Shabbat January 24-25

Last week ended with the Cabinet of Israel approving the final text of Phase 1 of the hostage for prisoner exchange. We went into Shabbat uncertain if the two parties would indeed keep to the agreement, as a lot can change in 48 hours. 

Shabbat started in Efrat with these thoughts on most people’s minds. Elan was asked to speak in Synagogue (the custom in Israel frequently includes a D’Var Torah, a lesson about the Torah portion of the week) on Friday night and not on Shabbat Morning as in North America. He spoke about the fact that when Moses came back to Egypt and demanded from Pharoah that the Jewish People be liberated from slavery and leave Egypt, Pharoah punished the Jews by making their burden of slavery worse. The Jews then verbally attacked Moses for worsening their predicament, and Moses even pleaded with G-d to remove him from this task. However, we all know how the story ends, with Israel’s liberation. The message, of course, is that ultimately, we can’t predict from one course of events how the final story will ultimately play out. In Egypt, the increased burden of slavery led to the 10 plagues, which was followed by the Exodus from Egypt (none of which was easy to for the CNN pundits to predict!) Similarly, for years we were told that Hezbollah is a terror superpower and that engaging them would lead to major destruction. This scenario did not (thank G-d) transpire at all. Thus, even though this hostage deal remains with a lot of questions, we can’t ultimately think that we can predict the unfolding of the whole picture at this early stage.  

Despite all these uncertainties, we transitioned to the usual enjoyment of Shabbat with Shoshana, Shlomo, Nadav, Aryeh and Eitan. Elan and Nomi had cooked up a storm and the table was not only laden with food but with song and discussions. The kids were all in great form and we played games and read stories till quite late. The day started off normally but then around 10:15, we heard a very loud siren. Now, air raid sirens have been a fact of life in Israel since October 7, 2023. Initially, most of the projectiles came in from Gaza, but that calmed down in the fall of 2023 with the start of the war. A large number of missiles were shot by Hezbollah, toward the North of Israel. Fortunately, these have stopped since the ceasefire in November. Now, the main protagonists are the Houthis from Yemen. So, on the first day after the signing of the Gaza cease fire, (which admittedly was to start on Sunday) the Houthis fired two missiles in the direction of Israel. Neither reached the mainland, but the sirens were triggered all over the centre of the country and as far as Jerusalem. We, like everyone else, retreated to a safe room for 10 minutes; we were at the home of a friend of Elan and Nomi’s where Aryeh and Eitan were playing. As with almost all the hundreds of drones and missiles sent to Israel, no damage was done and people returned to the streets within a short time. For Barbara and I, this was our first time in a safe room! In fact, Netanya is positioned in an area that has been spared from the sirens. Hopefully, there will be more calm now as the ceasefire continues. 

After a very cool Saturday night snack based on filling small bags of Doritos with various combos of meat and vegetables (kind of like Nachos in a bag!) we returned home to Netanya with the plan of taking a couple of days off in Tel Aviv. Sunday was to be an auspicious day in the Middle East with the hostage exchange to come at approximately 4 PM. We came to Tel Aviv by bus (driving and parking in Tel Aviv is a pain!) and met Ariel for lunch at a great place near his work. Then we went off to the hotel to check in and take a walk and then catch the news of the hostage release on TV. In Tel Aviv, the area just outside of the Tel Aviv Museum has been set up as an area of vigil for the hostages, known as Hostage Square. We watched hostage square fill up with families and supporters, and at the same time we saw the transfer of the 3 young women from Hamas to the Red Cross, then taken to the IDF and by helicopter to Sheba Hospital where they were to receive needed medical assessment and treatment. They seem to be in good shape and their families, and indeed the entire country, were ecstatic. 

On the flip side, 90 Palestinian prisoners were also released, which also led to much rejoicing. The fact that this was so disproportionate in terms of numbers and in terms of the background of those released; people kidnapped from their homes or the Nova Music Festival versus people committing terrorist acts or even murder has led many to feel that this agreement, like other prisoner exchanges, just puts a big target on the backs of other Israelis. Even a luminary like Alan Dershowitz has written about the deal being extortion, rather than a true ceasefire. However, the vast majority of Israelis are on side with bringing those kidnaped home and even the dissenters agree with saving those who were kidnapped; it’s really the price that separates the factions. 

After several hours of following the various news and commentaries, we went out to a pretty unique place (at least for us!). Qumran is a restaurant in Tel Aviv that had an impressive review. It sounded like a place with dinner and some entertainment at the seating after 9 PM, so we booked a table for 9:15. I admit we were not prepared for the energy and party atmosphere that we encountered. First, we were the youngest people in the place by over 30 years! Second, when they turned up the music and brought in the trapeze and dancers, everyone in the place got up and danced! Then when the flame throwers came out the staff got up on the bar to dance, joined by the young adults. I think this party atmosphere may be typical at Qumran, but I think it also had to do with the relief of the ceasefire and a celebration of the hostages return. In the midst of the dancing, the chef came out and spoke about the hostages. Israeli flags were passed out and used in the celebration. Plus, the music was not typical dance or disco music. What was remarkable was that it was Israeli music and even religious music. It was extremely inspiring to be among so many young Israelis who, despite 15 months of war, were out at night celebrating being Israeli and being Jewish. After the antisemitism that we have witnessed in North America and Europe, we can take a lesson from their optimistic outlook. 

On Monday, we of course were regaled with the inauguration of Donald J Trump as the 47th President. Since there has been enough politics discussed above, I will spare you of the Israeli take (most of it positive about Trump and his cabinet). The day was, of course, spent with our American friends, Debbie and Zev Kessler and Lori and Alvan Small. We met at a café near our hotel and then took a Bbachfront walk with Lori and Alvan. Not swimming weather by any stretch but considering the deep freeze in North America (snow in Texas and northern Florida???) the balmy 20C weather was pretty perfect!

Still in Tel Aviv, we spent Tuesday at the Artist Fair in Nahalat Binyamin and then wandered through the Carmel Market which was buzzing with tons of different foods, vegetable and vendors. After a lovely sunset walk, we bussed over to Herzliya where we met Ruth and Itamar Maliach for dinner. They lived in Montreal in 1999-2000 and we have been in touch ever since, following each other as our kids grew up. It was super nice to see them.

Then, the celebrations continued  on Wednesday with a birthday dinner at Lechem Basar in Petach Tikvah which combined Ariel’s January 12th birthday with Barbara’s January 23rd birthday! January is apparently a big month for the family!  Dinner was followed by babysitting Elisha, Ora and Adi so that their parents could quietly go out for a bit. One of the best parts of grandparenting! Not to be outdone, we drove to Efrat on Thursday and had another, informal birthday dinner with Nomi and the Efrat kids (Elan is away in Toronto). It was even Shoshana’s half birthday (July 23rd!) This gave us time to visit the kids and say goodbye as we are taking off Sunday. Our final Shabbat is in Petach Tikvah with Gila, Ariel, Elisha, Ora and Adi so we could be close to Netanya after Shabbat to close down the apartment. 

So we are reaching the end of this very enjoyable time in Israel, where we witnessed Hannukah, the holiday of lights, celebrated special birthdays and other special times, and for the first time in 15 months see some optimism for a more peaceful period in Israel. May we experience more joy and may the world experience less trauma going forward this year!

We wish you a Shabbat where everyone can dream of a better world to come

Pray for the safe release of the next group of hostages on Shabbat!

Barbara and Bruce

Happy Birthday Monty!

Happy Birthday Roanne!

Happy Birthday Jacob Mazer in Toronto!

Happy Birthday Ezra Bern! 

Mazel Tov to Uri Hofman on his engagement to Candace! Mazel to his parents, Elaine Brandt and Alan Hofman!

This weekend is the shloshim or 30-day memorial of our dear friend Mr. Josef Levkovitch, of blessed memory. There are events celebrating his life this coming Saturday and Monday nights. May Zigui and Rivi and their family always be comforted by his memories. 

We also learned of the passing of Asher Loterman. Asher was an Israeli who sat in the back of Beth Zion and greeted all who came in. He gave candies to the kids and snuff to the adults and was very gregarious and generous. We talked about Israel often and shared stories and deals on flight tickets. His friendliness and bright countenence will be missed. BD'E

Shabbat January 16-17

How quickly can things change. After 15 months of unremitting battles, there is an air of optimism in the Middle East. Yet there is also an air of pessimism, which hovers like a dark cloud within the silver lining. With a hostage agreement entering phase 1 beginning on Sunday, many hopes and many fears come to the surface. Let’s discuss some thoughts about the issues and questions in a bit. 

In the family news and events department, we left off last week as our home and an adjoining apartment (let me know if you are looking for a Netanya Rental!) were invaded by Nomi, Elan, Shoshana, Shlomo, Nadav, Aryeh and Eitan as well Gila, Ariel, Elisha, Ora and Adi. We had the whole gang for Shabbat, plus Friday night dinner included our friends Lori and Alvin Small. It is an understatement to say that there was a lot of energy in the house! According to Shlomo, Shabbat was a lot of fun, and Nadav says that the meals were yummy! I would attest to both. We spent a bit of time preparing and the results were superb! Plus, it’s great to spend time with the whole Israel gang. The dynamic of having teens, pre-teens and little ones means that activities now need to be tailored to different ages, but that’s a big part of the fun. For example, Shabbat afternoon Barbara and I took the younger kids (Eitan age 3, Adi 5, Aryeh 7 and Ora 7) to a series of parks along our waterfront boardwalk, and the older kids (Shoshana 16, Shlomo 14, and Elisha and Nadav, a month shy of 11) hung out with their parent to play board games. At synagogue, we enjoyed the 2 almost 11 years olds leading the end of our services, with the 7-year-old siblings hanging out in tow! It’s honestly amazing to have these times (albeit exhausting!), and we hope we can soon have Monty and Daniella, Tali and Ezra join in (either in Israel or in North America) so we can have all the cousins together at once, which is unfortunately quite rare. 

The week moved on rather quickly, with Bruce having a proposal due on Wednesday. Still, we found time to have the Smalls over for tea one night and to check out a new Sushi restaurant in Netanya name Dashi, which has the best and most creative sushi we have had in Israel! Thursday, with the proposal deposited, was a day to catch up, shop a bit, and then it was off to Jerusalem to celebrate Shlomo’s 14th birthday! This included a big family shushi night out and a visit to the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens where there was the Winter Dreams Light Festival. The Gardens were decked out in lights with large light sculptures of animals (whales, dolphins, lions, monkeys, reindeer, you name it) all through the grounds. The weather was lovely, about 12C as is typical of Jerusalem an evening in January. Everyone enjoyed the spectacles, with lots of pictures taken imitating the animals or hugging the sculptures. The evening was topped off with a cup of hot apple cider or hot chocolate from the festival food market and then everyone came home tired and happy (despite a bit of a traffic jam, but that’s another story!).

OK, now to the ceasefire. Part of your perspective obviously will be colored by what you read to get your news (Al-Jazeerah, CNN, National Post, Tik-Tok Smarty Pants…?). What I will do is provide a perspective, based on what we have observed, and try to be divorced from political slant. From a purely humanitarian point of view, a ceasefire at this time was crucial for being able to rescue as many of the remaining hostages from Gaza who are still alive. That includes two preschool children who appear to be on the list of those being released in the upcoming first phase, elderly people, and women. Hopefully by the end of phase 3 the remainder of the 98 people (or sadly their bodies) will also be returned. It also does bring obvious relief to the people of Gaza. You would think that this would be a cause for universal celebration in Israel but as you may have seen in the news, this is not the case. The reason for this is because there is a clear sense of déjà vu as the war has evolved. Although many things in the battle since October 7, 2023 have been very different (the magnitude and brutality of Hamas’ invasion, the fact that the war opened on multiple fronts, including Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Arab villages in the Yehuda and Shomron (AKA the West Bank) plus Syria, the extent of the destruction in Gaza in the pursuit of uprooting Hamas, there are some things that have previously happened in the negotiation of other “permanent ceasefires” and prisoner exchanges. We have witnessed attacks from Hamas in 2007, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now. These wars have always ended with a “permanent ceasefire”, but clearly the definition of “permanent” is different for the two sides. Prisoner exchanges have also been characterized by civilians or soldiers who were kidnapped and held for the ransom of hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians who were imprisoned for terrorism or murder. Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7th, was a prisoner released in the deal for Gilad Shalit. Thus, the concern is that we will have another period of calm for several years, until the multitude of released prisoners are rearmed by Iran (or Russia or North Korea or whoever they can purchase arms from) and we will relive the horrors again. 

Now, I think that this ceasefire and prisoner exchange was the correct thing to do, and the timing is actually better now than when this framework was first negotiated in May 2024. The world has changed significantly; Hezbollah is much weaker, Iran is weaker and somewhat embarrassed, Lebanon has elected a president and Prime Minister who are both anti-Hezbollah, Assad is out of power and Syria has a chance for a better future, Hamas’ leadership was decimated, and the most important “Regime Change” may have been in the US, with the election of Donald Trump appearing to have put pressure on all sides, Israel no less than Hamas, to find a way to bring some quiet to the region. Bringing home the hostages has always been top of mind in Israel, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Universally here, there are signs everywhere, from when you land in the airport, to ones on every street corner, on people’s cars and hanging in peoples’ windows. The difference of opinion was mainly, what means was best to get them back. At this point, it is a relief that there was a negotiated settlement, no matter how ominous the potential for rearming and reattack may be. Yes, despite what some pundits write and what some politicians ( on both sides) say, there was never a plan for Israel to recapture Gaza or have a permanent place there; these are minority opinions, and the war was never about that. At least Israel is aware of the potential for future conflict and should be more on guard than October 6th. The rest is, as we say in G-d’s hands. 

With that, we move into Shabbat here in Efrat. I have Nadav looking over my shoulder and he is giggling that I am writing about him. Tough luck, Nadav, you are now in the blog! OK, I guess that means it’s time to get ready for Shabbat, so let’s sign off for now. 

We wish everyone a peaceful shabbat and let’s hope that we can sincerely be optimistic about our prospects for a better world in 2025!

Barbara and Bruce

Happy Anniversary to Roanne and David!

Happy Birthday to Linda Lieberman!

And the most special Happy Birthday to Barbara! I could never dream of having a better partner in life! May we always share special times together, have much naches from our children, and lots of great things to blog about together!

Shabbat in Netanya January 10-11

Welcome to Friday, another week has gone by, but not one with the frenetic pace of the last two. We needed a bit of time to catch up and even do a bit of work. Of course, there were a few other highlights aside from sitting in front of laptop.

I did not mention that we had volunteered for an afternoon at an organization known as Leket Yisrael. Leket is a food rescue and redistribution charity. It was started by someone who realized that there was a lot of food left over from catered events, like weddings and bar mitzvahs, and that there were a lot of individuals and families struggling to make ends meet. He started asking if leftovers could be taken to places which would redistribute them to families. This has grown tremendously and now they not only do food recover from hotels and restaurants but also help by approaching farmers who are growing vegetables that can’t go to market because of small defects and bringing these to charities who distribute them. They also have farms and orchards where people can pick produce for the charity. On the day we were there, we went to the logistic facility not far from where we live to sort vegetables: beets, peppers, avocados, more beets, carrots, and more beets. There were also potatoes and a few other vegies that needed placing into baskets from massive crates, then stacked on palates for delivery. There was a sizeable group who attended that day, including our friends Anne and Jonathan Homa. We were told we sorted almost 18000 kg of vegetables that day. That’s a lot of beets!

Last Friday we had brunch with Michal and Ronen Selah, who live in the Shomron. We met them where their son Eyal lives, in Hadera, and also saw their daughter Meytal. We realized we first met in 1999, so the friendship is 25 years old, and we watched all the children grow up, which is quite spectacular. Seeing adult Metal and Eyal, both parents, was very cool. People who remember the Selas from their time in Montreal may remember that Eyal was a very fearless pre-schooler. Well, now he’s a social worker and doing great things, but he is still the first to jump into the pool (or fountain!).

We had brunch at Café Feinberg, which is named after the original builders of the home, Israel Feinberg, who it’s told help drain the swamps that led to the founding of the city of Hadera, right off the coast of the Mediterranean, 12-15 minutes north of Netanya. The Feinbergs were helping to prepare land in the early 20th century, pre-World War 1, during the Ottoman Rule. His son, Avshalom, was a spy for the British who supposedly was a talented poet (there are some of his writings on the wall of the Café.) He was sadly killed on a mission in the area that is today Raffa in Gaza. The café in the house supposedly has many artifacts from the early days of Hadera, prior to the founding of the State of Israel. 

Shabbat was very nice, with good weather, and time to chill and take walks. We even treated ourselves to ice cream after Shabbat. Now the debate can start. Who has Netanya’s best ice cream: Tony’s or Golda’s? Let the votes come in!On Monday we joined Gila’s family for the Pidyon Haben or Redemption of the First Born. This is an ancient practice; the main ministers for Temple Services are the clan of Priests, Cohanim, the direct decedents of Moses and his brother Aaron. However, tradition has it that the first borns were responsible for the communal worship services. Since they no longer are needed for this, but still have the obligation, if a son is the first-born son in a family he is “redeemed” in a ceremony at the age of 30 days. I am told I had one (no recollection of course) as did Monty, and Elisha, Ariel’s eldest. Gila’s brother Hillel and wife Rotem just has a baby (mazel tov) and the Pidyon Haben was on Monday evening. After the brief ceremony of course there’s a party with great food and music. It was fun to see Gila’s parents, Geula and Yitzchak, and a bunch of Gila’s siblings and families. 

Our good friends Lori and Alvan Small have arrived to spend 2 months in Netanya as they have the past few years, and it’s fun for us to have good friends just down the block from us! We had dinner with them on Tuesday evening, at Bistro Place, one of those amazing gas station restaurants that seem to be everywhere in Israel (I have blogged about gas station eateries before!). After a fun dinner, we went shopping, which would not ordinarily be newsworthy. However, the supermarket we went to, Osher Ad, has a self-checkout option with a handheld bar-code reader which weighs your purchases at the end and tells you if you are OK to pay. The first time we did it last year, we did not account for the weight of our shopping bags, so we had to do it all over! This time, we went through like pros! I think we will start blogging about shopping tips in our next career. 

OK, we have a busy Shabbat coming up, with all the Israel Mazer’s descending on Netanya. There is now an apartment right across the hall that is on Air B and B which means we have very comfy accommodations for two families. Elan will even be speaking at our synagogue this Shabbat. We look forward to a busy and lively Shabbat and hope those who are in cooler climates will stay warm!

We wish you a meaningful and fun Shabbat Shalom!

Barbara and Bruce 

Happy Birthday to Damien!

Happy Birthday to Ariel!

Happy Birthday to Zev!

Happy Birthday to Jeff!

Our heart and prayers go out to all those who are in Los Angeles and are affected by the horrendous forest fires. May they be safe and spared from such tragedies. 

Shabbat Jan 3-4, 2025

Perhaps it’s because I grew up in Montreal and was inundated with advertising of the majority religion, or perhaps I just watched too much Captain Kangaroo (10 points for anyone not embarrassed to message me that they watched the good Captain too!), but I always thought Christmas had Twelve Days (like the song), which seemed perfectly logical because after all, Chanukah has 8. But as the years have gone by, it seems quite clear that despite weeks of preparation, Christmas celebrations are really one day. But Chanukah is definitely 8! And we have the blow-by-blow account of those days from our perspective coming to you live right now!

We left off two Shabbatot ago, with last Friday not really having a free second to compose, so there is a lot to catch up on! We left off in Efrat, a few days before Chanukah, at Elan and Nomi’s house, where we were just starting to emerge from jet lag. We arrived on Thursday, joined Nadav for his school’s annual Grandparent’s Day, and then Friday and Shabbat was just a lot of good time with the family, meals, synagogue, games and fun with the kids. Saturday evening, we visited with Carol and David Novosellor; David had returned from the US following his father, Rabbi Moshe Novosellor’s passing. We shared some amazing stories about his father, a community Rabbi in Philadelphia for over 50 years (if I am not mistaken). I won’t regale you with all of them, but by a stroke of luck on his El Al flight home David randomly clicked on a movie with a Jewish religious theme, and it was a movie interviewing his father! 

Efrat is literally 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem (umm, when there is no traffic) so we stayed in the area for a couple more days. Sunday we were able to get together with Debbie Kamioner and Zev Kessler, who have officially become Israeli citizens. Congratulations! Then we took Shlomo shopping in Jerusalem for his birthday and picked up Shoshana who goes to school there. We left for Petach Tikvah mid-day Monday to pick up Ora and Adi from School and hung out there for awhile before returning to Netanya to prepare for Chanukah!

The first night of Chanukah was Wednesday Dec 24, making the first day of Chanukah and Christmas overlap this year. As you may know, the Jewish Holidays are on a lunar calendar of 354 days per year and not the 365-day Solar Calender. However, our biblical holidays like Passover and New Year/Yom Kippur are fixed to be in the Spring for Passover, and Fall for Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur/Sukkot. This is accomplished by adding “leap months” 7 times in 19 years to make sure that the holidays, as well as the others including Chanukah, always stay in same season (and same day in the lunar calendar) but not the same solar calendar date.  

We started off the holiday by joining Ariel, Gila, Elisha, Ora and Adi for the lighting of the first candle and a fun dinner prepared by Bruce and Ariel with Elisha as sous-chef! As you may know, Chanukah is the celebration of light, a celebration of the victory of the Maccabees against the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. The holiday also celebrated the miracle of the oil:  a small jar of oil, enough for one day, burned brightly in the recaptured Temple in Jerusalem for 8 full days, 2200 years ago. 

Thus, the meal was topped off by Sufganiot, deep fried jelly donuts that are a big deal in Israel. Potato Pancakes (Latkes fried in oil) are ubiquitous in communities with a lot of Eastern European Jews, but not as big a thing in Israel. In Israel there are sufganiot, which are decorated to be absolute works of art, and are about a million calories each, or there are jelly donuts and plain donuts, which was the discussion in Ariel’s house. You see, Elisha likes jelly, the girls like plain! So, all need to be accommodated!

The whirlwind continued the next few days. On Thursday we were invited to Nomi’s brother Eli’s wedding. Eli married Aly, who is originally from Mexico, which meant a very lively multi-lingual wedding! Mazel Tov to Nomi’s parents, Karen and Robert Goldberger, whose children are now all happily married. The next day, Friday was spent preparing for Shabbat as Ariel, Gila and kids as well as Jenna came to Netanya. Friday was the first of a series of 4 very rainy days, which meant that we were inside quite a bit, but we are equipped with lots of games and things to do to keep from going too stir crazy. 

Saturday night, Gila and the kids slept over and we took off Sunday morning for Neot Kedumim, a nature reserve about an hour east of us that is filled with plants that represent those in Biblical times. We met Elan, Nomi, Shoshana, Shlomo, Nadav, Aryeh and Eitan there, and so the cousins were all together which made the activity even more special.  Using ancient stones and presses, we ground wheat into something resembling flour, we ground olives into something not even remotely resembling olive oil and learned about Israel in the times of the Maccabees. There were camels and donkeys and great art projects using clay. 

After a very busy day we brought the Petach Tikvah gang back home and stole off with Elan’s three eldest kids, Shoshana, Shlomo and Nadav, for a couple of days of TLC in Netanya. This is a fun dynamic with two teenagers and an almost 11-year-old. Meaning? Well, more sleeping in for one! Monday’s breakfast started about 10:30 with everyone pitching in, so we ended up with eggs, toasted pita’s, large fruit platters and yogurt parfaits. Then off to the Ir Yamim Mall for a couple of rounds of bowling (where we met Eliana and Daniel Berman and their kids; Eliana is daughter of Eta and Bobby Shaul).  Dinner was at our favorite Netanya burger emporium, Red Burger (try the double entrecote burger!) and then off the Cinema City for the CGI enhanced animal world of Mufasa! The graphics were awesome, and though we could guess the key parts of the story of the Lion Kings’ father, the music and characters made it really fun. Parental guidance note: lots of scary scenes that look very realistic if you bring little kids!

We returned the teens and preteen to Efrat on Tuesday afternoon and took Aryeh (who was disappointed not to come to Netanya) for some ice cream and to play at a Ninja Gym. B y now we were at the 7th candle, which we lit in Efrat. We were treated to a massive BBQ dinner thanks to Nomi and Elan, at which they hosted a family from Toronto spending time in Israel. Then back across the country again, this time to sleep over in Petach Tikvah as we were on duty to baby sit the next two days (are you tired yet?). 

Let’s talk about a real Montreal highlight! The State of Israel has for decades run International Bible Contests for both school age children and for adults. The children’s competition is well known and is run in schools all over the world, with the winners of each country participating in the finals on Israel Independence Day. Less knows is the adult contest, which is done more as a self-study program with web-based tests to get from one level to the next.  On New Years Day, the last night of Chanukah, the finals for the Adult contest were held in the beautiful Jerusalem Theater with 10 finalists from Israel, the US, Argentina and France….and representing Canada was our own Haim Fruchter! The event is one of pageantry and songs, but as was fitting, also several important reminders that the times are not normal, with tributes to fallen soldiers (including the son of one of the judges). In fact, the participants were really the winners of the 2023 contest, but the event was postponed for a year due to the war. With over 20 fans in the audience, including Bilha Fruchter and her family, Haim’s brother and sister-in law, and our friends the Gehrs, and Homas, Barbara and Bruce and Haim’s best buddy, our grandson Elisha, we all cheered Haim on! With very stiff competition, he finished 7th, but considering that he made it that far, we are all super proud of this accomplishment! Kol Hakavod (All honor to you) Haim!!

We left Jerusalem to return to Petach Tikvah (with a pizza stop on the way) and the next morning we packed up Elisha, Ora and Adi to go to the Biblical Museum of Natural History in Beit Shemesh. This is a very cool place, the brainchild of a Rabbi named Natan Slifkin, who has for many years researched and wrote about animals in Ancient Israel from Biblical and Talmudic times. The museum explained which animals were native to this Mediterranean area, which were imported, which are extinct and how names of animals in Hebrew were likely mistranslated in English Bibles (and others, of course). The museum is small; a tour takes about 75-90 minutes and includes a small animal petting zoo with rabbits and lots of indigenous lizards, turtles and even a serpentarium where the kids can get up close and personal with various snakes including a baby Burmese python (mamma python is 4 meters long and weights about 40kg, so we don’t play with her). Definitely can be on your to do list for kids of all ages.  Another advantage of the museum is it’s 5 minutes away from Ikea in Beit Shemesh which is a great way to feed hungry Grandchildren with tons of food and not break the bank! Following that outing, we returned the kids to Petach Tikvah and then returned to Netanya with no visitors or sleep over guests!

So what is the feeling these days here in Israel. Overall, the mood is more positive than when we left here in May. The malls are busy and the streets have a vibe again. However, there are still few tourists due to the lack of international flights coming into Israel; there are only so many people that can fly on El Al and Emirates! In truth, the middle east has changed drastically since October 7, 2023. The horrible attacks from Hamas caused the barbaric deaths and atrocities and led to Hezbollah bombing indiscriminately for 15 months. They also led, despite a slow start and negative world opinion, to the demolition of Hamas and undoing of their leadership, considerable weaking of Hezbollah and the complete destruction of their leadership, and Israel showing Iran they can enter their airspace and attack targets at will. These specific events directly led to the overthrowing of the Assad regime in Syria. There are still many ripples that will happen due to these events and many unknowns. Yet, despite these positives, the wars are not over. War is never pretty, and in spite of massive destruction in Gaza, Hamas obviously feels it has nothing more to lose and is in it for the long game, holding live and dead hostages and continuing to shoot projectiles. The Houthis in Yemen are also an issue, perhaps not as lethal or dangerous as Hezbollah due to their distance from Israel, but they are cynically lobbing ballistic missiles towards central Israel in the middle of the night to send as many citizens as possible into their shelters (including last night). Iran is wounded, and it’s unclear what their next move will be. So, despite lots of steps forward, there is no obvious end in sight. We pray that there will be a resolution in the near future. 

So, this is the first blog of 2025, which means we have been communicating like this for 17 years! Our best wishes for a 2025 which brings us peace, trust and more understanding between people!

Shabbat Shalom

Barbara and Bruce

Happy Birthday to Sheila!

Happy Birthday Uncle Peter!

Happy Birthday to Shlomo!

Happy Birthday to Gail!

Happy Birthday to Debbie Feldman!

Happy Birthday to Alvan!

Happy Birthday to Damien!

Condolences to David Novosellor on the passing of his father

Condolences to the Sarna family on the untimely passing of their son Dee

Condolences to Ziggy Levkovich and family on the passing of his father Josef. Many of us knew Reb Yosef and appreciated his wit and tenacity. He was a holocaust survivor who spent the post war years as a Nazi Hunter and finder of lost children, then built an amazing family. In his final decade he educated hundred’s if not thousands who went on Trips to Poland with Jroots and touched many others with his educational videos and books. We had the honor to travel with him in Poland in summer 2023 and have lot’s of video and audio footage of his story. As we spoke to Ziggy this week, we agreed that he was a small man in stature who made a very large impact. He will be greatly missed.