated.

The alleyways are also named after the signs of the zodiac. Mazal Dagim below is Hebrew for Pisces.

World famous Judaica artisans have their studios in Jaffa and at this time of year the Chanukah menorah in various materials can be seen everywhere.

According to ancient superstition if a bride has her photo taken on The Wishing Bridge, whilst holding on to her own sign of the zodiac which decorates the side of the bridge, her wish will come true. Maybe - or maybe not but it makes a great photo opportunity.

Reb. Nosson Zvi Finkel’s love for his students

2011-11-22T15:57:00.000+02:00

I
I have some photographs taken just six weeks ago that I treasure.

During that morning, my husband and I visited the cheder kindergarten where our grandson learns and, together with his parents and teachers, we had celebrated his 3^rd birthday.

A 3^rd birthday is special for a Jewish boy, because it marks the beginning of his education and also is the first time a boy gets his hair cut. The other boys in his class sang to little Yaacov and they all danced together, cake and goodies were handed out. Then my son-in-law took him off to visit his Rosh Yeshiva to cut the first locks of hair from our grandson’s head and to give him a ‘bracha’a blessing.

How could I have known when my daughter later came to show me the photos of Reb Nosson Zvi Finkel ZT”L, the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir, and my son-in-law’s Rosh Yeshiva, cutting my 3 year old grandson’s hair, that just a few weeks later he would no longer be amongst us.

I knew that Reb Nosson Zvi suffered from a very severe form of Parkinson’s disease. His decision not to take any medication in case it affected his memory and caused him to forget anything he had ever learnt, meant that he was wracked constantly by a shaking body.
All who had been privileged to watch him give a shiur, attested to the extreme difficulty he had controlling his limbs, but it didn’t stop him giving countless shiurim sometimes sitting on his hands to stop them from interfering with his delivery.

And he was known to almost never refuse a request to officiate at a student’s wedding, be sandek at a Brit Mila ( the one who holds the baby) or to cut the hair of a 3 year old at his first hair-cut.

How was it possible, I asked my son-in-law, for someone whose limbs were so uncontrollable to agree to perform these tasks which must have been so difficult for him?

My sons-in-law’s answer gave an inkling of the greatness of this amazing man.
If he exerted tremendous strength he could control his limbs for a few seconds, but the exertion was exhausting for him. Yet for his students and their families he was always prepared to go not just the extra mile, but what must have been for him the extra thousand miles.

Reb Nosson Zvi’s love for his students, and he had thousands of them, was legendry. No other Rosh Yeshiva, it was said, had so many private learning sessions with his students on top of his grueling schedule of shiurim. Anyone who asked to learn with him was almost guaranteed a time slot in his packed daily schedule.

How many of us have ever faced the 24/7 difficulties, challenges and debilitating pain that Reb Nosson Zvi lived with, and accepted them silently with such superhuman love for our fellow Jews?

Knowing what he was prepared to go through to bring happiness to his students and their families, even at such cost to himself, is an inspiration to all of us who sometimes find life a little challenging.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE GUSH KATIF EXPELEES

2011-11-15T21:56:00.002+02:00

Did you ever wonder what happened to the thousands of families who were expelled from Gush Katif?

Six years ago, the government ripped thousands of families from their own homes in order to bring ‘peace’ to Gaza.
They believed, or so they told us, that if we gave the Arabs all of Gaza, including the section that was populated by Jewish families and farmers , the Arabs would love us and would live in peace with us happily ever after.

So thousands of people who had built up home and communities, businesses and farms with their bare hands with the blessing of the government, were torn from their homes and dumped onto buses to be taken ………..somewhere.

And where are they now?
You would be forgiven for assuming that of course they are all happily settled in some new settlement or farm, or living in towns around the country.
Unfortunately this is very far from the truth. Many are still in the same ‘caravans’ or flimsy 'cardboard houses' that they were given six years ago, together with worthless promises of compensation to rebuild wherever they wanted.

Two years ago I wrote this article about Rachel Saperstein, one of the strongest advocates for the group. Early on in the campaign she set up a special fund called Operation Dignity to help ease the financial burden for those left homeless and jobless.

Last week I received the message below from her. She and many others from the former settlement of Neve Dekalim, are now being hit continually by the missiles from Gaza – that very same Gaza they left five years ago in order to achieve peace with the Arabs who are now attacking us all day after day.

MOBILE SHELTERS

by Rachel Saperstein, Nitzan/Neve Dekalim

"Do you know the fellow who works in the pizza shop?" a friend asked.

"Of course" I answered.

"Well" my friend continued, "he's ordering a mobile security room. It's costing them quite a bit of money but they have no choice. It's impossible to run with five small children, especially in the middle of the night, into the sewer pipe shelter. He says his kids are terrified. They're wetting their beds, clinging to him and his wife, and afraid to go to sleep at night. 'What will happen if you can't get all of us into the pipe on time?' his oldest kid asked."

We only have ten seconds from the sound of the siren to get into the concrete sewer pipe in our cul de sac. Hence the mobile shelters. Last week, with the sirens wailing, I watched grandparents running into the sewer pipe clutching their grandchildren wrapped in blankets. An infant was held by her pregnant mom.

"Where are they going to put the security room?" I asked my friend.

"They'll cut out parts of the plasterboard wall in the children's room and attach the shelter to it. If there's a night of heavy bombardment they'll put mattresses on the floor and the kids will go to sleep directly from the bath."

Bath time is always frightening. One always wonders if the siren will wail while one is all soaped up. "At least I'll die clean" my husband says.

Last Sunday morning we had the first real experience of the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system. The sound was horrific. Pieces of shrapnel from the exploded missile fell close to a nearby housing area. Is Iron Dome a blessing or a curse? Over fifty missiles have been fired at our western Negev area. Only two or three were intercepted by Iron Dome.

As you can see, they are very far from resettled.

REUNIONS AND HOSPITALITY

2011-11-08T14:50:00.000+02:00

It was so great to finally meet up again with my old ‘real’ friend and current ‘e-friend’ Ros Adam.
We haven’t seen each other since we were teenagers, and I’m not going to tell you how long ago that was (but it’s not far off half a century !) but we’ve been in email contact for the last 3 years since we reconnected over a book project Ros was editing for our hometown, Leicester.

Our get-together was short and sweet as Ros was on her first visit to Israel( you can read all about it on her blog )and only had a week to site-see. Next time I hope we’ll be able to spend longer together.

Living in Israel, we’ve had many reunions with long lost friends . It’s a rare Jewish soul that doesn’t find its way here at some point.
Many teenagers, take a year off between school and college and visit Israel for a year. Some volunteer on a kibbutz or come to learn the language and some girls come to study in a religious seminar and boys to spend a year in yeshiva.

During their stay, there are always those ‘out’ Shabbatot’, when the kids are expected to make their own arrangements for Shabbat and go and stay with someone.
This is how we’ve come to meet many of our friends’ children. Our address and phone number have obviously been entered into their electronic address book for just such an occurrence and we’re happy to host them and their friends who may not have a full address book to choose from.

It’s all part of the enjoyment and privilege of living in Israel.

A NEW YEAR, A NEW GRANDSON, A NEW SON-IN-LAW, A BAR MITZVAH AND GILAD SHALIT IS HOME.

2011-11-02T00:25:00.029+02:00

Thank G'd it's been a wonderful start to the Jewish New Year.
Our youngest daughter got engaged, we have been blessed with a new grandson, we had a first Bar Mitzvah of the next generation..............and of course

Gilad Shalit came home.

Although we all prayed with all our hearts that he should come home safely to his family, I know that I never really believed that we'd see him alive again.
Thank G'd I was wrong.

First photos of Gilad after his release from 5 years incarceration in a prison in Gaza .

We pray that we and all of our People should continue to hear only good news throughout the coming year.

THE JERUSALEM LIGHT RAIL IS RUNNING

2011-08-22T19:12:00.001+03:00

AND I WAS EVEN CRAZY ENOUGH TO TRAVEL ON IT .

This week was not a good week to try it out – I thought I would die of suffocation before I’d get to write this blog.

If you’ve ever traveled on an Egged bus you know how many people they squash onto them – well treble that and you have an idea of the number of people pushing and shoving their way onto the new light rail

Yes I admit I never thought it would run in my lifetime.

It has take as long to construct this short 14 kilometer ride run as it took to build the entire Hejaz Haifa - Damascus – Medina line ………..a mere 1300 kilometers !

For around 10 years we Jerusalemites have had our traveling and downtown shopping lives made an utter misery by the construction of this train’s infrastructure, when it could, and should have taken no more than a third of the time.

Businesses and shops have gone bankrupt because for years there has been no public transport along the main shopping street of Jerusalem.

But now it’s running let’s find something to celebrate about it ……………….. ummmmm I’m really trying hard to find something good to say about it.

OK – thought of something – it’s free –----- well for the next few weeks it’s free. I think this was a pathetic way of the Jerusalem municipality thinking it could compensate us for the last 10 years misery we’ve suffered while they mismanaged the construction.

OK something else – it has computerized signs on the stops telling you when the next train is coming so you can decide whether or not to bother to wait.

You enter and exit by 12 doors which hopefully will speed up the time it spends at the stops. But that’s because you have to prebuy your tickets and this will no doubt take some getting used to.

It stops adjacent to the curb so it’s easier for people with carriages or in wheelchairs.

You see how positive I’m being.

Come visit and try it out for yourselves.

A DEVOTEDLY DECORATED SYNAGOGUE IN ACRE

2011-08-04T15:48:00.001+03:00

Acre is most famous for is Crusader fortress, Byzantine remains and Ottoman history.

So it’s quite a surprise to round a corner into Kaplan Street and come across one of the most ornately decorated shuls I’ve ever seen.

The Ohr Torah synagogue was set up 60 years ago by the Tunisian community in Acre and they have been building and decorating it ever since …. bit by bit ……. shekel by shekel.

This massive work of love was taken on by Zion Badash, now in his 80s, a holocaust survivor from Tunisia ( it’s not so well known that people were rounded up in Tunisia and transported to the concentration camps in Europe).

After the establishment of the State in 1948, this building was given to the Tunisian community to set up their own shul which Zion , then in his 20s. immediately took upon himself.

They started building with the small amount of money they had intending to continue as money was collected. They decorated the ground floor with some mosaics and decided they wanted to cover the entire building with mosaics – which they have done.

Zion, can usually be found in his shul, happily recounting its history to all visitors. He is a staunch lover of Israel and claims he doesn’t possess a passport as he doesn’t ever want to leave the country.

As you enter the ground floor, you come to the Beis HaMedrash where the community prays during the week, and beneath your feet, on the floor are mosaics of of animals, fish and flowers.

As you slowly raise your eyes you’ll see the mosaics of episodes from the Bible as well as coins from over the centuries.

The ceiling shows the design of the Temple. All the colors are natural mosaic colors – none have been painted.

Thee are 140 stained glass windows depicting important events in our history- this one shows Acre,in the tribe of Asher and the writing shows how Acre was supposedly given its name by G’d during the flood when he said the flood waters will go “up to here” ( ad ko)

The mosaic ceiling inside the prayer hall shows scenes from ancient Jerusalem.

As you walk up the stairs you can’t help but realize that the entire stairwell is also covered in mosaics – these depicting difficult times in our history.

Upstairs is the main shul where nothing has been spared in its decoration.

The domed ceiling

The 7 holy Arks where the Torah scroll are kept.

The three middle ones already have doors of inlaid silver, intricately decorated. In the coming years the members hope to raise enough funds to put silver doors on all of the sections.

The ornate round Sefardi Torah scrolls stand in the Ark.

Even the women’s section is appropriately decorated with mosaic pictures depicting the role of our matriarchs. Below Rebecca meets Isaac for the first time.

Ancient history is not the only time depicted in the decorations. Symbols of the State of Israel adorn the path on the way out of the synagogue.

An English Tea Party with the British Ambassador

2011-07-17T17:02:00.001+03:00

Once a year, during the school vacation, the English Teachers Association in Israel holds a two day conference.

It’s a great way to inject a bit of interest and enthusiasm into our weary bones just after the end of year exams and to exchange tips / lesson plans / strategies / ideas, recommend books and replenish some of our enthusiasm for our chosen career

There’s also a large book exhibition where we get a chance to peruse and order books on teaching English from all the large book publishers.

Often one of the book publishers treats us to a lunch, but this year we were honored with a visit from the British Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, and so the British Council in Israel laid on an English tea party, complete with mini sandwiches and cakes and pastries.

The one disappointment was the TEA. Now one thing I’ve never given up is my English tea. Whenever I return to England I always stock up on good old Tetley, PG Tips or something similar and in LARGE quantities.

Israelis, like the Americans – just don’t know anything about a decent cup of tea. They think you drink it without milk and consequently it is sooooo weak.

But I did expect better from the British Council. I expected them to have a decent supply of real English tea.

But one look at what was poured out of that English look-alike teapot and I knew ………… it was the weak foreign stuff.

Matthew Gould’s speech almost made up for the terrible tea.

He was charming, witty, knew how to poke fun at himself and talked a lot of sense – characteristics that don’t often go together these days. He explained his hesitation at applying for the post, being Jewish himself and his visits to several mosques prior to leaving for Israel to assure the British Moslems that he was also their representative as well, even though he was Jewish.

He discussed the anti-Israel boycott and anti-Semitism on some of the UK university campuses and explained the delay in passing the bill that will halt the possibility of our members of Knesset and other ex-military personnel being arrested for war crimes when they visit Israel.

He even answered the pointed, political questions we posed, very clearly and astutely.

I almost forgave them the awful tea.

THE END OF ANOTHER SCHOOL YEAR

2011-06-30T20:25:00.001+03:00

It’s been an exhausting two weeks. It’s the end of the school year here in Israel and that means saying goodbye to all my own students.

I teach English in a one year college preparatory course to help girls in their late teens- early twenties get their Bagrut, the school leaving certificate. These are girls who for one reason or another didn’t manage to get it when they left school.

It’s an intensive year. People here marry young and continue to study and work so I had several married girls and some with children. One gave birth to her second son ten days before the final exam but she arrived wit her baby in a sling and nursed as she wrote and we babysat when she finished feeding him.

Another student who had been married for several years without children was visibly pregnant by the end of the year to everyone’s delight. We had celebrated engagements and weddings together and became as close as family by the time we parted tearfully .

At the other end of the spectrum, I was invited to all my grandchildren’s end of term parties – and these are done in real style over here and can take hours – even for those in kindergarten.

Being blessed with a large number of grandchildren I have spent many mornings and evenings recently in different schools and halls ‘kvelling’ as we say…….. and also taking photos and videos of the proceedings.

I thought my job as family photographer would end as my status changed from mummy to bubby but I guess my kids got used to me in that role and don’t want to let me give it up.

But now it’s vacation time and they, at least, can relax

Thanks for the award

2011-06-26T10:02:00.001+03:00

Thank you Rosalind Adam of Rosalind Adam is writing in the rain for naming me a ‘ seriously cute blogger’ and ‘tagging’ me and now I’m cheating and answering a combination of the two sets questions that she sent my way.

1. Upload a recent wallpaper (from my computer I presume)

This is a gorgeous photo I took when I had lunch with my sisters recently overlooking the beach in Netanya. I just love the contrast between the sea in front and behind the breakwater.

Doesn’t it make you want jump in and start swimming?

2. When did you last eat chicken?

Yesterday for Shabbat lunch – after the cholent of course, no matter that it’s 30 plus degrees outside– we still have to have cholent!

3. Do you have a nickname?

Yes - Penny , that’s what my sisters all call me. How did it originate? Supposedly because that’s all I was worth –( I guess I ought to see a therapist to see why I’m not suffering from a terrible complex after getting such a cruel nickname!)

Now I’m going back to the cute-blogger award and naming 5 of my all time favorite books. Some of them I can barely remember but at the time they made a tremendous impression on me!

1. The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

2.Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

3. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom

4.1984 – George Orwell

5. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

I am a Jerusalemite

2011-06-19T15:34:00.004+03:00

I envy my two youngest daughters one thing in their lives.
When they fill out any standard form, at the question ‘birthplace’ – they can write - Jerusalem.
That’s something I’ll never be able to say, even though I’m proud to be able to give Jerusalem as my address today. I am a Jerusalemite by choice – they are by birth.

However, not everyone feels constrained by reality when stating their birthplace.

In 1966 Shmuel Yosef ( Shai) Agnon was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature and in his acceptance speech at the Nobel banquet he said:
"As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem."

A copy of ‘the sacking of Jerusalem’ on Titus’ Arch in Rome, on display at the Diaspora Museum.

I understand how he felt.
We named our first daughter who was born here, Shulamit which comes from the three letters shin, lamed and mem from the name Yerushelayim, the Hebrew for Jerusalem.
ירושלים שולמית

Since then we have been blessed with many grandchildren who will be able to fill in ‘Jerusalem’ when asked for their birthplace.
We pray that their number will increase and that from now onwards we shall remain in our homeland, with Jerusalem it’s capital ,and that the streets will be filled with the happy sounds of Jewish children learning and playing.

JERUSALEM DAY – the reunification of Israel’s capital

2011-05-29T18:57:00.001+03:00

Forty four years ago the barriers which divided Jerusalem into two came down and the city was once again united and open to anyone, of any religion, who wanted to visit and pray at the holy places.

Until then, Jews had only been able to gaze from afar at their holiest site, the Kotel, the remains of the the Western Wall of the Temple which was closest to the holiest spot inside the Temple.

Now we are free again to come and pour our hearts out in prayer and in thanks.

Prayers, dreams, hopes and wishes tucked into the crevices between the stones.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t thank G’d for the privilege of living here; of bringing up my children and grandchildren here in the city that so many millions of Jews over the centuries could only dream of. There is nowhere else in the world where we feel so close and connected to our past and to G’d.Nowhere in the world is it easier to be a Jew.

At Sukkot time most of the Jerusalem restaurants have a sukkah.

Tour guides walk around with the Tenach in their hands as a guide book and point out places to to visitors that they had only heard about in Religious studies lessons.

Every day ‘new‘ artifacts from our past are being dug up showing us how our ancestors lived and connecting us irrevocably . Below is a section of King David’s Palace in Ir David ( David’s City) which is being excavated in the valley below the Kotel

The Talmud tell us that “Ten measures of beauty descended to the world – nine were given to Jerusalem and one to the rest of the world”

Jerusalem is indeed the most beautiful place in the world, both physically and spiritually.

Walking along the alleyways of the Jewish Quarter .

Autumn at the Botanical Gardens

Yad Vashem – memorial to the 6 millions Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust.

The model of Jerusalem during the time of the 2nd Temple, now housed in the grounds of The Israel Museum

Watch this short film by Aish Haorah about what Jerusalem means to the Jewish people.

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Bible Lands Museum – new exhibition INSPIRED

2011-05-16T00:25:00.001+03:00

After three pretty heavy heavy posts connected to Holocaust Memorial Day, the Eichmann Trial and Independence Day I decided it’s time for a light break.

During Pesach ( Passover) we made the most of the generosity of Bank Hapoalim, who sponsored free entry to many museums and National Parks, for everyone, during the week long festival, .

We hadn’t visited the Bible Lands Museum for a long time so we headed there first.

We were greeted at the door by the friendly Bank Hapoalim emblem

The emphasis inside at this time of year was, not surprisingly, ancient Egypt. Many people think that the Jewish slaves built the pyramids but the view below of the three largre pyramids which still remain today, were also seen by Jacob and his sons when they went down to Egypt originally as free and honored men, thousands of years ago .

The pyramids were built, many years before the Jewish people’s arrival ,as tombs for the Pharos (kings) by the Egyptians.

The current pride of the museum is a new exhibition by the Spanish sculptor Manel Alvarez entitled INSPIRED.

All his sculptures that are on display were inspired by episodes from the Bible.
I honestly admit that I don’t always understand or appreciate modern art but some of these pieces were beautiful and clear even to me – whereas others remain a mystery.

This piece represents Joshua. A shield for the soldier and the musical notes on the shield represents the ‘music’ from the shofar which he blew as he circled the walls of Jericho seven times.

The tree of life which stood in the middle of the Garden of Eden. The wood I can understand representing a tree but the spear through the middle ? I don’t know.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, also found in the Garden of Eden. Maybe the spear represents branches in both trees.

Moses in his basket in the river Nile.

The Golden Calf which the Israelites built when Moses came down from Mt Sinai late with the 10 Commandments.

The sculpture of Tower of Babel – reputed to be the tallest sculpture in the world at 10.5 meters high, stands outside the museum.

The children are always well catered for in museums in Israel with plenty of art and craft workshops based on topical themes, connected to the time of year and the cur

There are several other exhibitions in the museum at the moment including ‘Angels and Demons – Jewish Magic through the Ages’ which may well surprise those of you who thought that magic was forbidden in Judaism.

Take a few hours off and visit the museum – there’s plenty to enjoy there.

ISRAEL – 63 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT STATEHOOD

2011-05-08T02:54:00.001+03:00

I was just ten years old, at Israel’s 13^th birthday, fifty years ago, and I was asked to recite the Declaration of Independence in Hebrew at the local celebrations.

I stood there on the stage, my ten year old knees knocking and my heart bursting with nerves and pride, as I began:

“ lefichach nitkanasnu anu ….” “Therefore we are gathered here …..

At ten years old I had never been to Israel, nor did I imagine that I ever would. It seemed light years away from my small hometown of Leicester, in the center of England.

It was a place we turned to and mentioned in our prayers, but I never expected to see.

I thought of that day a few weeks ago as I sat, with some of my students, in Independence Hall, on Rothschild Street in Tel Aviv, in the exact spot where that same declaration had first been read out by David Ben Gurion, 63 years ago.

Our guide was giving a background to the events of that momentous day, leading up to the somewhat rushed declaration of statehood on Friday afternoon May 14, 1948, just hours before the end of the British Mandate.

Jerusalem would have been the site of choice for such a historic occasional, but Jerusalem was under siege, making it impossible to have the ceremony there. So this hall, was chosen because it was the most sheltered and secure building in the area. And who knew if there might not be an air raid in the middle of the proceedings.

The ceremony was hastily decided on and put together.

There was tremendous international pressure on Ben Gurion to delay declaring Statehood for another few months at least, to appease the Arabs after the British left the country. Even his own military advisors told him that according to all logical calculations we had only a 50/50 chance of surviving the war that would ensue if we chose to declare statehood now.

But logic and statistics have never played a decisive role in our history. If they did we probably wouldn’t be here today. And Ben Gurion made the decision that whatever the outcome, from now on we would be the masters of our own destiny, a state in our own right.

The guide pointed to the furnishings. “You see these chairs – they were borrowed from a local café. The carpet was also borrowed from a local carpet shop and the microphones – yeah that’s right, borrowed from the local music shop”.

The guide asked if any of us had ever visited Independence Hall before. No one raised their hands. There was one elderly lady in the room. The guide looked at her and asked, “Have you never been here before?”

She smiled. “Have I ever been inside here before ?” she repeated. “ No. But I was here outside on May 14^th, the 5^th of Iyar in 1948, the day independence was declared. I was a five year old girl outside waiting to hear something that I understood was very important. We heard the ceremony through the loudspeakers and as the news came through that Ben Gurion had declared a Jewish State we all started dancing and singing – but then we had to run home to get ready for Shabbat”

As I listened to her story, I thought back to that little girl on the stage 50 years ago. She never dreamt that she would one day sit in the same room where the declaration she recited, was originally read out, privileged to live in the country G’d gave to His people now once again under Jewish leadership.

Watch the background story of the UN vote in November 1947

Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel - May 2nd

2011-05-01T20:15:00.001+03:00

I have written on Holocaust themes many times and by far the most popular blog post – the one that gets the most ‘visits’ is this one about the hidden synagogue built in Theresienstadt concentration camp

A HOLOCAUST STORY – The Hidden Synagogue of Theresienstadt

The people mentioned in the story are still trying to find someone who knew of this synagogue- maybe even prayed in it so please pass on the story to anyone you know who might have been in Theresienstadt.

Both sets of my grandparents were from Germany and I well remember my amazement when I heard this story about my grandfather.

A cattle truck used to transport Jews to concentration camp now on display at the Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

My mother and her sisters reached the safety of England on the kindertransport and her first months there were very traumatic.

I wrote in last week’s blog that this year marks 50 years since the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann Hitler’s second in command who carried out the edicts of the Third Reich with terrifying enjoyment and horrifying precision.

These stories and all the other accounts of survivors must continue to be told so that the world never forgets and no one can ever deny what happened.

Fifty Years since Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem

2011-04-26T22:25:00.001+03:00

“When I stand before you O Judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet and point their finger at the man in the dock with the cry ‘ J’accuse’ on their lips for they are now only ashes – ashes piled high on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka and strewn in the forests of Poland.”

With these words, fifty years ago this month, Israel’s Attorney General Gideon Hausner opened his case against Adolf Eichmann, one of the prime instigators of the Final Solution ( annihilation of the Jews in Europe.)

Eichmann was found and kidnapped by the Israeli Mossad ( secret service) after a long painstaking search in Argentina. He was smuggled aboard a plane and brought to Israel, to Jerusalem, to stand trial for the crime of genocide of the Jewish people.

Throughout his trial he sat, totally expressionless, in his bullet-proof glass cage – through grave accusations and grueling, horrifying testimonies.

Eichmann’s trial was a turning point for many people:

It had a profound effect on the world’s outlook on the Holocaust. Live television coverage kept viewers all over the world informed day after day constantly hearing about the horrors that the Germans perpetrated. It also gave holocaust survivors in Israel ‘permission’ to retell the terrors they went through. Until then they had felt they had to suppress their stories and to try to become the consummate ‘sabra’ – tough, brave and responsible for their own destiny.

This facade didn’t mesh well with the picture of the victims of the gas chambers and concentration camps, and so they had been encouraged to ‘forget’ their past.

But when the trial opened, the nightmares and memories resurfaced and flooded out and the silence of thousands of survivors was finally broken.

The new generation of Israelis looked at their relatives /neighbors/ fellow soldiers / work colleagues who had survived Hitler’s inferno in a completely new light.

They learnt that bravery and courage doesn’t always have to show itself in physical fighting, but can be seen in retaining a human character in the face of inhuman treatment; in helping others under conditions when you could barely keep yourself alive.

Eichmann’s capture and televised trial showed the world to what depths of depravity human beings can descend.

Now 50 years later, there are people who want to deny that it ever happened.

No Holocaust.

No ghettos.

No round-ups and transportations in airless cattle trucks to suffocate to death,en route to being slaughtered

No concentration camps where millions were beaten and tortured to death and fatal medical experiments were carried out.

No gas-chambers spewing human smoke.

No death marches.

No total destruction of hundreds of Jewish villages and communities.

Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, has now put 200 hours of the Eichmann trial on YouTube so the testimony and the truth can be heard once again by all. ……… But probably the only ones who want to hear it are those who know that it’s true.

We must continue to bear witness and show the insidious lies of the Holocaust deniers.

Prayer for the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces

2011-04-14T00:38:00.001+03:00

Wishing you all a Chag Sameach , a Happy Pesach (Passover) and may G’d bring peace, security, safety and stability to His Land and People.

Pesach (Passover) cleaning

2011-04-11T17:54:00.001+03:00

In one corner lie mounds of rubbish (garbage if you’re reading this in the United States) and inside the cupboard shine the clean, empty, re-covered shelves, waiting to be filled with Pesach (Passover) products.

(that opened packet of crisps on the top shelf was my reward for all hard work. It won’t be there for long!)

Shop til you drop has a completely new meaning before Passover.

OK I admit it, that pile is also not the most nutritious section of my shopping but it’s what was on the floor when I got my camera out!

Pesach cleaning is my nemesis. I love it and hate it. I hate the thought and the necessity – but I love the result.

And I know that without the necessity it would never get done.

For those of you not in the know, before Passover the house basically gets turned upside down and inside out swept and scrubbed, washed and wiped, cleared. and cleaned, tidied and traumatized – and I didn’t just use that word because it went well with the flow, but my poor house doesn’t know what’s hit it.

All year it’s left alone to gather dust and disorganization and wallow calmly undisturbed – and suddenly, without any warning, over a three week period around spring time it gets hit by a cleaning tornado.

The blessing of cleaning for Passover is that there’s a finite time – it all has to be ready by ………. well this year it’s April 18^th – after that ………………..too late.

Now if I had to rely on the vague possibility of spring cleaning at some time or other, it would never happen.

To all my millions of fans and blog readers (after all my hard work I’m entitled to exaggerate slightly) I wish you all a Happy Pesach / Easter.

Don’t work too hard – take time to relax and appreciate all we are blessed with.

This time last year my sister in Teaneck, New Jersey was homeless after a terrible storm. It has taken a full year of building, decorating and negotiating with insurance companies, but a few weeks ago they finished the rebuilding and decorating.

Thinking back serves as a reminder that there are plenty of things far worse in life than Pesach cleaning.

HOW CAN JUDGE GOLDSTONE MAKE AMENDS TO ISRAEL?

2011-04-03T21:37:00.001+03:00

“ Take a feather pillow- cut it open and let the feathers scatter in the wind. Wait a day and then go and gather up all those feathers”

The above scenario is, according to tradition, what the tale-bearer was told to do to make amends for the ‘lashon Hara” (disparaging remarks) he spoke about someone .

In other words, it is impossible to truly make amends for sullying someone’s name.

How much worse is it when an ‘eminent ‘ ‘impartial’ judge publishes a damning judgment against an entire country, the State of Israel, full of lies, false accusations and fabrications. Judge Goldstone’s report which accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity, caused hatred against the country , destroyed its name and the reputation of its army, one of the most humane armies ever to reluctantly take up arms.

Eighteen months later, for some reason which is not yet clear, Goldstone decides to admit that his report was without foundation, totally wrong and was set up to be biased against Israel from the start.

Is Judge Goldstone’s conscience clear now after that op-ed in the Washington Post?

It shouldn’t be.

Now he has to travel the world from country to country, to the United Nations and all European and international organizations and gather up the feathers sullied with lies, hatred and Jewish blood that he has thrown to the wind.

Only when he has confessed his libelous and slanderous crimes to all those he persuaded to accept his report as ‘factual and honest’ ,will he be able to beg Israel’s forgiveness.

And still it is too late – for those feathers can never be gathered up again. Words, once said, can never be unsaid and reports once written can never be unwritten.

The Fogel Family of Itamar

2011-03-28T23:26:00.001+02:00

Sometimes written words don’t add anything.

Eight things a writer on the go needs

2011-03-15T14:49:00.001+02:00

Nowadays we seem to be constantly on the move and as spring approaches, even more so. As you never know when you’ll come across something that sparks the writer within, what should you make sure you always have with you?

1. I personally don’t carry a lap top. I’m too inclined to lose it or drop it so I use an AlphaSmart, the virtues of which I described in my very early blog Writer on the move. You can find out more about it including prices here. I got mine a lot cheaper on Ebay as people frequently upgrade and move on

Using it stops me spending too much time surfing when I should be writing. There are few places in the world where you can’t find internet access when you need it.

Of course this only applies if you are on the go for a short time and don’t have a deadline while you’re away . If you do then you’d better take a laptop.

However you might want to read these tips about keeping your laptop safe, before you set off

2. Pen and notebook – can’t beat ‘em for moments when the muse strikes and you just can’t get anything else to hand.

3. MP3 or some other pocket recording device for ideas on the go that you don’t have time to write down or if you find yourself in the company of someone interesting and you want to record him.

I often join an unofficial tour on my travels around the country and it’s great to be able to record the ‘guide’ or whoever is sharing information and not have to worry about writing everything down.

You might think of a great story line and want to capture it before it gets away or even a spark or thought for an article. Just turn it on and record your thoughts quickly.

4. A good ( doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest) digital camera.

Even if you don’t usually supply photos, they are always great for reminding you about a place/ event / person and can capture things you don’t even notice at the time e.g. the weather, the kind of people who were there, the clothes people wore etc.

5. Mobile phone (and charger). If you get a great idea for a story and want to check in with an editor you have worked with before call and run it past them and get an angle.

A new editor wouldn't want a pitch by phone so gather the information, take the photos as though you were writing the story and when you get to a computer pitch the story.

6.Comfortable walking shoes and clothes. Sun glasses and sun screen and a hat if you’re in a hot climate – you don’t need sunstroke.

7. Books to read – if you;re travelling you will hopefully have time to catch up on some of those books you’ve been promising yourself you’ll read one day. Don’t miss the opportunity.

8..power cords / batteries/ chargers / USB chargers that can be used in an electric outlet – anything that keeps all your equipment working.

Have an enjoyable and fruitful trip.

WRITING IN ISRAEL

2011-03-02T23:41:00.001+02:00

I’m often asked whether its not difficult finding writing markets living in a non-English speaking country.

The truth is that today a writer can live anywhere in the world and write for publications anywhere in and even ‘off’ the world i.e. online. No one even needs to know where you live – unless it’s to send the cheque ( that spelling gives away that I’m an ex Brit)

If you want to write about developments in hi-tech / bringing up children / advances in medicine / latest building techniques / house decorations / spring cleaning / car design / sports or in fact anything and everything - you can do it from New York / Paris / Tokyo / Jerusalem or the top of Mt Everest ( if your laptop functions there).

BUT – the fact that you can research and write from your bedroom doesn’t mean that you can expect to get your articles published if you turn out inferior internet-research laden pieces.

Any worthwhile publication will require expert input and up to date information that can be checked by their fact-checkers. And each publication will want interviews with sources and experts in their particular country or even town or state.

But that isn’t difficult to achieve – it just requires putting in some effort. if you contact an organization like HARO ( help a reporter out) or one of the many other sites ( google something like ‘find an expert in home decorating’) they can match you up with an expert in your field in the country you need.

You can then make contact and interview them by email / telephone / Skype or whatever your preferred method.

You may well find that some of the cutting-edge research in many fields is taking place here in Israel. I remember once researching a medical topic and all the top experts came from the Weizmann Institute in Rechovot. A quick check with the editor assured me that they were happy to have an interview with an expert from here as well as others more local to the publication.

As I mentioned above with the word cheque/ check, you will also have to match your spelling to the publication. English is not spelled the same in Britain and the USA. Again this is not an insurmountable problem. Here’s one site of many that can help you.

Of course this is assuming that you want to write on subjects which are international. There are of course subjects which are much easier to write from Israel than anywhere else.

But that’s for another blog post.

I WISH YOU GOOD HEALTH

2011-02-21T11:21:00.001+02:00

Have you noticed how difficult it is to focus on anything else when you’re not well?

Your whole energy seems to be taken up on sleeping and trying to will yourself to feel better.

I remember the last time I had pneumonia was during Operation Cast Lead, the incursion into Gaza in January 2009 intended to stop the incessant rocket attacks on Israel.

I lay in bed listening to 24 hour news reports feeling helpless and useless. Not that I would have been called up to my unit or anything really useful like that.

But at least during the 2nd Lebanon war three years previously we had been able to help by hosting families from the northern towns who had fled the shelling. But there I was in 2009 not even able to make myself a meal let alone offer to host a family.

it wasn’t that I was full of self-pity. I knew that P.G. with the help of anti-biotics I would be well again soon. But it was just that in the meantime I was useless and frustrated.

Thank G’d nothing so dramatic was going on over the last two weeks. Well not so close to home. But as I watched and read of the unfolding dramas and revolutions in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Iran et al I couldn’t help but feel that my illnesses do seem to spark international incidents.

I’d better try and take better care of my health in future.

CHANGE THE WORLD – CHANGE YOURSELF

2011-02-02T10:23:00.001+02:00

It’s the beginning of February – anyone out there still keeping up their new year resolutions ?

Anyone even remember what they were? You probably do because I bet they were the same as last year’s and the year’s before.

If you have ever wondered what drives you , what makes you do the things you do and how you can change that if you want to – watch the below twenty minute video with Tony Robbins – a world renowned personal motivator and coach.

TWENTY YEARS SINCE THE GULF WAR

2011-01-17T00:10:00.001+02:00

Opening the newspaper this weekend I realized – it’s twenty years since the Gulf War.

Twenty years since we sealed our bedroom windows with heavy plastic sheets and prayed this would save us from the toxic missiles of Saddam Hussein – if he ever attacked us with them – which we prayed he wouldn’t.

Twenty year since we lined up to obtain gas masks for ourselves and our children in all the various shapes and sizes:

An adult one for me

An adult one with extra room for a beard for hubby

Two teenage masks

Three children’s masks with special pumps to help them breathe.

One gas proof baby crib

And as though we were simply returning from a trip to the supermarket we piled this collection of reminders of death, poison and danger at the foot of our beds – to be easily available when (if) needed.

And needed they definitely were. How can I ever forget awakening to the deafening screeches of the first air-raid at 2am , rushing around the house pulling six terrified children into our bedroom, trying to control my shaking hands as I fastened the gas mask straps around their head and shoulders , checking that the filter was open so they didn’t suffocate and then having to pull it off one of my 8 year old twins as she threw up inside her mask.

Twenty years . Saddam Hussein is gone but another madman has taken his place in Iran.

Twenty years – but little has changed.

Our old gas masks were collected several years ago – the newer upgraded versions will be distributed here again soon.

And life goes on as usual.

A NEW DECADE

2011-01-07T01:16:00.001+02:00

For me at least this is the start of a new decade when I’m officially……………….. no longer as young as I try and kid myself.

But I have no problem with that …………….. well OK I admit I had a bit of a problem actually asking the bus driver for the correct bus ticket you know one for …………….well, adults……………no not that one ……the other one for people who are ………………..you know, well more adult.

But apart from that I’m ready for whatever new technology is around ( so longer as it doesn’t involve more than one ‘click’) all the new social media ( sweet little boy that Mark Zuckerberg – he could go places – but I don’t need all that Facebook stuff. People who need me know my phone number) and of course if I get really stuck – the grandchildren can always help me out.

So here’s to the next decade ………. just got to keep an eye on those knees of mine. They really think they’re old.

Crazy Cell-Phone Plans

2010-12-23T17:02:00.001+02:00

Towards the end of any month ( like around now) people who call up our family on our cell-phones are likely to get confused.

“Oh Sorry I thought I’d called someone else I must have dialed the wrong number”

“No its Ok you probably want my Dad but he didn’t talk enough on his phone this month so he gave me his cell-phone to use for outgoing calls for the next couple of days”

“Huh??”

or alternatively

“Hi Esther “

“No it’s not Esther it’s her Mum . She’s got my phone . She’s in the middle of a looooong conversation with her friend so she’s using up my unused minutes. But I needed to make a quick call so I’ve got hers”

Confusing ? It’s quite simple really.

We are on a special cheap cell- phone plan. But like so many things – it has its drawbacks.

If you don’t talk for enough minutes each month then you lose your special cheap-rate and a penalty is added on.

Sounds a bit crazy? Or maybe you have a similar scheme?

If we’re really desperate then my husband has been known to call my phone, I answer and we just leave the phones talking to each other for half an hour to use up those precious minutes

Fortunately we still have one teenage daughter still living at home – and if, like Benjamin Franklin, you thought there were only two sure things in life: death and taxes - then I can add a third to the list …… teenage girls talking on the telephone.

Judaism at the Israel Museum

2010-12-20T19:19:00.001+02:00

Last week I visited the newly upgraded / rebuilt/ renovated Israel Museum in Jerusalem. I hadn’t seen it since it reopened in the summer after its multi million dollar face-lift, and as I often write about sites to visit in Jerusalem I know that this museum is world famous and one of the most popular sites for tourists in Israel.

It’s collection of ancient archaeological artifacts is, as always, truly impressive and extensive – monuments to dead dynasties, obsolete civilizations, and lifeless lifestyles.

But surprisingly, as I walked through the Jewish Life exhibition, I found myself picking up my pace – walking past the glass cases of prayer books and Torah scrolls, past the models dressed in ‘Jewish clothing of the past “ and past the glass cases and films of ancient jewelry and ancient Sephardic pre wedding customs.
I was trying to think, why wasn’t I so interested in these things? Why was I spending so little time here?
And then I realized.
It wasn’t particularly exciting because it wasn’t unusual. Most of what I was looking at were the same things that I see and even use in everyday life. The exhibition cases had samples of silver – covered siddurim, similar to those I see often in the shops and buy as presents. The examples of clothes that Jews ‘used to wear’ are in fact often seen on the streets of Jerusalem, Golders Green and Borough Park today. The intricate Yemenite bridal jewelry and headdress of the past are used by many young Yemenite brides today who keep up their ancient traditions .
The Sifrei Toah that we read from, photographs of a mitzvah- tanz (dance) at the end of a Chassidic wedding, silver, chanukiyot and Seder plates for Pesach – all items, symbols and customs which are in regular use today in the 21st century.
I glanced up at the screen displaying a film explaining how matzo is made knowing that thousands of children watch this happen in real life in Jewish centers all over the world during the weeks before Pesach.

And yet there were many visitors taking their time and reading all the attached notes about each exhibit – some I’m sure thinking that they were looking at a lost world of the past.
It was said that Hitler ( may his name be blotted out) kept many Jewish items, stolen from homes he had plundered and Jews he had slaughtered, intending to set up a Museum to the lost religion of Judaism after the war.

But thank G’d Judaism is very much alive and flourishing all over the world .

For those who have no idea what Judaism is all about, this Museum has much of interest. But fortunately this isn’t in order to display a lost world of ancient rituals and customs. For these very same rituals, customs, treasured books and objects are still in constant use in our homes, within our families .
A Museum is, by dictionary definition, a place or building where objects of historical interest are exhibited, preserved, or studied –

I’m very happy that my Judaism is alive and well at home.

I’M A LAID BACK LITERARY LADY !

2010-12-14T17:52:00.001+02:00

I was just awarded the “Laid Back Literary Ladies” award, by my fellow blogger Rosalind Adam.

What exactly have I done to deserve the award, I can hear you all asking ………( well there must be someone out there who is asking)

Absolutely nothing . Ros is just a kind friend from way back when.

The funny thing is Ros, that you probably don’t even realize how ‘appropriate ‘ the description is. People have been known to say of me that I’m so laid back ,I’m almost on the floor ……….what we English usually call a backhanded compliment.

it’s usually said in the same tone as a friend of mine who came to visit many yeas ago when I had a house full of little children – and I much preferred to write rather than do housework (some things never change.)

She looked around my ‘busy’ ( as in totally chaotic) living room and said the famous words………………….. “Ann you are my role model. I don’t know how anyone can live in this mess and not let it bother them…………..”

Here’s to many more Laid-back- Literary –Ladies and thanks again Ros, for the award.

OUR PRAYERS ARE BEING ANSWERED

2010-12-10T14:08:00.001+02:00

We’re “battening down the hatches” for the expected torrential rain and storms the weather forecasters have promised us……….

Well they think they have promised us …. but over here in Israel we know that rain is not dependent on meteorological and natural elements - but on our relationship with One Above .

It’s difficult for those of you in Europe and the USA to imagine longing for rain – you get it in plentiful supply and maybe you think even over-supply.

When I lived in England it used to rain about 350 days of the year – but not over here.

Our summers have been getting hotter and longer, our aquifers depleted and never refilled during the long ,dry winters we’ve been having.

We’ve instituted special prayers for rain and have already had two days of fasting.

Our first rain started falling on Monday

…..and now we’re looking forward Please G’d to several days of real storms.

Our parched and burnt land, our rivers and streams , our crops and our farmers and all of us young and old who need this life giving force are very grateful to the Supplier Above .

AIRLINE SECURITY –BEN GURION LEADS THE WAY

2010-12-01T01:39:00.000+02:00

I can’t help it, the only airport I feel really safe in is Ben Gurion in Israel.

I know I have to arrive earlier there than at any other airport in the world. I know by heart all the questions I’ll be asked. But I also know that everything connected to security is ‘tachlis’, to the point and relevant with no nonsense of political correctness.

They don’t care about a baby’s bottle of milk or the coke I’m drinking – it’s me and the other passengers they are looking at. Do we look and act like possible terrorists.

“How many children do you have” they once asked me.

“Seven” I replied.

“What are your their names?”

I could have said any names I liked as they aren’t listed in my passport – but that didn’t bother them. They just wanted to see that I didn’t hesitate when answering.

But in general I’m usually let through quite quickly. I don’t fit the profile of a terrorist . I’m not the one they’re looking for. Others don’t get off so lightly.

I wouldn’t like to be traveling in the US over the Xmas holidays. The airport staff are all already stressed out and scared. Even after their horrific experience of 9/11 they are forbidden to ‘profile’ passengers but can only subject everyone to the same stupid scrutiny and irrelevant checks – despite their better judgment.

They will confiscate your hair mousse if the container is a few grams over the permitted amount. They’ll make you remove your baby’s bottle and drink the milk to prove it’s not poisonous. They will make you take off your shoes, subject you to body scans and pat-downs that anger many travelers. But they will never question you because you look Middle Eastern, nervous and frightened and keep looking over your shoulder. That’s not allowed.

And unfortunately the sad fact is that even if G’d forbid there should be another airline disaster, I doubt if it will change the methods employed at US and European airports. Politics seems to me more important than safety and security.

I remember when my nephew was hounded by our security personnel at the airport . It was nerve wracking for him and very amusing for us when we heard about it later. But the fact remains that our security guys did a tremendous job and because of them I feel safe and secure in our airport – but not unfortunately in any other.

Whenever I’m abroad , it’s such a relief to get back home safely.

IDF BAND IN MOSCOW’S RED SQUARE

2010-11-21T18:29:00.001+02:00

Those of you old enough to remember the 1970s – 80s may well recall the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union, whose pride in their religion and homeland was awakened after the 6 Day War and who applied to emigrate to Israel.

Their request was refused ( hence their name Refusenicks) and they immediately lost their jobs ad were never able to get comparable employment. They were lucky if they were able to find some menial work,to avoid being labeled a ‘parasite’ by the government and imprisoned or sent to Siberia.

Jobless and incomeless their condition was desperate and much of the money which was sent from abroad to try and help them was confiscated before it ever reached them.

Those of us who grew up in Britain and the USA during those years remember the organisations which were formed to try and help Soviet Jewry and the demonstrations and hunger strikes outside the Soviet Embassies around the world.

1974 New York Rally outside the Soviet Mission to the United Nations

I couldn’t help thinking of this as I watched the video below of the IDF Band, performing in Red Square in Moscow, underneath a large flag of Israel.

Thank G’d times have changed – and in some ways for the better.

BEFORE YOU TURN IT ON - THINK OF YOUR CHILDREN’S BRAINS

2010-11-17T12:52:00.001+02:00

As a teacher I have been worried, horrified is more the word, by the rapidly growing number of students/ pupils labeled ADD and ADHD.

Why so many? Why so many more nowadays?

I work with people of all ages from 8 – 28, but the vast majority of those with ADD are aged between 8 – 15 years.

In every branch of society there are children who suffer from the chemical imbalance which causes ADD and ADHD, but I wondered whether there was another form of ADD which is caused, not by a chemical imbalance, but by the environment in which a child grows.

I work with non-religious, religious and ultra orthodox children and ADD is much more prevalent amongst the non-religious and religious population than with the ultra-orthodox. This led me to wonder what was specifically different about the home life of the ultra orthodox and the BIG answer is television, or rather the lack of it.

I have always thought that a child who sits passively glued to a flickering moving screen for hours on end, from an early age, cannot remain unaffected. Their brains, minds, ability to interact with other children, play games, read and write are all affected by this ‘mindless babysitter’

I’m not alone in my feelings. The magazine PEDIATRICS reported on a study conducted so see if there was a link between television and ADD and found that:

The study revealed that each hour of television watched per day at ages 1-3 increases the risk of attention problems, such as ADHD, by almost 10 percent at age 7. The study controls for other attributes of the home environment including cognitive stimulation and emotional support.

The findings also suggest that preventive action can be taken to minimize the risk of attention problems in children. Limiting young children’s exposure to television during the formative years of brain development, consistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) recommendations, may reduce a child’s subsequent risk of developing ADHD. The AAP recommends parents avoid letting their children under the age of 2 years watch television.

ADD/ ADHD can’t be cured, only controlled, if you find the right help for your child.

And for those who suffer from ADD and ADHD, whatever the reason, our society seems to be convinced that they have to be calmed down and pacified in some way to make life easier for the teacher.

Sir Ken Robinson has other ideas – as he usually does – about how to treat hyperactive children.

Watch this illustrated / animated video of his latest thoughts on educational paradigms.

KRISTALLNACHT

2010-11-08T18:12:00.001+02:00

The night of November 9th / 10th, known as kristallnacht ( the night of the broken glass) is the anniversary of one of the most terrible and horrifying events that led to the intensifying of Nazi pogroms against Jews and the ‘final solution’ of the Holocaust.

In one night over 1600 synagogues were ransacked and torn apart and 267 were burnt to the ground. Jewish homes and businesses in Germany and Austria were destroyed and broken glass from shattered windows littered the streets.

Thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps, amongst them, my grandfather.

There is no shortage of terrifying and heart rending stories – many of which almost defy belief - about the suffering that Jews went through and the sacrifices they made to help each other and retain their own sense of humanity.

And there are stories of people who survived the Nazi hell and took their horrifying experiences and used them to ensure that others would not have to suffer the feeling of being without family or home – like Hanna Bar Yesha below.

The story told below ( which you may have seen as it went viral on the internet this month) is slightly different as Alice Sommer Herz was a concert pianist and this saved her life when she was chosen to be in the camp orchestra in Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was a ‘so-called’ model concentration camp that the Germans built to try and convince the world that all their concentration camps were as humane and holiday-camp like as this one . Here the starving inmates, under threat of immediate extermination, had to play music, sing in choirs and perform plays to show how cultured and fun their life was.

Her love of life and appreciation of everything she has is an inspiration to us all. She bears no hatred for anyone which could be the reason that at 106, apart from being the oldest Holocaust survivor, she also still plays her beloved piano regularly and entertains her many friends every day in her flat. Her ‘simchat chaim’ joy of life on a daily basis is an inspiration to us all.

UNFORTUNATELY THE 12 MINUTE VIDEO IN WHICH ALICE DESCRIBES HER LIFE IN THE CAMP, HER MUSIC AND HER LIFE NOW HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE INTERNET SINCE THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.

I HOPE YOU MANAGED TO SEE IT SOMEWHERE IT WAS TRULY INSPIRING .

In a post several months ago I told of another story that took place in Theresienstadt , the setting up of a beautifully decorated, hidden synagogue.

The descendents of Asher Berlinger who risked his life to build and decorate this shul are still looking for anyone who actually saw this shul while they were in the camp during the war.

Thank G’d my parents and both sets of grandparents escaped from Germany and, compared to so many others, did not suffer torments at the hands of the Nazis. The Holocaust was rarely mentioned in our home when I was a child, as far as I can remember, and it was only as a teenager that I started to think about it.

Nevertheless, in some way I still think of myself as a 2nd generation survivor with an obligation to ensure that our children and grandchildren don’t just think of this as another part of Jewish history.

The reverberations of the Holocaust are still with us. Holocaust denial is an accepted contagious disease spreading throughout the Western world and neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism, in many forms and disguises, are getting stronger every day.

We’d be blind fools to think it couldn’t happen again.

TO CALL OR NOT TO CALL

2010-11-04T14:05:00.001+02:00

In a recent email exchange with an old friend and fellow writer, Ros Adam, I reminisced about the days when, if I wanted to speak to my parents, I had to book an international call a week in advance, from the international operator of the Israel telephone company.

Then I had to make sure that I was at home to receive the call from the operator to connect me to my parents far away from sunny Jerusalem, in not-too-sunny Leicester.

In those day, 40 years ago, and even when we returned here 27 years ago, telephones, whilst not a luxury, were certainly not a ‘given’ in any home.

We had to wait a year until we received our telephones in our new apartment in Ramot., in 1983. After it had been installed, all of a sudden our 18 month old twins suddenly crawled over to their toy box, took out their Fisher-Price telephone and started playing with it, turning the dial, picking it up and talking into it . We suddenly realized that until then, they hadn’t had any idea what to do with it.

We are now ‘blessed’ with a tel/fax , a cordless phone ( and you may remember just what I think of our cordless phone) and three cell phones – with bills to match.

Are we better off? I doubt it but I must admit that I’ve come to rely on them all

I can remember when one morning quite a few years ago,I got on the bus and pulled out my purse to pay. I looked in horror at the empty pocket where my cell phone fits . I always had it with me just in case one of my teenagers or the younger children’s babysitter needs to contact me.

I sat down and stared at the empty space, like an amputee looking at his missing limb.

None of the younger children called to say that they don’t like this sitter and why couldn’t they have the one I got last week who let them all jump on her and tear her hair out while she lay on the floor pretending to be dead.

No one called to say “ she started it first and it’s not fair and Mummy you must tell her that it’s my turn and she hit me and you’ve got to tell her off and when are you coming home?.”

No one called to ask me what was for lunch.

No one called to ask me where I had put their purple skirt and blouse that they had dropped on the floor last week and hadn’t seen since.

No one called to ask me to tell their younger sister that it was her turn to wash the dishes.

No one called to tell me to ignore the phone call I was about to get from her older sister, telling me that she had behaved very badly because it wasn’t true and really it was all the older one’s fault.

No one called to ask me why there was nothing to eat in the fridge.

No one called to ask permission for something I usually say ‘no’ to. hoping that I’m not really paying attention and so I’m more likely to say “yes” to all sorts of things I would never dream of agreeing to face-to-face.

None of my teenage daughters called to ask me if one of her friends had left a message by mistake on my cell-phone for them because no one had called her for at least an hour.

I wandered calmly around the stores, spent much longer than usual in the bookshop, indulged in an uninterrupted cup of coffee with a friend, and as I passed a woman with 2 children , suddenly a horrible feeling of fear overcame me. What if heaven forbid something terrible had happened and no one could contact me.

I rushed off to find a pay-phone. “ Hi Kids. Just touching base. Is everything OK?”

Oh the wonders of modern technology.

HEBREW SPEAKING KNIGHTS IN THE OLD CITY

2010-10-09T23:31:00.001+02:00

In the interests of my work as a travel writer , I decided to follow the path of the ancient Jerusalem Knights when they visited the Old City last week courtesy of the Jerusalem Development Authority and and Ministry of Tourism.

They will be there every Thursday in October from 7.30 – 10.30.

I have to admit that as someone who grew up with an English education, my picture of knights in shining armour was slightly different from the Hebrew speaking, Jewish ones we met there.

Not surprisingly, the whole performance was based in the Christian Quarter, but the truth is that no one really paid any attention to the surroundings. The whole circular trail that started just inside Jaffa Gate was packed tightly with local Israelis and tourists intent on working their way round the map we were given at Jaffa Gate where the performance started.

Every few yards we found another knight, medieval king, queen, buffoon, princess, magicians, jugglers, court jesters, muse, troubadour, beggar or some other refugee from the middle Ages.

The costumes, acting and music was in the most part well done and the whole performance was fun although the introductory performance was in my opinion too long and unnecessary and few spectators bothered to watch it all.

It was pleasantly surprising that most of the spectators who crowded the narrow alleys of the Old City, kept moving and there was little pushing and shoving. Even small children managed to get a good look at all various scenes.

Hope that security guard in the back wasn’t meant to challenge the Giant.

Watching out for the slaves escaping from the slave market.

How else is a little knight meant to get a good look?

A friendly knight getting down to children’s level.

A final serenade before leaving …….. and then just when you think you’re safe

There another one waiting to attack just where you parked your car.

JERUSALEM BOTANICAL GARDENS

2010-09-26T01:34:00.001+02:00

The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens are situated in Yehuda Burla Street, close to the Hebrew University campus at Givat Ram, and round the corner from the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum.

It is a delight to visit at any time of the year , but especially at Autumn / Fall/Sukkot time when the leaves are starting to fall and the bright shots of color contrast the greens and grays .

Take a ride in the mini train and then alight and take a long walk along the paths and winding stairs which will lead you from one section to the next.

The gardens are divided into the different continents of the world each with plants and flowers indigenous to their area with a large central lake and visitors center.

Over 10,000 varieties of plants from all over the world can be seen here.

There is also a tropical greenhouse and a special Butterfly House which has been reopened just for Chol Homed Sukkot.

Descriptions and explanations are given in English and Hebrew

ENJOY YOUR VISIT

A TIME TO TAKE

2010-09-07T09:27:00.001+03:00

As I prepare for Rosh Hashanah this year my thoughts can’t help going back a year.

My mother was in hospital having fractured her leg in two places. The breathing complications caused by the operation were life threatening. Two out of us four sisters were in England at her bedside, I was at home in Jerusalem awaiting the Brit of a grandson and my other sister in America was packing and making calls to try to arrange Yom Tov meals for her stay in the Royal Free Hospital in London over Rosh Hashanah.

Chesed organizations were arranging to send in food to an apartment near the hospital which they provided for visitors who had to be at the hospital over Shabbat and Yom Tov.

Some strangers who lived not far away had also invited her for a meal.

Her recipe and menu file had been abandoned in Teaneck, her visitors cancelled and neighbors and friends were taking care of her family and hosting them for the two days.

My turn came after Yom Kippur. As soon as the Fast was over and I had eaten something, I started packing. While my family was beginning to build our sukkah, I was hunting out my winter clothes. I needed a warm jacket for sitting in a chilly English sukkah, a raincoat for the inevitable English rain and walking shoes as I had no idea how far I’d have to walk between the hospital and where I’d be staying. And for the first time in 26 years I’d be keeping two days Yom Tov.

Then I started to write out the lists for those I was leaving at home. There were lists of cooked food in the freezer / shopping lists / the various places where the sukkah decorations were stored / details of where I’d arranged to borrow extra tables and chairs / where and how much disposable tableware we had / how to fix the Shabbat time switch etc. All the little things that I do, never thinking that one year I won’t be there to do them, had to be put down in writing.

At 2am I was on a flight from Tel Aviv to London.

I arrived at Heathrow, dropped my case off at the family where I was staying, introduced myself and went straight off to see my mother. Although my other sisters who had been with her before I arrived, had warned me, it was a shock to see her so helpless and frail The last time I had seen Mum, only 3 months before, she had still been independent and in her own apartment .

Two days later on erev Sukkot, with no warning, the doctor decided to transfer my mother to a rehabilitation hospital. If I didn’t quickly find new Yom Tov accommodation for myself near her new hospital, Mum would be alone for the two days .

I cringed at the thought of having to start asking favors from strangers once again..

But however much I disliked the idea, I knew I had to find somewhere so that I could be near my mother. I put out a call through friends and chesed organizations in London, for someone to find me new sleeping accommodation while I was busy helping Mum pack her things and arranging the move.

I was soon given the details of a family 15 minutes walk from the hospital . The warmth of the family more than made up for the cold weather, but still, as a grandmother myself, I was long past my student days of happily eating Yom Tov meals amongst strangers and making casual small talk about my ‘future plans’. I was physically and emotionally drained from traveling and packing, unpacking and moving and all the time worrying about Mum.

The family I stayed with were exceptionally kind and welcoming and Miriam, my hostess, offered to continue visiting Mum when I returned to Israel. Still feeling uncomfortable, I almost refused her offer but just stopped myself and instead thanked her and said I was sure my mother would be delighted if she would visit. her

It took time, but I was slowly getting used to asking favors and receiving kindness and help from strangers. Just as King Solomon says in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) which we read on Sukkot “ To everything there is a time” . I realized that in order to help my mother, I had to accept that this was my time to take. In order to be able to give my mother whatever she needed, I had to ask for and take whatever assistance others were able to provide.

I had no idea then, that this would be the last time I was to see my mother. She died of heart failure a few days before my next visit, totally unexpectedly, just days before she was due to be discharged from hospital.

That Sukkot had been my last opportunity to physically honor and care for my mother in person. I am so grateful to all those people and organisations, whose help, hospitality and kindness to me, a complete stranger, made it possible.

DIPPING INTO OUR POCKETS

2010-08-19T16:15:00.001+03:00

It’s that time of year again.

The telephone rings non-stop (well here in Jerusalem it certainly does) with telemarketers working for chesed organizations.

It’s Ellul and one part of me knows that they’re preying (pun intended ) on our consciences as we head towards Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We say at the end of the moving ‘Unetane Tokef’ prayer on the Yomim Noraim that Repentence, Prayer and Charity can avert the evil decree.

Zedakah ( wrongly) translated as giving charity is one of those three ways and who wouldn’t want, for a small price, to change any bad decree that might be written against us.

But the truth is that ‘zedakah’ comes from the root ‘zedek’ meaning justice. Giving zedaka is not something we do if we’re in a good mood and if we have some spare cash because it’s a nice idea – it’s our duty.

We are all supposed to give 10% of our net income to people in need or to organizations who help them.

But how many of us are too busy planning our 3 day menus to bother giving a thought to those whose menu will depend entirely on what arrives on their doorstep. They depend on the volunteers who, with tireless work and good hearts distribute food packages week in, week out to thousands of families whose income puts them way ,way below the poverty line. And the number of those families is unfortunately growing.

Not for them the luxury of planning a meal from a cookery book. They will happily cook and eat whatever is given to them and be very grateful to put food on the table.

Very few of us can give to everyone who calls on the telephone or sends a request, especially when they all seem to arrive in the same month. But remember it is better to give a smaller amount to many than a larger amount to a few.And maybe next month you’ll be able to give a bit to those you had to say no to this month.

Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.

May you be written in the book of Life , Prosperity and Health.

And may you always be amongst those who can afford to give to others and not be in need of help.

WHERE SHALL WE GO?

2010-08-03T10:29:00.001+03:00

It’s that time of year when I often get calls.“You’re a travel writer. I have visitors from chutz leAretz, where shall I take them?” Or, “Tell me what to do with the children. There’s still a few weeks of the vacation left and I’ve run out of ideas”

Well here are links to a few of my travel articles in the Metro and Weekend sections of the Jerusalem Post over the last year or so. Hope you find something to suit you.

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=172763

Ad Halom Bridge

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=171880

Utopia

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=155901

IDF Museum Tel Aviv

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=134886

Museum Mazkeret Batya

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=118725

Story Park, Holon

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=113347

submarine in Haifa Museum

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=151597

Saba Yossi’s carpentry studio – Ein Gev

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=183155

A sleep Koala at Gan Guroo

Enjoy your trip.

Yes, I too can be impatient

2010-07-25T13:31:00.001+03:00

I always feel sad for this generation when I’m told that they have a 15 second reading attention span.

As a writer for online sites I’ve learned to write short – short sentences, short paragraphs and short articles.

But at the same time I can’t help thinking about all those wonderful books this generation may be missing out on, books they haven’t got the patience to read. Books that can’t be broken down into 140 characters for Twitter.

But I have to admit that there’s one aspect of today’s technical age that has also made me impatient.

I can’t be bothered to write for publications that only accept submissions by snail-mail.

I understand that they don’t want to waste their time and money printing out my submission and/or they don’t want their inbox clogged up with articles and stories.

But I think that they are being unreasonable. In today’s hi-tech age, we should take full advantage of modern technology’s advances, and one of them is the speed of communication.

Just as writers are expected to have websites, or at least blogs, and to be able to give links in their emails to editors showing them samples of their work online, so should editors be prepared to accept email submissions.

Like other writers of my age I remember writing on manual typewriters and blessing the arrival of electric typewriters and then word processors. I had to keep up with new innovations so why shouldn’t editors .

Gone are the days when I would send my queries by post , wait a few months for a reply and then type and send off the article. All of which could easily take 6 months or even more.

Now I email a query, often get a reply within minutes and if necessary can get the article and photos into the editor’s inbox within 24 hours.

No I’m sorry, I just don’t have the patience any more to go back to snail-mail and a wait of weeks at least and possibly months.

So this new market I just discovered, which prompted this ‘tirade’ isn’t going on my to-write-for list. During the time it would take me to go through the whole process with them I could have queried, written and sold dozens of articles.

It’s a shame – I hope they change their submissions’ policy soon.

Do you agree?

There must be some people still submitting by snail mail or the pubs couldn’t exist.

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

2010-07-12T17:07:00.001+03:00

It was so uncanny.

We were sitting in a restaurant in Manchester just hours after our mother’s stone-setting and a few hours before returning to our homes around the world. We had decided to eat out as it had been an exhausting day, physically and emotionally and none of us could think of cooking for twelve.

That week had been the first time we four sisters had been together since our mother’s death, 6 months earlier, when we sat shiva together in Manchester before three of us returned to our respective homes in Jerusalem and Teaneck.

Was it appropriate, we wondered, to eat out at a restaurant only hours after the unveiling of our mother’s memorial stone. But we remembered that one of Mum’s greatest pleasures had been to see us all together enjoying ourselves in each other’s company, catching up on family news and having a good laugh , as inevitably happened when we four got together.

We sifted through the long menu not knowing what to order. I hadn’t eaten out for many months and found the choices overwhelming . My mind was still on the day’s events.

We hadn’t only had the unveiling of the memorial stone but had also taken the opportunity to visit all the old familiar places of our childhood.

We hadn’t been back to our hometown, Leicester, for about 30 years, except for our mother’s funeral that frozen, snowy day during last Chanukah. So we decided to drive round and visit our old childhood homes, and schools and visit the old neighborhoods. The changes were incredible. Most of the population was now non-white, non-British and mainly Muslim or Seikh..

The shul where I had married, remained the same beautiful building, both inside and out but it was now surrounded by an almost totally Muslim population. Few Jews lived within easy walking distance as we had done in our childhood.

Our parents had settled in Leicester during the war. Refugees from Germany were glad to find a haven in which to settle and finding a job which allowed my father not to work on Shabbat was a priority. We had enjoyed an untroubled, happy childhood. Despite the lack of any Jewish schools in the town and with very few religious families, our parents’ wonderful example of religious strength, coupled with friendship and a warm tolerance to all our fellow Jews had been enough to ensure that we four had grown up to build our own homes on the same strong Jewish foundations . Only now as parents and grandparents did we realize just how difficult it must have been for them bringing up a family under such circumstances.

Knowing that we would not find a suitable partner in our hometown, and that our future didn’t lie there, we had all left Leicester when we graduated school and moved to Jewish centers in England and Israel.

Before our parents had had a chance to join us , our father died suddenly and was buried in our hometown. Mum, who had later moved to London to be nearer her children, had retained her burial plot next to his in the Leicester cemetery, frequently reminding us that when the day came, we should remember where she wanted to be buried.

And it was to there that we brought her on her final journey six months previously, and where we returned today to unveil her stone which seemed to look comfortable next to our father’s.

With three of us living abroad and only one still in England we had had no opportunity until now to go through Mum’s possessions together, seeing family photographs and documents, many dating back to pre war Germany . So we had spent the last week together reading, trying to understand , attempting to identify people in old family photos and reminiscing about our childhood and what our parents had been though before we were born.

………………………………….

And then suddenly we heard it.

As we were sitting in the restaurant ,drained after a long emotional day, the background music suddenly changed. Instead of the typical piped ‘invisible’ music , it suddenly changed to the strong tempo of Motzart’s ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ ( A little Night Music) .

We four sisters looked at each other in amazement. We hadn’t heard this in many years. It was our mother’s favorite piece of music which she used to hum happily all the time at home when we were growing up . Maybe it was connected with the time she and Daddy had met, I don’t remember, but it’s association with our parents was 100%.

To us, on that emotion laden day it’s message was loud and clear, It was as though together our parents were looking down on us from their place in the World of Truth and sending a message that we would clearly understand was from them. We felt their presence as though they were sitting with us and we sensed their contentment at being together again.

With tears in our eyes, and a sense of warmth in our hearts we ordered our meals.

Israel’s negotiating problem

2010-07-05T11:11:00.001+03:00

The below article , by Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann, explains so clearly and simply why Israel always loses out at the negotiating table.

http://www.aish.com/jw/me/97755479.html

If only our politicians from the P.M. down were to read it and absorb its message.

IT’S GOOD TO BE HOME

2010-06-30T22:43:00.001+03:00

No matter where I’ve been it’s always good to be back home again.

Even the weather reminded me of home. It hasn’t been as hot as this in Manchester for 30 years. My sweaters and rain jackets stayed in my suitcase.

This tram also made me think - Will the Jerusalem light rail really one day traverse the city as smoothly and unobtrusively as it does in Manchester UK – still seems difficult to imagine looking at the ongoing balagan downtown.

Already on the flight home you begin to feel ‘Israeli’ once again. The pilot apologized for the delay in take off as most of the passengers had far too much carry-on luggage with them ( sound familiar??)

Just seeing the stewards and stewardesses helpless faces on Jet2 as they tried in vain to seat the passengers who insisted on chatting with long lost friends from the minute we took off, brought a smile to my face.

Yes I know the behavior isn’t helpful but it just made me feel that I’m already home again.

THE DEAD SEA – ALIVE AND THRIVING

2010-06-20T20:05:00.001+03:00

Every time I drive down to the Dead Sea I find it difficult to believe that just half an hours drive from Jerusalem the scenery and climate change so drastically.

But the heat, although overpowering sometimes, is still more bearable to me than the humid climate of the Mediterranean coast.

The sun here, at the lowest point in the world, has its harmful rays filtered out and sunbathing is beneficial to many skin complaints.

Sunset over the Dead Sea

patches of dried salt

If you’re visiting the area for health reasons then check out how much your hotel offers free of extra charge. You should be able to get the use of the hotel’s beach, indoor Dead-Sea –water pool, Jacuzzi and solarium without having to pay anything extra. Maybe also the use of sulphur pools and sauna.

Remember if you have any scratches, open wounds etc the salt water will be painful so stick to clear water pools. If you suffer from high blood pressure or heart problems or are pregnant then be guided by the notices which give the maximum amount of time that should be spent in the various treatment pools.

All that sea and sun and so healthy too

This is the best place to stock up on Dead Sea skin products and often the hotel shops have excellent prices, but take a trip to the mini-malls in the shopping area by the hotels as they have very good package deal prices – shop around.

If you found the treatments beneficial then take some mud and sea crystals back home and continue the treatment there.

You don’t have to stay in a hotel to get the benefits of the Dead Sea. There are several day spas and, as the distance from the main towns is relatively short , you can get a lot of sunbathing / treatments without having to stay overnight.

People fly in from all over the globe to benefit from the Dead Sea water, mud and sun. Those of us living here are fortunate that it is so much easier ( and cheaper) for us.

EFL LEARNING A LANGUAGE OR A CULTURE?

2010-06-07T22:34:00.001+03:00

You’d imagine that teaching English as a foreign language here in Israel is enough of a challenge on its own.

But when your students come from backgrounds as varied as Ethiopia, Russia and Europe as well as Israel and amongst those from each country are several ultra-orthodox students who do not watch television, use the internet, read regular daily newspapers nor popular literature, and you realize that we’re talking about major cultural differences as well.

This was first brought home to me when doing practice exam papers.

During the year I can more or less choose the material I use, but the students have to get used to the type of exam they’re going to have to take, so towards the end of the year we do old exam papers …..and what a problem they are.

“Teacher who or what is Harry Potter? A person? The writer? The passage here talks about him as if I’m supposed to know. And there are other words here that aren’t in the dictionary at all” ( could she mean muggles?)

“Teacher, what is The Olympic Games? Is it a children’s game? Why are there dates for the game can’t you play it when you want?”

“ What is a website teacher?”

“ What is the greenhouse effect? I looked it up in the dictionary but then I didn’t understand the definition it gave?”

One part of me enjoys teaching my students about daily things we take for granted, modern ecological and environmental issues and advances in hi-tech.

But another part feels it’s unfair that even if their grasp of the English language is good and they are working very hard, they could fail their exams simply because the topic in their comprehension paper ( which is the main section of the exam) is one about which they know nothing and this inevitably hinders their understanding of the text.

I have spoken to the powers-that-be who write the exam papers asking for more general topics, but they claimed that if we stick to totally neutral topics such as family, food or education it is simply too limiting ( not to mention boring).

So if anyone out there wants to send me a short definition/ synopsis of some recent trends or moderns issues, in relatively simple English, I shall be happy to use them in my future lessons.

Sir Ken Robinson – well worth listening to

2010-05-27T18:41:00.001+03:00

“ One of the world’s greatest thinkers” has never been a title that impressed me because I always associated it with unintelligible, philosophical utterances.

But Sir Ken Robinson is so not like that. Every sentence he says contains such gems of truth , such clear obvious statements that we all ”know” but just don’t think about, express them and act on them as he does. And he has such a great sense of humor as well.

Watch, listen and enjoy

CATS

2010-05-26T22:04:00.001+03:00

I put the below notice on our local email list as a last resort – it’s pretty self-explanatory

A couple of months ago a cat had four kittens in our garden. We weren't thrilled but it didn't bother us too much.

Now things have become unpleasant. The mother cat is aggressive to the point of being dangerous. She's a good mother and brings fish heads / meat/ etc from the nearby shop's garbage can to feed them and sees any humans as a threat.

She sits by our back door and snarls and gets ready to pounce on anyone trying to get out.

I have called the municipality and they came immediately but they said it's illegal to remove a cat from her outdoor home. If she had come inside our house then he would have picked her up and removed her ..... to the garden or outside out front door - no further.

Without going into boring detail it's impossible to stop the cats from getting in and out of the garden. Does anyone know of an organisation that will come and remove the cats and take them far away. I don't wish any harm on them but if it's a choice of them or my grandchildren's safety and welfare - they have to go.

Thanks

So far I have had no replies – I wait in hope.

Today we bought a long water hose to squirt at them when they start devouring their fish heads on my back porch. They hate water so they run away – but they return.

When we were infested with mice two years when building work was started on a new ( totally unwanted and unnecessary) local mall we caught almost a hundred before the plague died down – and that took almost a year.

I hope we find an amicable solution to our cat problem quicker than that.

All hints and tips welcome.

G’D IS FOLLOWING YOU

2010-05-16T15:53:00.001+03:00

I turned on my computer the other day to check my emails and the subject line of the first email was “G’d is following you”.

My initial reaction was to smile and delete it – I mean I know that G’d doesn’t send emails and assumed it was just spam.

But then I stopped for a minute. It seemed such an appropriate email to get just a few days before Shavuot , just days before the moment when we became a nation and received the Torah from G’d on Mt Sinai over 3000 years ago.

Maybe we all need a reminder that G’d is indeed following us – and checking up on us and watching to see if we are acting in accordance with the gift He gave us.

I also remembered something else ……….... a bit more mundane. I had just joined Twitter.

I was persuaded by other writer friends of its amazing networking ability and work-finding success. I have yet to be convinced. Still …I digress.

Now on Twitter, people “follow” you and when they do, you receive an email informing you of this. So I hazarded a guess that this email was connected to Twitter and decided to open it .

The continuation was even more appropriate.

“G’d is following you, Do you want to follow G’d?”

Now that’s a good question . It’s something we should all be asking ourselves, and the answer should for sure be a resounding YES. But not in the way Twitter meant. I was not going to sit around waiting for ‘tweets’ from G’d – at least not on the twitter site.

So who was this person or organization calling themselves G’d? Somewhat presumptuous of them I thought – maybe it really was Twitter spammers.

I cautiously tracked down my follower and it turned out to have come from a Jewish organization who seem to specialize in ‘kiruv’ work i.e. bringing Jewish people closer to Judaism, keeping them up-to-date with the Jewish calendar and days of religious significance and explaining everything – all in less than 140 characters.

Their comment that G’d is following me was not because they call themselves G’d but because they presumably intended to awaken all the Jewish ‘tweeters’ (I’m tempted to call them/us ‘twits’ but that may not be taken too well ) to their heritage.

I wish them luck and hope that not too many just ‘delete’ them.

Lady Jakobovits – a very special lady.

2010-05-11T18:53:00.001+03:00

Like everyone, I was really shocked to hear of Lady Jakobovits’ death last Friday and I immediately thought back to my first real meeting with her.

It was the late 1970s and The Chief Rabbi Sir Immanuel Jakobovits ( as he was known then) and his lovely wife Amelie were coming to stay with us for Shabbat. I was so nervous I could hardly breathe.

My husband was the Rabbi of a community in South London and our shul had invited the Chief Rabbi and his wife to be our guests and they had agreed.

All of the officers of the shul lived in homes far larger and more comfortable than ours but the Chief Rabbi ad his wife had agreed to be our guests in our small toddler filled home.

On both Friday night and Shabbat lunchtime we hosted a large group of youth from the community , but that wasn’t what I remember about their visit.

I remember all the little ways Rebbetzin Jakobovits put me at my ease with her every thoughtful touch .

Before she arrived she had first called to ask if I minded if she brought her own home-made challot, as it was her custom to bake them every week. “ Mind” I was honored and thrilled . She arrived with gifts for me and our oldest son, a book about a child’s experience in the holocaust in which she had inscribed “ To Shai, with best wishes to be read in about two year’s or so” a book which I later read and ,knowing her background as a holocaust survivor, I well understood her choice. As a mother herself she knew that our son wouldn’t appreciate the book yet but knew it would have far longer lasting worth that a toy or game more suitable for his age at that time, and in fact the book still sits amongst his books today, 30 years later.

She was admiring and appreciative of everything we did and served, but went to great lengths to make me treat her normally. When we were on our own she was with me in the kitchen and waved away plates and napkins when we had coffee and cake standing up by the breakfast bar.

She was very attentive to our young children and asked many questions about my family and my husband’s. My father had died not long before and she expressed her sorrow that he wasn’t there to know about how much we were doing for our community.

But to me the highlight of their visit came after they had left. During Motzei Shabat my mother called me in great excitement.

“You’ll never guess who just called me. Lady Jakobovits. She told me what a wonderful Shabbat she had spent with you and how I must have such naches from you, my son-in-law and the grandchildren . Wasn’t that wonderful of her.”

I could hardly believe it. Lady Jakobovits had taken the trouble, as soon as she had arrived home, to find out my mother’s telephone number and call her straight away to give her pleasure .

That was Lady Jakobovits; thoughtful, considerate, friendly and warm, always looking for ways to make you feel good and to bring joy to people’s lives . She was a true Lady and a tremendous Eishet Chayil.

May her memory be for a blessing.

MOVING INTO JERUSALEM

2010-05-09T20:29:00.001+03:00

With Jerusalem Reunification Day this week, my mind went back to our arrival here in 1983, with five children under the age of eight, no job prospects but a strong knowledge that this is where we wanted to be.

We initially lived in a rented apartment but building was going on all around us and we knew that we were going to have to think seriously about buying a home, if we wanted to make use of our immigrants’ privileges and mortgage.

We checked out the names of builders and went to their offices downtown.

The clerk in the office looked us up and down. “ I’ve got just the place for you” he said.He went on to describe a wonderful two storey house with a small garden in a religious section of our neighborhood.

The price was possible , the size and garden sounded a dream .We told the agent we’d go and look over the house and let him know.

“ Don’t wait too long” he warned. “ I can sell it any time. It’s a real bargain”.

We foolishly assumed that was just a sales ploy.

At the building site we looked around the house. It was a dream. Far bigger than we’d ever imagined we could afford . It was too good a chance to miss.

Next morning we were back at the builder’s office.

“We’ll take it.”

“Too late” he said. “ I warned you I could sell it just like that” and he snapped his fingers.

We turned to go, very disappointed , especially as I’d spent the night dreaming about bringing up our family with some real space and a garden.

“Would you like to live in a mixed area?” he called as we were about to leave.”I’ve got exactly the same house, a few minutes along the road where there are religious and non-religious people living .”

We shot back to the chairs in front of his desk .

“ Yes sure. Let’s go and look at it “ my husband said.

I turned around and looked at the ever growing number of people waiting behind us in the office.

“No” I said. “We daren’t risk it . Any one of these people here will buy it if we leave now. You saw what happened yesterday”.

“We can’t buy a house we haven’t seen” my husband insisted.

“But he said it’s just like the other one. We saw that one and loved it, so what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Well. Do you want it or don’t you” The clerk asked.

“Yes” I said, as my husband gave me a look that said ‘ this is your idea remember’.

“Oh , there is one other thing” the clerk continued.

We waited for the bombshell that would make us change our mind.

“It has a basement downstairs. It’s on three floors not two. But don’t worry it’s got a window and a proper floor and the central heating is connected down there as well”

I was still waiting for the ‘bad’ news.

Oh and another thing. You’re really lucky, with the current inflation rate you’ll actually be paying a lot less now than the apartment cost at the beginning of the month.”

We were, as they say, gobsmacked!

We wanted to sign immediately, before we lost it . But there was still the small issue of money. We knew we could get a mortgage from the Ministry of Absorption but we needed some money now for a deposit.

Twenty five years ago there were no cell-phones and we were too scared of losing the apartment if we left the office and went to the bank ourselves. So we asked the agent to let us call the bank from his desk-phone. We told them that we needed to remove most of our foreign currency from its investment account. We knew that we would be losing all the interest by breaking into the account but there was nothing we could do about it – we needed it right then.

But I wasn’t prepared for the bank’s reply.

“ As you are using the money to buy a house,” the bank-clerk said, “You’ll be pleased to know that the mitzvah ( commandment) of Yishuv Eretz Yisrael ( settling the Land of Israel) overrides all other banking regulations. You won’t lose any interest.”

This was too much for me and I could feel the tears pricking my eyes. In the space of one short hour we had the privilege of buying a bigger apartment than we had ever dared to think of, in the city of our prayers and dreams. We were paying a bargain price and the bank was even telling me that the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel overrides banking regulations.

Buying a home in Jerusalem sure was different from buying a house in London.

And, thank G’d, living in Jerusalem is very different from living anywhere else in the world……. but that’s for another post.

LIVING LIFE THROUGH THE LENS

2010-05-04T01:06:00.001+03:00

I never really ‘saw’ any of my young children’s concerts , plays or musical performances. It wasn’t that I didn’t attend. I was there at every one of them ( or almost every one) but always behind a camera.

I’m not sure who wanted the photos more, me or the kids. I wanted to send them off to members of the family living too far away to ever attend and show them their nieces / nephews / grandchildren in action. My children wanted to see what they looked like in their performances.

But the truth is that the photos were mostly of appalling quality. The lights in the hall were dimmed and I was somewhere in the audience, usually behind a big hat or crawling up to the stage desperately trying not to annoy the other parents whose view I was obstructing.

And we’re talking about the pre-digital camera days when every photo cost money and most were too dark to be any use at all – but I persevered year after year, concert after concert, child after child.

But my obsession with photography didn’t go anywhere near one of my daughter’s. Several years ago she was in hospital giving birth to her first child when I received a surprise phone call at home.

“Mum can you come over here quickly”

“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

Nothing much really, I mean don’t worry or anything. It’s just that ….well…..we’ve forgotten our camera and I really wanted to get a picture of our new baby as soon as it’s born.”

I couldn’t believe me ears. My daughter was 8 cms dilated and she was worried about having photos of her newborn.

Mind you it shouldn’t have surprised me. After all she and her husband have captured just about every moment of their lives on film even before they ever knew each other. Their romance was enhanced by their common obsession - photography. She was the only one of our seven children who, whenever we went on a family trip spent all her time looking for places to pose. Beautiful flower-beds, scenic look outs as back-drops, a pose struck on the deck of the ship with the still sea in the background – these are the things that made a good trip to her. The success of any outing was measured by the numbers of photos she returned with , with her in the center of all of them.

And now here they were at a crucial turning point in their lives and there was no way they could envisage experiencing this without capturing it on film.

So being the dutiful mother I grabbed my camera and zoomed off to the hospital. Luck was definitely on their side as I surprisingly even managed to sneak into their delivery room.

“Yes dear I think you’re about ready to push this little one into the world now” I heard the midwife say as I slid into the room.

My daughter smiled through a contraction as she saw me walk in – “Great Mum now you’re here we’re ready. Take a picture of us now, before I actually give birth.”

The midwife’s mouth dropped open, she couldn’t believe the conversation she was hearing.

I adjusted the lens, fitted my daughter and son in law into the focus and clicked.

The midwife recovered her composure “Now dear, are you prepared to give your attention to giving birth?”.

“Yes, sure”

I handed the camera over to my son-in-law and was about to walk out when my daughter called me back.

Mum, wouldn’t you like to stay and see it all from the other side for once?.

The offer was too wonderful to refuse – so thanks to my daughter’s fixation with photography I was there with her at the birth of her first child. I stood there on duty with the camera, almost too overcome and emotional to actually take a photo.

As her firstborn son entered the world and the midwife placed him tenderly on my daughter’s stomach , the tears poured down my cheeks as I stared in awe. The camera almost slipped from my grasp.

But I quickly remembered my job. I gave my daughter and my new grandson a tearful kiss and rearranged the sheet around them so I could center them clearly in the viewfinder in the well lit delivery room. I composed myself and the picture and clicked.

I guess by now she’s forgiven me for those dark, fuzzy disasters that immortalized her school plays.

Israel’s 62nd Independence Day

2010-04-19T23:11:00.001+03:00

A replica of the golden menorah used in the Temple

Last week we commemorated the slaughter of six million Jews on the blood soaked lands of Europe, whose bodies went up in smoke through the chimneys of concentration camps.

This week the skies over Europe are paralyzed by a cloud of smoke descending from above, over their lands. Coincidence?

Last week the British Advertisng Authority declared that Israel wasn’t allowed to have photos of the Kotel, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple, its holiest site for over 3000 years, in its tourism advertisements, as it is hasn’t been decided that it’s really part of Israel. It is in ‘disputed territory’.

This week that hovering cloud of ash and smoke ensured that no British tourists left the U.K. Coincidence?

The Kotel – The Western Wall of the Temple

Today is Israel’s 62nd Independence Day.

62 years of sovereignty and still fighting for the right to exist.

62 years of providing a home for any Jew from anywhere in the world persecuted and driven from their homes and wanted by no other country on the planet.

62 years of wars which never really end but just evolve into cold wars and unsure peace.

62 years of miracle after miracle that has kept this tiny country alive surrounded by millions of its enemies, winning unwinnable wars with the odds drastically against them, flourishing economically through global recession and thriving agriculturally despite being mostly desert and lacking in rain.

‘Coincidence’ or ‘chance’ don’t even come to mind when explaining our past.

Divine intervention comes closer .

A HOLOCAUST STORY – The Hidden Synagogue of Theresienstadt

2010-04-12T17:47:00.001+03:00

Many stories about the Holocaust are still coming to light and one I heard today, from Mrs Helen Gross, one of the participants in the story, was too amazing for me not to repeat. Only in recent years have most of the facts of the story become known – although there are inevitably still unanswered questions, which may remain forever unanswered.

Helen Gross’ uncle, Asher Berlinger, an extremely religious man was also a talented artist, craftsman and musician. He was a Chazan in Schweinfurt, Germany, before the Holocaust.

After Kristallnacht Asher and his wife , fearing for their children’s lives, sent their two daughters on the kinder transport to England . He and his wife were deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942. Asher continued to teach Torah whilst in the ghetto and he wrote a series of ‘luchot’, calendars, to make sure that everyone knew when the Chagim( Jewish festivals) were, when Shabbat started each week, the week’s parsha and the dates and times of Rosh Chodesh.

Eventually he and his wife suffered the same fate as 88,000 of their brethren and were transported to Auschwitz and murdered. Several of his luchot were discovered and donated to Yad Vashem . On the back of some was a self-portrait that he had drawn, showing him davening in a shul (synagogue) which was assumed to be his old shul from before the war.

After the war, the homes in Theresienstadt were returned to their former Czech owners. A Catholic undertaker went back to his home with his family and many years later in 1997, whilst starting renovations in the kitchen he began to break down a wall . He suddenly realized that what he was revealing was a highly decorated area behind the wall. Being religious he also recognized the Hebrew writing. His priest advised him to leave the room alone to avoid the curse of the Jewish people.

He kept the discovery a secret from the authorities. Occasionally he showed to room to Jewish visitors who came to see the site of the ghetto.

The two Berlinger daughters, meanwhile, grew up as orphans and married, one in England and one in America. A few years ago, Senta, who lived in England, passed away and her sister Rosie came from the USA to bury her sister and sit shiva for her in her house. One of the visitors to the shiva brought with her photos from her recent visit to the Holocaust sites of Europe and Rosie politely glanced at them ……… and there amongst them were photos of the hidden shul in Theresienstadt , which Rosie immediately recognized as the background to her father’s self-portrait on his ‘luchot”.

Straight after the shiva she flew to Europe to see for herself and knew that she was standing in a shul that her father had designed and decorated. But how could she prove it. The portrait at Yad Vashem connected him to the shul but not necessarily as its designer.

But Asher Berlinger wrote in a unique form of calligraphy which he taught to his brother-in-law who in turn taught it to his daughter, Helen Gross. She was able to reproduce the entire alphabet in the style the pesukim in the shul are written..

Asher Berlinger’s handiwork and undying faith, as portrayed in the beauty of the shul and the pesukim he chose, were officially acknowledged by the authorities and in 2006 the family were invited to a rededication of the shul in the presence of top officials and dignitaries from the Czech Republic, the USA, and Israel.

As Helen Gross explained when telling the story, it is still not known who used this shul and when, as so far no survivors have been found who actually knew of its existence , but who knows….

With so much ‘hashgacha pratis’ Divine providence, involved in the discovery of the shul and its origins, it’s not too much to expect that someone be found , who actually used the shul, as place of payer and comfort, during those terrible years.

USING ‘EXTRA’ TIME

2010-04-06T18:55:00.001+03:00

Today is the day I start wondering how to take advantage of all my ‘free-time’ now that Pesach (Passover) is over.

If, before Pesach, I managed to do all my usual ‘stuff’ ( teach / write / cook /housework) and add several extra hours of pre- Pesach cleaning and clearing work into my day – how can I continue to take advantage of all those ‘extra hours’ I squeezed out of the day.

I certainly won’t do more housework – I’m afraid that’s not my favorite way of spending extra time.

I won’t cook more – I don’t think it’s possible to cook more than I did over the last few weeks and I need a clear break from that.

I have spent many hours over the last week enjoying the pleasure of my children and grandchildren

I can’t teach more hours than I have lessons and pupils.

So – this is my opportunity to spend more time writing – whether it’s blogging / articles / essays or stories. And of course every writer has to read – so that’s another task I shall allot more time to…….aaah it’s good to get back into a normal working routine again.

If you discover you have some extra time how do you like to spend it -apart from sleeping?

PESACH TRIPS

2010-03-28T02:31:00.001+03:00

If you are visiting Israel for Pesach or just looking for somewhere to go, take the children, grandchildren or your family visitors, try some of the places below .

Zippori , situated in the northern section of Emek Yizrael, ( The Jezreel Valley) was the seat of the Sanhedrin in Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi’s time, and where he finished writing the Mishana. Much has been unearthed of the living areas of the Jewish population as well as the Romans who also lived close by . Amongst the archeological findings is the famous mosaic dubbed the Mona Lisa of the Galilee.

If you have young children they will love nothing more than a day at Beit Halomotei near Givat Brenner. A complete wonderland of games, activities, train rides, bumper cars, water slides etc.

Hatzerim Air Force Museum near Beer Sheva – is a mostly outdoor museum with dozens of airplanes from Israel’s aerial history from the first Messerschmitt that was the sum total of the country’s air force in 1948, to the wily cobra helicopter that can chase terrorists through tiny alleyways.

Mini Israel, near Latrun is a great place to get a miniature view of hundreds of Israel’s historical, religious, nature, archaeological and tourist sites.

For more ideas see here

Have a great time.

Teaneck Update

2010-03-17T22:58:00.001+02:00

Thanks to so many of you who sent me emails with prayers and good wishes to my sister and her family and asked for an update on their situation.

On Monday experts, with an enormous crane, came to start removing the two trees. It was done section by section, all the time securing the remaining trunk to stop it moving and destroying the rest of the house.

It took seven hours of Monday and several more hours on Tuesday before it was all removed.

My niece’s bedroom after the tree was removed

Once it was done they could enter the house safely and remove some of their belongings. The children are staying with friends and my sister and her husband are meanwhile in a nearby hotel.

Many friends have offered to have them stay with them and local hotels have offered free showers to people who are still without power. One of the kosher delis has offered free dinners to them also.

Their immediate neighborhood was the worst hit, it seems, as they are still without any electricity although most other areas have had power restored.

The local paper sent reporters to the area and they were interviewed .

An insurance assessor has only just been assigned to their case as there weren’t enough for all claims. Hopefully work on mending and rebuilding will start soon but it will still probably be several weeks until the house can be lived in once again.

Don’t Take Anything for granted

2010-03-15T00:04:00.001+02:00

Last night I was thinking and worrying about cleaning, shopping, ordering food and cooking for Pesach.

Now those “worrying” aspects of life seem more of a privilege than a problem.

This morning I woke up to an email from my brother in law in Teaneck New Jersey..

His name in the ‘sender’ box was already unusual.

Then I read the email, sent from his Blackberry, which went something like this:

“Tremendous storms over here. We've lost power and don't have access to email.Two large trees fell onto the house, and one of them broke through the front facade and roof. Water is pouring in. No one is hurt.

We have gone to friends down the road . They also have no electricity..If you need to reach us, send email to me (until my battery dies).”

I had to read it several times before it sunk in. I still didn’t / couldn’t believe it.

I quickly surfed over to the American news programs and read, watched and listened to the horrific stories.

Two men from my sister’s shul had been killed returning from Shabbat Mincha (afternoon) prayers when a tree fell on them.

Hundreds of thousands are without any electricity and it’s very cold .

An update later from my sister’s cellphone ( everyone has cordless phones which need electricity so we couldn’t get through to any telephone – another reason to dislike cordless phones) said that electricity probably wouldn’t be restored until Tuesday. They had returned to the house to see if it looked safe enough to go in and take some essential items for a few days /weeks ? Who knows.

tarp covers the house to save it from more damage.

The important thing now was that the tree shouldn’t move any more and destroy more of the house. It had crashed through the roof, through my niece’s bedroom and down to the living room.

They were hoping to go further away later on to someone with electricity so they could recharge all their ‘communications’ equipment.

They weren’t sure where they would be sleeping – they had plenty of offers. They are still traumatized and are taking each hour as it comes

I felt so helpless and so useless. Apart from inviting them to come over here I couldn’t really do much else. But it’s not very practical. There’s work, school, college, and keeping an eye on their home.

I thank G’d that none of my sister’s family was hurt

I also thank G’d that I have a home to clean for Pesach, a kitchen to cook in and our own beds to sleep in.

We take so much for granted.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY – MARCH 8TH

2010-03-05T09:07:00.001+02:00

Is it such a good thing?

It’s not a good sign when a group of people have to have their own day. It usually means they’re treated badly the rest of the year but to make up for it they are “given” a day of their own.

On that special day all the injustices and hardships felt by them are aired and discussed in the media …… and then forgotten by the following day, which makes a mockery of the whole idea.

For this reason, these days have no place in Jewish custom. For example, there is no Mother’s Day in the Jewish calendar, because mothers should be treated with respect every day of the year – it’s one of the Ten Commandments.

I’ve always found it ironic that Jewish feminists have ‘decided’ that ultra-orthodox women are unhappy, downtrodden, inferior beings who lead a miserable existence, governed by their fathers, husbands and/or rabbis with ne’er an intelligent thought for themselves. They are not allowed to read from the Torah, put on tefillin or count as part of a minyan. They are ‘forced’ to have large families and relegated to a separate part of the shul .

Well, surprise, surprise, but I don’t know any ultra-orthodox women who feel like that. It seems to me that those who voice the above ‘complaints’ are painfully unaware of the respect in Judaism given to the Jewish wife and mother. She plays the central role in the home, in the education of the next generation and is often the breadwinner in the family.

Feminists, it would appear, have a knee-jerk reaction in wanting to do anything that is perceived as ‘forbidden’. There are many mitzvot which women can perform, but I have a strong suspicion that these don’t interest the above ladies.

If they had more self-respect for themselves and their role as women and as individuals they probably wouldn’t be so desperate to be allowed to take part in rituals which for religious/practical reasons have never been part of a Jewish woman’s daily routine.

Self-respect and self-confidence are the keys to living a fulfilled life. Continually looking for things to be disgruntled and annoyed over will, in my opinion, only lead to a negative image and discontented outlook.

Ultra-orthodox girls usually leave school ( which continues for an extra 2 to 3 years of further education ) well qualified to join the work-force in a variety of interesting and much needed professions from architects to educators.

Before getting married both the grooms and the brides take pre-marital courses which don’t just teach the halachot ( laws) pertaining to Jewish married life but also place tremendous emphasis on shalom- bayit (marital harmony) i.e. treating each other with respect . Discussing peacefully, avoiding fights, respecting each other’s opinion, coming to a compromise – all these important aspects of sharing your life with someone else are discussed in depth. The emphasis is placed on giving not demanding, looking for way to make your partner happy – not insisting on your own rights privileges.

I can see the fruits of these lessons in my own children’s harmonious relationships with their spouses.

Men and women are equal, but different – each with their own role in the home, in the family, in society and in spiritual life .

Hopefully there will come a day when we won’t need a special International Women’s Day – when women all over the world will be treated with equality and respect at home and in society.

But I believe this will come through education within society and not through any artificially organized days on the calendar.

WHAT time is it?

2010-02-28T11:26:00.001+02:00

There just has to be some scientific reason why I wake up , every morning at 4.05.

(actually it’s 4.10 but I couldn’t find a picture of a digital clock that said 4.10 – beggars can’t be choosers)

No I don’t need to get up then ( heaven forbid)

No my husband doesn’t get up then.

It’s not because I go to bed so early and so I’ve slept enough – I rarely get to bed before 1.00…… and I have definitely NOT slept enough by 4.10.

No the alarm clock doesn’t go off then.

No I’m not worried about missing a flight / bus / an agent offering me a Hollywood screen play (that last one was to see if you’re really awake!!)

So please someone tell me why I wake up at 4.10 every morning?

THE ADVANTAGES OF ‘MATURITY’

2010-02-23T14:13:00.001+02:00

When I went back to employed work about six years ago as a teacher, I was nervous.

Most of my fellow teachers in the staff-room were my children’s ages, making me feel like some nearly extinct dinosaur.

But it didn’t take me long to realize that I had plenty of advantages over them.

I’m never in a mad rush to get out as soon as the bell rings, as there’s no teacher or babysitter waiting for me to pick up my starving children.

I don’t have to take time off for my children’s illnesses.

I’m not as exhausted as the young mothers ( and fathers) who never get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

I’m pretty calm and have more self-confidence than many of those inexperienced youngsters and don’t get upset over criticism.

Outraged parents and badly behaved pupils don’t faze me. (After bringing up 7 children nothing much fazes me. )

Yes, maturity carries with it many advantages.

Most of the major expenses of life have been paid for (mortgage, children’s education, most weddings etc) so I can allow myself to be employed part-time and devote more time to writing.

And as for the writing – well, as the years go by, I have far more to write about.

Essay subjects abound. If it happened, there’s an essay in it somewhere.

I have enough material on parenting (kept up to date by my grandchildren) to fill most magazines and websites for a long time.

I can now write for most age markets ( grandchildren keep me up to date with teen-speak / fads/fashions / technical gadgets which are foreign animals to me).

I’ve always loved writing. I never said “ I’ll write when …….. I have more time/ the children sleep through the night / the kids are grown / I retire …etc

I’ve been writing regularly, even if not frequently, since I was about 15 and now that I have more time, those overflowing idea notebooks are coming into use.

So as I head towards my 60s I’m looking forward, G’d willing, to a busy writing and family life.

And you won’t find me at the cosmetic counter looking at those outrageously expensive “promise- to- make –you- look- ten-years-younger- in -ten –weeks lotions.

I’m comfortable in my (wrinkled) skin the way it is.

TEN THINGS TO REMEMBER TO DO BEFORE PESACH

2010-02-17T00:49:00.001+02:00

1. Panic

2. Think of the number of rooms you have.

Then count up of the number of wardrobes / closets /drawers / desks / shelves / boxes you have in each room.

Multiply it by the number of children who make a mess ( are there any other sort of children?)

Divide it by the number of days until Pesach

3. Decide you should have started Pesach cleaning six months ago.

4. Remember that in the ‘old days’, before Pesach, they used to just ‘shave off’ the top layer of their wooden table to reveal beneath it a completely clean unused tabletop Pesach.

5. DON’T try that with your dining room table that you were given by your in-laws when you got married.

6. Remember the Rabbanim say it is definitely wrong to dread Pesach more than Tisha Be’Av.

I’m working very hard on that one.

7. Remember, Dust is not Chametz and your children should not be turned into Pesach sacrifices.

I remember only too well how I neglected my kids the weeks before Pesach when they were young..

I just pray my children don’t treat my grandchildren so badly.

8. Yes, that green sludge at the bottom of your child’s ‘tik ochel’ was once up on a time a time a delicious sandwich.

Does it still count as “chametz”?

Who cares – you don’t really want to leave it there another year do you??

9. Remember all new “olim”. There’s only one Seder night here. If you sleep through it, from exhaustion, there’s no action-replay the next night.

10. A couple of days ago my daughter asked me to go with her to a “ how to get organized” evening – she’d tried all her sisters and none of them were interested!!

“ OK” I said “When and where is it?”

Her answer ?

“ I don’t know I can’t find the advert”

(Gimmee a break – that is just tooo stupid to be made up)

WHY OH WHY DID WE GET A CORDLESS TELEPHONE?

2010-02-11T14:49:00.001+02:00

About 14 years ago we bought our first cordless telephone. I was full of wonderful expectations of getting on with the housework whilst chatting to friends and family and never wasting a minute.

But surprise, surprise, it never quite worked like that.

I simply found it too uncomfortable to stick the receiver between my chin(s) and shoulder, leaving my two hands free to work. It was a real pain in the neck.

But what did happen was that I no longer ever knew where the phone was . With a houseful of teenage girls, the phone was rarely seen. Often it was discovered in the morning in one of their beds – with a completely run down battery, after hours of nighttime chats with their friends .

Don’t even ask what happened to the phone bill.

When that phone died of overwork I resolved and announced – no more cordless phones in our house while the children are still living at home.

At least with an old-fashioned phone, when it rings you know where it is, and what is so terrible about sitting down for a few minutes and relaxing while I chat to my friends.

This resolution held out until recently. We now have just one daughter left at home who is very busy, very popular and also I must tell you , very hardworking both at home and in her studies.

So we succumbed and got another cordless phone. The real clincher was when she promised to tuck it under her chin and do a ‘sponja’ ( clean the floor the Israeli way) at the same time.

But we still can never find the phone when she’s out of the house.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have run around looking for the phone when I heard it ring , only to listen helplessly as the answering machine takes the message while I am still haplessly searching under every cushion and pile of newspapers, amongst the cosmetics and inside her clothes closet .

Of course we know there is a bell on the main base section of the phone, and if you press it you can hear the phone giving a corresponding ring from wherever it is lurking.

But what if you don’t hear any answering ring from the phone?

It once took three days until I had finished the laundry …… and lo and behold, there it was, at the bottom of the laundry basket, cushioned amongst the dirty towels, with any sound it may have tried to make begging to be rescued , muffled inside the damp, fluffy heap.

Mind you, it could have been worse.

Last week my married daughter was taking out a bag of garbage to the main garbage container in the street, when suddenly the bag started to ‘ring’.

If someone hadn’t called her at that moment she would have thrown the bag away, cordless phone and all and no one would ever have heard it from the depths of the dark dank, dumpster.

On second thoughts ……. that’s not such a bad idea ………now if I could only find the phone ….. I think it’s time to throw out the garbage.

TOM AND TOMER’S HILL

2010-02-06T21:33:00.001+02:00

In 1997, on the night of Shvat 27th 5757, 13 years ago this week, two helicopters carrying elite IDF solders crashed into each other as they hovered over Moshav Shear Yashuv, awaiting permission to fly into Lebanon. As was the normal procedure when entering Lebanon, the first helicopter had turned off its lights when the second one crashed into it. All 73 people on board the two helicopters died.

The entire country was thrown into national mourning over the worst air disaster ever in Israel.

The following day’s Maariv newspaper’s front page. The headline reads The Best of our Sons and has photos of those who perished.

Two of those who died were Tomer Keidar, youngest son of Hagit and Yoav Keidar of Kibbutz Negba and his best friend Tom.

Yoav Keidar sought a way to memorialize Tom and Tomer and the other 71 who died. His love of his country and particularly the flora and fauna of The Land of Israel, brought him to set up a special garden in their memory not far from his home.

Givat Tom veTomer ( Tom and Tomer Hill) is planted with only plants and fruits indigenous to the Land of Israel. There are many paths and benches as well as areas for groups to sit in the shade.

There are stones bearing quotations from the Tenach and Hebrew memorial songs play in the background as you wander around the garden.

There are also memorial stones listing all those who died.

At the entrance to the site an electric pole rises , painted in blue with 73 doves circling around the pole

To reach this beautiful memorial garden, enter Kibbutz Negba and follow the signs to Givat Tom veTomer.

Cookery Lessons anyone?

2010-01-31T17:06:00.001+02:00

My five married daughters are all very accomplished cooks. But it wasn’t always like that .

Most of them, within a week of their wedding, were on the phone.

“Mum, what do you do once you’ve taken the plastic wrap off the hicken?”

“Mum, How do I cook hot-dogs”.

“Mum, how long do I cook hard boiled eggs for?”

An over-a-cup-of-coffee survey ( the most reliable sort of survey in my opinion), revealed that my daughters spent way below the national average pre-nuptial time in the kitchen. In fact you might say that they spent practically no time in the kitchen. Despite all my well worn, but true, clichés about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach and pointed questions such as “ Would you recognize a chicken in the supermarket freezer cabinet?”, none of my subtle remarks drew them any closer to the cooker or even the kitchen counter-tops.

Like any good Jewish mother I went through a guilt-phase. Obviously I was a terrible cook and they didn’t want to learn anything from me. Maybe their husbands-to- be hate my food.

But it was pretty easy to discount these thoughts as the facts-on-the-ground showed otherwise. In fact their boyfriends spent more time in the kitchen sampling the contents of the pots and pans, than they ever did. So much so that I was sorely tempted to offer the guys the odd cookery lesson or two, knowing just what they were in for once they married one of my daughters.

“ When the time comes that I need to learn how to cook, I’ll find out” was my eldest daughter’s comment. How much closer to the-time-that-she-needs-to-know how-to-cook can you be, than the month before the wedding. But of course then her reply was, “Mum I don’t have time now I have a million things to do before the wedding I haven’t got time for cookery lessons”.

When my next daughter fixed her wedding date, I subtly reminded her of her older sister’s lack of knowledge and experience in the haute-cuisine area of life.

“Why don’t you try some hands-on experience now while you’re still at home. Peel a potato, boil an egg, roast some meat. It can’t harm you know.” All I got was a rolling of the eyes and one of her you-don’t-give-up-do-you looks.

It’s not that they never, ever, did anything in the kitchen. Each one of them had “their” recipe. One made a lasagna to die for, another made divine brownies, another made delicious chocolate-chip cookies and one actually loved making salads.

But even if they were to swap recipes between them to expand their repertoire, their husbands would soon get a bit bored with the menus .

I often found myself apologizing to their future in-laws. I didn’t want them to get too much of a shock when they visited the newly-weds for the first time and were perhaps expecting to be served a normal meal

If it bothered them to see their precious sons being served noodles and ketchup for a main meal, and that only after their wives had stared long and hard at the instructions on the back of the pack, they never mentioned it.

It’s not that I never read those parenting magazines that suggest that the school vacation is an excellent time to instill some domestic talents into your children. We went through a phase of letting them have one day a week when each teenager was responsible for the day’s menus. That worked for about two days after which my husband and I decided that there were better ways of dieting than simply being starved to death by our children.

Of course there are some advantages to the situation. They came home for visits more often – in fact during the early months of married life, whenever they were really hungry which was pretty often.

And now as the years have gone by, they have picked up some delicious recipes.

In fact just last week I was thinking of what to make when we had visitors and found myself calling my eldest daughter’s house. “ How did you do those potatoes in that yummy sauce, everyone loved them? ”

She reeled off the recipe and just as I was about to put the phone down she murmured, “ Er Mum, how long do I cook hard-boiled eggs?”

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

2010-01-27T01:22:00.001+02:00

January 27^th is the date introduced by the United Nations in 2005 for commemorating the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. This day was picked as it is the date of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camps.

Nissan 27th (April -May) is the date set by the Israeli government for Yom Hashoah veHaGvurah – Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day - the time of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Tevet 10th (January) the Fast commemorating the siege of Jerusalem, is the day declared by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel as a Memorial Day for victims of the Holocaust and the yahrzeit for those whose real date of death is unknown. It was considered that a Fast is an appropriate day for commemorating such a tragedy in our history and nowadays we don’t have the right to institute new memorials into our calendar.

Are there too many memorial days for the Holocaust? Should there be one day for everyone?

I don’t think so .

In the UK,an attempt to cancel the commemoration started soon after the first International Holocaust Remembrance Day ( and ironically as a result of the London terrorist bombings by Moslems.) It was argued that commemorating the slaughter of millions of Jews might be offensive to the Moslems. So far Britain has remained steadfast in keeping International Holocaust and Remembrance Day and in continuing Holocaust education in British Schools.

But how long will it take until they or other European countries bow to Moslem pressure and relegate the Holocaust to just another historical event – if they believe it happened at all.

As long as the date is still recognized, at least some official commemorations are taking place amongst the non-Jewish population, despite all the growing Holocaust denial and continuous Israel bashing.

What is important is that the Holocaust should be remembered for what it really was, the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jewish men, women and children in an organized attempt to completely wipe out the Jews of Europe and wherever else the Nazi boot could trample.

What is important is that It should be discussed, written about , memorialized, taught and studied all over the world, amongst Jews and non-Jews – no matter what date they choose.

ISRAEL TAKES MEDICAL CLOWNING TO NEW HEIGHTS

2010-01-24T15:47:00.001+02:00

We’ve know for a long time that a person’s mental well-being has profound effects on his physical health.

I first discovered this, personally, when my young son had his tonsils out in a British hospital many years ago. In those days a parent’s presence was neither welcomed nor encouraged

But I insisted on staying with him, accompanying him right up to the door of the operating theatre and waiting for his return to the recovery ward.

Afterwards the doctor told me that he would be able to go home a day earlier than the other children who had been operated on at the same time. Why?

“ Because he had you, his mother with him. It’s bound to make his recovery quicker and easier because he’s happier.” Put simply – a happy person heals faster.

Norman Cousins, one time editor of The Saturday Review ( and father of Jerusalem writer and author Sarah Shapiro) took this much further when he claimed to have cured himself of the degenerative disease, ankylosing spondylitis, by using laughter therapy. Taking mega doses of Vitamin C and watching hours of Marx Brothers movies, Cousins details his return to health in his book Anatomy of an Illness in which he says.

"I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep."

He didn’t coin the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”, but he’s probably the first one to prove it’s efficacy.

His theory now has scientific backing. After his return to health, he established the Humor Research Task Force at UCLA Medical School to research clinically the effects of laughter therapy.

Scientists claim that it has been proven now that laughter releases endorphins, the body's natural painkiller. It also brings about an increase in the number and activity level of natural killer cells that attack cells infected by virus and some types of cancer and tumor cells.

In general, laughter raises your resistance against infections by increasing the concentration of circulating antibodies in the blood stream. In addition to all of this, laughter is also a good cardio workout, increasing heart activity, and stimulating circulation.

But putting all this into practice is something else. Not everyone will sit himself in front of screen and watch belly-laughing movies.

But you may be relieved to know that the laughter doesn’t have to be naturally induced by something funny. The effects of laughter on your body are just as good if the laughter is ‘forced’. Your body doesn’t know the difference between real and fake laughter and you get the same physiological and psychological benefits from both. There are more and more laughter therapy workshops, a.k.a. laughter yoga, being set up on a world wide scale,where through various exercises and activities you spend an hour laughing – and your body and mind receive untold benefits.

However, children can and do laugh at lot more than adults, given the opportunity and Israel is now in the forefront of the use of medical clowns to help with the recovery of very sick children in hospitals. Nowadays their help is invaluable as part of the medical teams in most Israeli hospitals, especially on the pediatric wards. .

CNN recently reported on Israel’s major role in this field. Haifa University is now offering a three year degree course in Medical clowning. Once again Israel is the trailblazer in a field of medicine which deserves to be taken far more seriously than its name implies.

“ROLLS ROYCE OF FIELD HOSPITALS”

2010-01-20T00:29:00.004+02:00

It’s been one of those weeks when our horror of the tragedy in Haiti was coupled with pride at the immediate and invaluable help sent by Israel.

Without fanfare, the Israeli army contingents arrived and set about their work.The Rescue Unit went straight to work with their highly trained Oketz dog handling unit, searching for and finding, survivors buried in the destroyed buildings.

And the medical team set up their state-of-the-art field hospital complete with operating rooms, respirators and imaging equipment.

Our field hospital , has, by all accounts, been the one light in the bleak medical turmoil where survivors of the quake are now dying in the streets for lack of medical attention.

The birth of a healthy baby boy, in a country where infant mortality is one of the highest in a ‘good’ week, was cause for a few minutes celebration before emergency work was resumed.

Baby Israel in his mother’s arms shortly after his birth in the field hospital.

It’s true that their work is but a drop in the overwhelming ocean of horror and death but the well deserved praise that our teams have received has been almost universal .Read this and watch this.

What an international ‘kiddush Hashem’.

Once again it’s Kol HaKavod LeTzahal.

THE WORLD IS BUILT ON CHESED

2010-01-18T00:14:00.002+02:00

Arriving at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Emergency Room in the middle of the night with my young daughter wasn’t a pleasant experience.

But imagine my surprise, when shortly after settling her in a bed in a small cubicle, a bearded face peeped round the curtain, smiled and said “I wish your daughter a Refua Sheleima, Would you like tuna or hard boiled egg sandwiches. I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got at the moment”.

At first I thought I wasn’t hearing correctly and the worry about my daughter had affected my mind. But then I remembered that this was Jerusalem and we Jews know that whenever there’s a problem, eating almost always makes it better -food nourishes both the body and the soul- especially food delivered with such good wishes and such a smile.

The non-stop volunteer food delivery is just one of the common sights in many Israeli hospitals.

Anyone who has ever spent a Shabbat in hospital knows first-hand just how much chesed (kindness) goes on to ensure that everyone has a real Shabbat atmosphere, whatever the medical experience. Candles are distributed to the patients and visitors are told exactly how and where they can get their Shabbat meals, where the shul is and where there is a Kiddush after the services.

My son-in-law was given a small apartment when he and his sister spent Shabbat in a hospital near Tel Aviv in order to to be near their father who was undergoing surgery.

We are told that “Olam chesed yibone” the world is built on chesed and wherever you turn, wherever you go you are surrounded by organizations and volunteers who regularly day after day, month after month embody the mitzvah and idea that each person’s deeds make a difference and can help put the world to rights

But I have to admit that I thought that this overflow of chesed was limited to Israel, for the obvious reason that the number of Jews needing and giving help was so much greater.

But I was very wrong.

This year, during Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, my sisters and I found ourselves in London at the Royal Free Hospital in London taking care of our mother .

The important thing was to be there for her, but as none of us live in London we wondered whether there would be any possibility of finding a shul nearby / maybe having a Yom Tov meal at some point.

To our delight and amazement the first thing we were told about was the Shabbat room in the basement of the hospital. On the lower ground floor,together with all the other religious facilities ( a church / a mosque) there is a Shabbat room which is accessed by pressing the key-pad code ( the current Jewish year ) For those who don’t know what the year is, there is a note above the key-pad telling you the Hebrew letters and you just have to work out the numbers!

Inside the room there is a fridge with cold drinks, fish, cakes, salads, packets of sliced meat, grape juice, disposable tableware and when I went down on Friday, what seemed like all weekend Jewish newspapers from all over the world were laid out on the table.

But that wasn’t all. There is also a Shabbat apartment a few minutes walk from the hospital where several people can sleep and Shabbat meals can be ordered in advance and will be delivered and left on the hot plate.

You always hope you won’t need to make use of any of these wonderful organisations but it’s very comforting to know that they exist.

As my daughter said, when I expressed my surprise at all the facilities in London.

“Mum, Why are you so surprised? Where there are Jews,there’s always chesed”

EXITING THE KOTEL TUNNELS

2010-01-11T18:10:00.023+02:00

Last week I visited the Kotel tunnels with a group of my students.

I always enjoy seeing the disbelief on their faces when new visitors to the tunnels discover just what a small percentage of the total Western Wall we can see from above ground and how long the real Wall is.

In the main large hall inside the tunnels there is a model of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple Mount ,with moving sections, showing how long and deep the wall really was and how over the years the Moslems gradually built their homes against the wall to cover it, in an attempt to ‘make it disappear’.
But it’s still there – all of it.
And we can now see all 500 meters of it.

There’s a section which is very long and narrow, with strong concrete supports on both sides.

Along the stone floor , in this passageway, there are two glass sections so that visitors can see all the way down to bedrock.
And there below we can see the actual stones that the Romans pushed off the outer western all of the Temple.
When they realized they couldn’t manage to completely destroy the whole wall they just gave up.
And those stones are still lying down there just where they landed on the day the Romans hurled them down as the Temple was being destroyed.

Another part of the tunnel brings you to the closest a Jew can get to the Kodesh Kodashim, the Holy of Holies, inside the Temple . You stand directly opposite the spot where only the High Priest was allowed to enter and then only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the year.

We stopped here for a few moments to say our own private prayers.

Here in the depth of the tunnels opposite the holiest site in the world for Jews, we were closer to the Temple than we had ever stood – closer than we are at the Kotel itself.

Archaeologists had spent 20 years digging carefully beneath the Moselm Quarter, without causing any damage to anything above, discovering the hidden treasures of a time when we were privileged to have G-d’s presence rest amongst us in His Temple.

The Hasmonean aqueduct at then end of the tunnels.

And then we exited the tunnels …....... to reality.

The exit comes out onto the Via Dolorosa in the Moslem Quarter.

Here, non- Jewish tourists of every religion were running around happily shopping, eating and sightseeing - while our group of Jewish /Israeli students huddled in a corner awaiting our armed-guard to escort us home – back to the safety of the Jewish Quarter.

How sad reality sometimes is.

My fervent hope is that some day soon P.G. we will be able to wander around our own home where are ancestors walked thousands of years ago and from where G-d's presence has never left,, without needing an armed escort.