5th of May, 2024
Shabbat Shalom, I wish you a quiet weekend
Where do I start?
Students, George Soros, Iran, Police, demonstrations, hate, more
hatred, and even more hatred? I suppose I should begin with the Students. Let’s
face it, students demonstrate against power, always have, always will. In fact
they demonstrate against almost anything because that’s what students do – but –
and this is a huge but, this is different.
CNN and others have reported that many of the demonstrators are not
students at all but instigators, inciters, there to create chaos and
intentional anti-Semitism, anti-Israel, anti-American sentiment.
It is not a coincidence that the tents, in almost all the campuses,
are identical. What does that tell us?
Young people wear kaffiyas, Palestinian flags, without even knowing
where the PA or Gaza are. These are your future leaders! These young,
ridiculously gullible, readily radical young people who have been brainwashed
by the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel cant, are your future leaders.
The 7th of October has conveniently been forgotten and
the very students who fight for women’s rights support those who raped and
tortured.
One fascinating outcome of the violent demonstrations in
the Ivy League universities is reported by Forbes – employers are no longer
looking to those elite universities for new blood, they much prefer young
people from universities where they work hard and demonstrate less! Another is
that Congress voted to widen the definition of Anti-Semitism in the Awareness
of Anti-Semitism Act requiring the education department to apply the
definition as outlined by the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Two videos deeply affected me this week, for very different
reasons. “Screams Before Silence” is a documentary of October 7th.
Difficult but essential viewing as young people tell their stories alongside what
they recorded. https://youtu.be/zAr9oGSXgak?si=fnPGO0RhUhEfBuLi
The second is infinitely lighter but
just as important. Noa Tishbi has teamed with Emmanuel Acho talking openly about
their new book “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew” https://youtu.be/VGzITaEx8bI?si=u15-I5jENdI_wOhd
Just in case you thought that the UN investigation into the
participation of UNWRA workers on 7th of October might elicit
some kind of truth, it didn’t. Impact-se delivered, personally, a 245 page
document detailing the UNWRA involvement and knowledge of the events of October
7th and how UNWRA education had culminated in the massacre, yet the result was
a foregone conclusion that UNWRA had nothing to do with it proving yet again
that the United nations, as a whole, no longer fulfils the mandate for which it
was formed. https://www.impact-se.org/unrwa/
Isn’t it strange? We Israelis worry more about you in
the USA, Europe, UK, than you do for us? In a surreal fashion our lives here
have taken a path, a daily repetition of deep regret for the families of
hostages, the determination to bring them home and the understanding that our
current government is not capable of any positive action. Having said that,
life does go on. Just a few days ago I was in the centre of Jerusalem,
something I usually avoid because the traffic is terrible and the parking
worse. As I walked to my destination, I realised that the area was full of new
coffee shops, hotels and bars and all of them were buzzing with activity, young
people sitting and eating Israeli breakfast on tables set out on the pavements.
It was a surreal situation, watching the faces, hearing snippets of
conversation as I passed; visually it was impossible to grasp that we are at
war but the conversations told me that we are.
Over the next two weeks, we will mourn the Holocaust, that
eerie siren will remind us of what was and may be again; a week later we mourn
our fallen, both in battle and in terror, the numbers of fallen soldiers has
risen by over 600 and the victims of terror by an astonishing 1,500 or more
over the last 6 months. As always, the solemnity of Remembrance Day will blend
into the joy, this year a very subdued joy, of Independence Day. Too many
Israelis will not be in their homes, refugees in their own country, after what
I believe to have been a bad decision by this government to remove entire towns
and villages from the North and South. Not just the obvious citizens living
along the border with Gaza, those who suffered most on that ghastly day. The
result? In the minds of the Iranian backed enemy, they succeeded in cutting the
size of Israel down to the central region, without anyone, not Jew, Christian,
Moslem, Druze, Bedouin, Circassian, no Israeli in the area that they bombard on
a daily basis.
My goodness, I am depressing myself as I write the words, but it is
our situation, one to which we have become accustomed. As always, I digressed,
I meant to tell you why we worry more about you than about ourselves. Your
enemy is not blatant, is not a face hidden behind a balaclava, it is your
neighbours, your children’s friends, your academics and hides in unexpected
places. The lies have overtaken the truth and Goerring’s plan of well repeated
lies overwhelming the truth is working yet again. Most Western leaders
understand and President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak have gone above and beyond
in their attempts to stop the tsunami of hatred, but it is enveloping life as
you/we know it.
I hope you don’t think that I am being flippant by changing mood,
but alongside this chaos, Israel is winning prizes and medals in sport and
science!
In science, Israel scored no less than 18 medals in the Science Olympiad. Revital
Wallach, a 12th grade student who thinks physics is cool, competed against 74
countries and won a gold medal in the Youth Olympiad in Physics and was even
announced as the most outstanding student in the world in the field of physics.
Nir Cohen, won a gold medal in the International Chemistry Olympiad; Ori
Frankel, won a silver medal in the International Mathematics Olympiad; Yair
Shoham, won a silver medal in Mathematics.
Unbelievable performances by
Israel's Karate team in North Macedonia Europe Championships where the
Israeli team of all ages and various competitions won an astonishing 19 Gold, 5
Silver and 5 Bronze medals!
Yarin Shriki, who survived the October 7th
massacre, won a Gold Medal in the Paris World Jujitsu Championships. He
dedicated his win to his friend Yochai Ben Zacharia who was killed at the Nova
Music Festival.
Raz Hershko, the Israeli Judoka, won Gold in the European
Judo Championships! Israel won more medals than any other country.
Passover has yet again passed over! It
was a busy time, entertaining friends who popped in or announced that they were
coming, which is what I love. Apart from Seder night we had another three
dinners and a lunch and as we ended the festival I saw the inside of my fridge
for the first time in years. It was empty, devoid of food, the shelves bearing
a few lonely left-overs! When the days of Passover are so close to the Sabbath,
we tend to feel that we have entered Groundhog Day, the special meals running
into one another! However, it’s over for another year, all our dishes and
utensils are either down in the store room (thank you Zvi), the boxes carefully
labelled for next year, or back in their rightful places in the kitchen
cupboards. This Passover really was different to all other Passovers as we set
a place for a hostage, used yellow napkins and said an extra prayer for the
return of our hostages.
There is one very special person who
lights the room wherever she goes. Her real name is Alex, but ever since she
was about 12 or 13 years old she had a hairstyle which gained her the nickname
Poodle, and Poodle she remained for the last 40 years or so! Rachel and I met
Poodle in the Nehama coffee shop at the entrance to Givat Ze’ev the day after
Passover. We sat amid racks upon racks of freshly baked breads, of every nature,
which seemed to disappear before we had time to take in the aroma! Talk about
going like hot cakes! Half baguettes and multi-seeded rolls, one would think
that these people hadn’t seen bread for a week…… oh I forgot, they hadn’t.
Anyway, our table was in the corner, literally surrounded by the most glorious
aroma and we just enjoyed being together. It was fascinating to hear that Poodle and her
lovely husband David, were unsure about coming, having listened to the news on
British TV, especially since they brought their sons to have the Passover Seder,
but to her amazement, once here, they found that life here goes on. It’s a
different life but we accept our new reality, understanding that we are
fighting for our very existence, but as Poodle said, she goes to the
supermarket, museums and everything feels just as safe as ever. For both Rachel
and I, this very special lady, one of Daniel’s closest friends, brings light
and a sense of confidence into our lives.
I’m thrilled to tell you that we
have had many messages over the past week from friends who are coming to Israel
soon and want to meet up with us. Of course the number of airlines is limited
(crews watch too much BBC and CNN) but all the Israeli airlines are working
overtime! When friends come to visit, when friends come to tell you that
despite it all they love you and want to hug us all, life takes on a different
perspective.
That’s it! I swear that I can smell
the aroma of Rachel’s Challot (she promised me some today) calling me to see
her and the children. I don’t want you to think that the only reason I go to
see my daughter is because after we hug, she always has a hot, fresh from the oven,
baby challah, a wonderful cup of tea and egg salad waiting for me on the table.
The girls leave their studies to come out and hug me, real hugs, and Yosef
tries to come back from his grandparents to complete the set.
Tomorrow we will celebrate Gili’s 15th
birthday. One of the greatest advantages of a second marriage is that we have
amazing shared grandchildren. Gili is my granddaughter Ayala’s closest friend, spending
whole days talking to each other on WhatsApp!
Zvi is getting ready to go to his
parliament in the Botanical Gardens. I already know the subjects they’ll
discuss. If only they were the real parliament, the real government, but then
that’s another story altogether.
And so to music. Yet again we find so
many lyricists are indeed prophets and commentators of what is happening in
this world of ours.
One such prophet is Bob Dylan aka
Robert Zimmerman, “The Times They Are A’Changin” https://youtu.be/uc5lyJDiyEI?si=w_g7CwulrznQiwmF
Hope, Tikva is not only our National
Anthem, it’s what keeps us going! This wonderfully happy song all about Tikva
made my morning! https://youtu.be/HsE1cAKM4Yc?si=9oOMwkSCIfTNVw-w
Five wonderful Israeli actors, all of
whom are over a certain age, created a gentle satirical programme called Zehu
Zeh which means That’s It. They began to sing at the end of their programmes
and their careers took off in a totally different direction – they were
wonderful! Other stars joined them each week and…….. Here they sing Lu Yehi –
Let It Be, music and lyrics by Naomi Shemer. Their guests are Meir Banai and
Shaike Levi. This a prayer more than a song https://youtu.be/Mf7VagPUG50?si=GXt_SYShhlUq5Smp
I wish you a Shabbat shalom, a good
weekend with love from our Jerusalem, the city for all religions, for all
faiths, the city whose dazzling beauty lives on in all our hearts.
Sheila
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