Day 10

Day 1016thOctober 2023 Well thatwas a little more excitement than I would have liked!!  Today was agood day. I met my friend Sue in the shopping mall coffee shop. She went to thesupermarket and I decided that I had to replace the real plant that was in theshade t the entrance to our apartment with something fake, I was tired ofseeing it wilt and wither from the lack of sunlight. I also went to buy someart equipment for my class tomorrow. I then came home and Naomi, my girlfriendfrom the estate, came to visit, we sat outside, although it was a little chillyand she admired my fruit and veggies, a productive veranda indeed. Why was thatexciting? I’m about to come to that bit. I sat down, ready to have a late lunchin front of the TV because Zvi had gone to see his grandchildren in Nes Ziona.Then it got exciting! There wasn’t a siren but my goodness there was a boom, awindow shaking boom and siren or not I went to the safe room and asked, on theWhatsApp if anyone knew what had happened. We were told that it was in a nearbyvillage but there’s no way it was that far, it was really close. Anyway, Istayed in here for a while, in the safe room, beside my computer and caught upwith all the lovely messages from you.  The goodthing is that all the Members of the Knesset went down to their shelter whichmeant they had to crowd together and maybe even look each other in the eye! Actually,the other good thing is that it stopped me from running around and I hadalready eaten my lunch so I wasn’t hungry! I know it sounds crazy but I wascompletely calm! President Herzogspoke in the Knesset today. His words were so wise, so important so refreshing.He spoke of the anger and disunity when we entered this war and that we foundthat unity again in our hour of need. He said that when we come out the otherside of the war we must fight to be unified, we the people, to make sure thatour enemies don’t get the wrong message and think that our social disunitymeans we are weak. We are a strong people, but we tend to have strong opinions,and it ran away with us. Don’t get me wrong, I am still angry with the government,but there is a time and place. All I ask of the PM is the simple words, wordsthat Golda found to calm the people. We the people want him to say “I made mistakesfor which I am sorry, but now we must fight a common battle before castingjudgment.” One aspectof the situation is that the area of the Western Negev, known as Otef Aza, isthe vegetable basket of Israel. Highly fertile land it produces incredibleproduce but the problem is two fold – there are no workers to harvest the cropsand it’s too dangerous to pick and collect to distribute so the shelves of thesupermarket are sparse. Indeed two days ago I bought carrots, a plastic wrappedpack of carrots, not of the usual crisp, beautiful standard, and they were fromTurkey! We are so spoiled with our usual farm to table produce. One producer ofsmall plants that are normally sold on to plant nurseries across the countryfound himself unable to deliver so he wrote a message to the people saying thatif they are willing to collect then he will sell mixed packs of seedlings forhalf price. Of course, I ordered them, for me and for him.  Yesterday Racheland Yosef came to visit which lifted my spirits as nothing else. We hugged eachother until there was little breath left…. And it felt so good. I hadn’t seenher since our trip to Uzbekistan! I have beentrying to explain to you about the effect of the hate filled schoolbooks of thePA and this proves it like no other. Shoefat is right next to Jerusalem, halfin Israel and half in the PA, guess who teaches these children, who wrote theschool books? None other than UNWRA https://twitter.com/TSchwarzbard/status/1713115314156716268 One amazingmember of our Board, they are all wonderful active people, but Susan wrote thisWhen Iask "How did thishappen?" it is not about the Israeli security failure.  When I ask, my question is, "How didthousands of innocent, beautiful Palestinian babies get turned into murderousmonsters?  I don't know all the answers,but I am on the board of IMPACT-se, which has been analyzing texts in theMiddle East based on UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance, and I firmlybelieve that a critical building block of how this happens is the dailyindoctrination of these poor kids in their schools and curricula that glorifiesdeath and hatred of Jews.   And in anirony of ironies, out of the mouths of their students, below we hear of whatover 100,000 students in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - are beingtaught every day by the United Nations' own organization - UNWRA.  Please let me know if you would like to hearmore about IMPACT-se and the work we are doing both with Abraham Accordcountries and others. The RedCross has been asked tointervene, to visit the hostages as they would anywhere else in the world, buttheir excuse is that Hamas won’t let them. Yeah right. Sadly, the Red Crosswill do exactly as they did in the Shoah - nothing. Zvi and I visited the RedCross Museum in Switzerland and everything they have ever done was around thewalls, like a map of the London Underground. Nothing about the Shoah, just “theWar” and instead of a couple of words to say where and why on every otherinstance, they put 1948 as the time that Palestinians were displaced and Israeloccupied. In fact, it is called the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum – nothingabout Magen David Adom. Don't expect anything from them Tomorrow morning,I have my art studio just up the road with the most incredible teacher calledMichael who encourages me to be bold in my artwork. He says I am bold in mylife and it should be reflected on the page! In the early evening we haveanother Music Movement Class. We must continue as if nothing was happeningwhile ensuring both safety and sanity. Again,thank you. Thank you for your kindness, your beautiful messages and yoursupport. We don’t take it lightly nor do we take it for granted. It reallygives us the moral and emotional boost we need With muchlove from all of us, all over Israel.Sheila  -- If the media does not inform us we must inform the mediaMy Website http://www.theviewfrommyveranda.info/Facebook      Sheila Silver Raviv Involvement   http://www.impact-se.org/