Shabbat January 16-17

This will be a bit of a quick blog, since we ran into traffic picking up our precious shabbat guests (Aryeh and Nadav, grandchildren from Efrat!) So, we’ll type as fast as we can and post just under the wire! 

The main concerns here this week, as last but ramped up somewhat, is the tenuous relation between Iran and Israel, between Trump and Netanyahu, between Trump and The Ayatollah, and what the protests and civil unrest will lead too.  The lack of media presence and the issues that are the root causes of the protests, meaning the brutality of the regime, the autocratic, theocratic rule with the oppression and lack of freedom are rarely mentioned by CNN and other so called Legacy media. You want the real scoop? Read and Israeli paper. Iran has been front and centre. The other preoccupation is, what will trump do? Will he or won’t he? Will Iran respond by bombing Israel (which is only a logical response in the minds of Islamists and perhaps the extreme left)? What will Israel do? And practical things, like should we keep a supply of matches, batteries and water handy for emergencies? What do you do with those batteries and matches anyway?  However, so far so good, and things are simmering, but not boiling, which is probably for the best. 

Aside from doom scrolling and news watching, we had as full a week as usual! Last Shabbat was spent in Netanya with Gila, Ariel, Elisha, Ora and Adi. We had fun preparing the food (as usual it looked like we cooked for 20 instead of 7) and played lots of games, took walks, and had Lori and Alvan join us for Shabbat Lunch. This led to some very interesting conversations (too many details for now!), and everyone enjoyed. Post-Shabbat we returned everyone to Petach Tikvah and then spent the rest of the evening restoring our apartment to its usual status. 

The rest of the week flew by. On Sunday, we took a long walk along the boardwalk in the part of Netanya known as South Beach, near where the city has built a second elevator from the cliff to the beach. On Monday, Bruce attended some meetings with Allergy colleagues at Sheba Hospital near Ramat Gan where he spent his sabbatical last year. We’re working on some very interesting collaborative projects. Monday was also Ariel’s birthday, and though we had other evening plans, we got to take him out for a really nice lunch at a nearby café. The rest of the day included several other zoom meetings and dinner at the Gough’s, our neighbors from Manchester England, who, although they have been in Israel 40+ years sound very British with a distinct Manchester accent! They are super nice people, and we enjoyed talking about travel and other fun things. 

Israel is a place with extremely temperate weather so an interruption to that pattern send people into a tizzy! Therefore, at the prediction of torrential rains and winds for Tuesday, the country basically shut down. The rain and wind started just around midnight, and was very heavy. In fact, it caused our friends, the Kesslers, from coming to a planned visit. Fortunately, the brunch we prepared was still enjoyed by us and the Smalls, and we look forward to seeing Zev and Debbie Kessler next week. 

More highlights included visiting the relatively new Eli Cohen Museum on Wednesday, followed later in the day with dinner in Binyamina at the home of Maayan and Talia Ben-Sassoon. Maayan is an MD who did a 2-year pain fellowship at the Montreal General Hospital. Barbara (and Helene Kaufman) had tutored their daughter Shaked, who came to Montreal with little or no English. Well, now she is not only fluent in English but won a public speaking contest at her school with a brilliant and funny speech about Recycling and Composting in Canada and contrasted it with Israel. Amazing how she picked up the language!

Thursday we also had a treat, picking up the gang in Petach Tikva from school, treating them to a great lunch and going bowling; the excuse was that we had to babysit till about 8 PM. I am not sure who enjoyed this more, the kids or us, but everyone was smiling all day!

OK, Shabbat is in 35 minutes, and we have Aryeh and Nadav to entertain. I will add some details on Eli Cohen for next week as it is a fascinating story!

We wish you a safe and peaceful Shabbat Shalom!

Barbara and Bruce

Happy Anniversary to Roanne and David!

Refuah Shelema-we wish Shmuel Yosef ben Alexandra Ariella a speedy recovery

Refuah Shelema-we wish Avraham Ephraim ben Kayla Shoshana a speedy recovery