My final update last week referenced “a journey that could hardly have been smoother”. Before I get on to this week’s real topic, let me explain the significance of that ‘hardly’.

When we first began our thrice-yearly migrations to Portugal, we hired a car from the airport. In Lisbon airport, this is very convenient. The car hire reception counters are a one-minute walk from the arrivals hall, and the car pick-up points are a further three-minute walk.

However, when car hire prices rose steeply a couple of years ago, we discovered that the premium we would have to pay for this convenience was very substantial. There is very little parking space available for car hire at the airport. The few companies that take that space pay a hefty rent for it, and pass that cost on to their customers. There are, in addition, a host of other companies that offer a shuttle service from the airport to their offices and car parks, a five- or ten-minute drive from the airport.

So we began using an off-site company, Klass Wagen, whose service is, I must say, excellent, in all respects (other, of course, than the fact that you may have to wait 20 or 30 minutes for the shuttle, and off-site pickup therefore adds the best part of an hour to your journey).

I was therefore very excited, when I was booking a car for this trip, to discover a company, Flizzr, that offered airport pickup at an off-site price. I should have been suspicious: as Bernice pointed out after the fact, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I should have known better than to trust a company called Flizzr, which sounds like a TV dolphin with a speech impediment. I should have wondered about the company describing itself as a ‘Car Rental Provider’. Just what did ‘provider’ mean in that sentence?. I should have wondered about the pickup being from the Sixt desk in the airport. Why don’t Flizzr have their own desk?

In the event, after we took our short stroll to the Sixt airport desk, the clerk told us to go outside the airport while he phoned for a white Sixt minibus to take us to pick up the car. Needless to say, I pointed out that the website had clearly stated that pickup was from the airport, but, of course, the Sixt clerk, who had no interest or investment in Flizzr, wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

After we had waited fifteen minutes outside the airport, I tried calling the phone number on the voucher. However, this was the phone number of Sixt, not Flizzr, and after listening to the available menu items all the way through, I realized none of the options would lead to a resolution, and so I hung up. A couple of minutes later, the minibus arrived, and within seven minutes we were at the Sixt office, where a very pleasant and efficient clerk, who spoke excellent English, swiftly handled our paperwork. He agreed with me that Flizzr’s misrepresentation on their website was outrageous, and assured ne that Sixt were forever telling them they had to change it, but, of course, it was nothing to do with Sixt.

We were soon on the road, in a Peugeot 308 that is a pleasure to drive, with Android Auto working, so that the map display was very easy to read. In addition, the car offers cruise control, headlights that dip automatically whenever they sense traffic ahead or oncoming, and then automatically return to beam, and windscreen wipers that automatically adjust to the presence and ferocity of rain. Every time I hire a car these days, I feel more and more like an optional extra.

All of this meant that we arrived in Penamacor at 10:30 rather than 9:40, as we had hoped, but it could certainly have been worse. We were able to get a good night’s sleep before Tslil was no longer able to hold the boys back from coming into our room, at around 6:15 the following morning.

In the week since then, we have had time to discover all of the ways in which the boys have developed since we left here in July. We of course expected to see big changes in Ollie. The difference between being just two and being two and three-and-a-half months can be expected to be significant. But Tao, as well, has surprised us in how he has matured. We were in the supermarket (of course) with the boys yesterday. When we reached the checkout, I started unloaded our trolley. Meanwhile, Tao said ‘Hello’ to the cashier. In the summer, he would have not felt confident enough in his Portuguese or in himself to strike up a conversation with a stranger, but this has now changed. He is noticeably more outgoing, and, by all accounts, his third language is developing as well.

Of course, in this respect his parents set him an excellent example. For several months, Tslil has been teaching a yoga class in English to a group of local women. She also found a useful arrangement where she gave a weekly private lesson to a Portuguese woman who, in return, coversed with Tslil in Portuguese. She also practices online every day. Last week she started teaching a new class, in Portuguese, and she was very happy with the way it went. Meanwhile, Micha’el recently spent a half-an-hour in conversation with an elderly local man, who asked him at one point whether he came from Brazil.

One day a week, Micha’el and Tslil practise their language skills by speaking to each other only in Portuguese. They certainly sound convincing to me, although it has to be said that I’m not exactly an expert. Also one day a week, Micha’el speaks to the boys in Hebrew. Now that even Ollie is very clear about the difference between the two languages, it seems to me that exposing the boys regularly to a second native Hebrew speaker is a very worthwhile initiative.

However, the prize for language development since our last visit has to go to Ollie. In July, he spoke a few words, always in isolation. He had no difficulty making himself understood with eloquent body language, but he was barely speaking. Nobody was at all worried about this. He clearly understood everything anybody said to him, and his father did not speak until he was well into his third year (and hasn’t stopped since).

When we arrived this time, we were amazed to find Ollie stringing words together like a pro, with ‘sentences’ like “Mummy outside laundry dryer” (“Mummy has gone outside to put the laundry in the dryer”, obviously). Now that his outgoing nature is augmented by sparkling conversation, and given the fact that he has a healthy appetite and is not at all a finicky eater, he is the perfect guest to invite to a dinner party.

Both Micha’el and Tslil are keeping themselves in very good physical shape and eating very healthily. They seem to be in a routine that is working well for them. Lua grows more placid as she continues to mature. Micha’el has trained her very well and I am thoroughly enjoying my daily morning walk with her. Even the weather has been largely kind, with, so far, only a little rain, and plenty of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Shabbat was even warm enough to sit in the sun in the backyard.

In short, everyone here is in very good shape. Even if Bernice and I are on our knees by the end of the day, we get a good night’s sleep, because Ollie is sleeping through the night much better, and we have only shared our bed with him once so far. We are confident that by the end of the second week we will have hit our stride, and be ready to go the distance.

Tune in next week, to follow me eating my words.

I am writing this on Sunday afternoon, 21 hours before we are due to fly to Portugal, and I find myself undecided. All day, I have been thinking that, given the situation in Israel, I can’t really not write something about ‘the view from here’. However, for reasons that I will explain, I’m finding it difficult to summon the necessary inner focus to write such a piece.

Last night, I packed our two suitcases. In what is now a familiar routine, this involved gathering from the various bags and boxes stored around the house all that we have acquired to take to Portugal since our last visit: the various foodstuffs we can’t do without and can’t find in Portugal; the various food and clothing items the kids have requested; sufficient gifts for the boys for four Shabbatot and to leave for Hanuka.

As is traditional, Bernice spent the first part of the evening saying: ‘We don’t really have to take this, if there isn’t room’, to which I responded, as per the same tradition: ‘Don’t worry! It will all fit in.’ The novel twist this time was that, having laid everything out on the sofas in the salon, I was not at all certain that everything would fit in the cases, or weigh in at less than 2 x 23 = 46 kg. (At least, that’s how I remember it. When Bernice read this account, she said: “You didn’t say: “It will all fit in”! You kept swearing and saying it would never fit in.” I believe this is what is now known, in the best of circles, as ‘Recollections may vary’.)

On our last trip out, when we retrieved our cases in Lisbon, one of the wheels on one of the cases had been damaged. We therefore left that case in Portugal – we always travel home almost empty-cased anyway – and bought a replacement in Israel. However, when we got the new case home, we discovered it was a little smaller than its predecessor. Not a good move, given the volume of stuff we take.

However, by the end of the evening, I had managed to distribute the goodies evenly between the cases, with all the breakables swaddled in padded clothing and the two cases fairly evenly matched in weight and coming in at a combined weight of well under 46 kg. We had, if I remember rightly, 5 kg to spare. This morning, I switched some contents around, to take more dense items in the smaller case and more airy items in the larger case, so that the two cases were almost identical in weight. I then managed to add items to each case; there is always a certain amount of settling overnight in the cases, in my experience. Goods compact down. With the expansion unzipped on both cases, all was well. We still have the requisite kilo or so spare in each case to take the cheese I will force in tomorrow (although I suspect that this time, rather than leaving it as blocks, I may have to slice the cheese thinly and pack it flat in the zipped compartment at the front of each case).

Today, at 23 hours and 58 minutes before our scheduled take off, I went into the El Al app to attempt to check in online. This ‘quick and simple’ process, including uploading photocopies of our passports, will theoretically make physically dropping off the bags at the airport laughably straightforward.

Being a literate readership, you will have noted the single quotes around ‘quick and simple’ in the previous paragraph, and will be expecting what is coming next. Even before the site opened for check-in, I had uploaded our passport photocopies onto the app. However, when I tried to check in, I was asked to upload them again. When I tried to take photos of the passports, the app informed me that I needed first to give the app permission to use the camera. I had, of course, already done this, but I checked again to make sure. The app refused to be persuaded. Eventually, of course, I went out and went in again…or, rather, attempted to go in. At this point, I received an error message that the site was down.

Hands up all those who are not astonished to discover that the site was also down when I attempted tp access it from my laptop…and also from the link I was ‘helpfully’ sent in an email from El Al informing me that I could now check in online.

Over three hours later, the site is still down. I could, I suppose, attempt to chat with an El Al bot, or call El Al. I’m not sure I have the fortitude to attempt either of these at the moment, so I will probably keep trying the website over the course of this evening, and then start panicking tomorrow morning.

Of course, all of these efforts could prove to be fruitless if Iran, or Hizbollah, chooses to target the airport sometime tomorrow and we find our flight cancelled.

I will aim to update you tomorrow (which will be yesterday when you read this) as to whether we got away on time, or, indeed, at all.

[Update: Having completed writing the blog, I decided, against my better judgement, to try phoning El Al Customer Service. A recorded message confirmed that the entire El Al computer system is down (I begin to suspect hackers), and offered me the option of speaking to a representative. To my astonishment, within 10 seconds a representative materialised on the phone line. Let me repeat that: within 10 seconds, a representative materialised on the phone line. This beats my last waiting experience with El Al by 3 hours and 23 minutes. The rep was able to confirm that all I can do is keep trying the site from time to time, and, in answer to my question, she confirmed that, if the site remains inaccessible, we will be able to check in at the airport, in person, tomorrow.]

[Further update: After a journey that could scarcely have been smoother (other than a little turbulence over the Mediterranean), I am writing this update from the comfort of our bed in Penamacor, where it is not yet 11 pm on Monday. I do love a happy ending, don’t you?]

All of which, I hope, explains why I am not writing about the situation this week. However, I can offer you someone else’s take on events here.

What I have decided to do is to reprint an open letter addressed to Aryeh Deri. Two weeks ago, in an interview with the newspaper Haderech – the official paper of Shas, the Sefardi ultra-orthodox party that Deri was instrumental in founding and leading – he said the following: “If you look at the budget, each day of battle costs us more than the entire annual budget of the entire Torah world. We believe that every day of study prevents more days of battle.”

Let’s take a moment to digest the full outrageousness of this statement.

He went on to say that: those who were attempting to force yeshiva students to enlist in the IDF were “miserable” and did not understand the power of Torah study.

I believe that the story that is looming larger and larger in Israel today, and that, in a certain sense, may prove to be a bigger issue than the direct confrontation with Iran, the horrifying number of deaths of regular and reservist soldiers in recent days, and possibly even the fate of the hostages, is the question of the Haredi draft bill. If you need a quick refresher course in what I am referring to, this article is, I believe, a non-partisan account of the long history of ultra-orthodox draft exemption in Israel.

If the situation with regard to Haredi exemption does not change, it is a very real possibility that significant numbers of those who have served 200 or more days of reserve duty over the last year, who have seen their families suffer the strain and their businesses face collapse, will decide that they cannot sacrifice any more while an entire section are sacrificing nothing, and will refuse to serve a further tour of reserve duty. It is also a very real possibility that many others, seeing no resolution to this obscene civil inequality, will leave the country.

Dr. Tehila Elizur is a graduate of the first class of the Talmudic Institute in Matan, with a bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University and a doctorate from Ben Gurion University. She lectures at several institutions. She does understand the power of Torah study, and she felt compelled to publish an open letter to Deri. I reproduce it here with no comment. It needs no comment.

An Open Letter to Minister Aryeh Deri, on the Eve of Sukkot 5785

Dr. Tehila Elizur

It’s now the eve of the holiday. Your family is surely preparing for the festival. Here’s what our holiday looks like:

My husband, a 54-year-old doctor, is somewhere in the north, mostly unavailable. Since Simchat Torah 5784, he’s been mobilized for a cumulative eight months—Division 98 in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, central Gaza, and now the north. My son, in a Golani reserve unit, is also somewhere in the north—you surely know that wide sector, as you sit with decision-makers regarding the fronts where my husband and sons are sent. A younger son, a regular soldier in Nahal, has been fighting in Rafah most of the time for the last six months.

He called during our pre-fast meal; they were given phones because a soldier from the armored battalion they’re attached to was killed. That’s the procedure—when someone dies, they pass around phones so soldiers can call parents. My sons didn’t fast on Yom Kippur; you can’t fast while fighting. The lulav and etrog are waiting for them at home.

But according to you, my sons and their comrades should leave the front and sit in yeshiva. After all, a day of Torah study replaces days of fighting. By your logic, you should call on heads of Hesder yeshivas and the entire national-religious public to urge their sons to leave the front and return to their yeshivas. You should call on heads of Haredi yeshivas to open their doors, inviting all fighting soldiers, religious and secular, to sit and study. Invite pilots, drone interceptors, command post staff, intelligence personnel, navy, air force, and ground forces to stop all military activity and enter yeshiva. According to you, we can simply win the war without bloodshed, without casualties, without our sleepless nights. Let’s dismantle the IDF tomorrow and all sit and study Torah.

Clearly, you don’t mean this. Neither you nor any of the Haredi ministers and Knesset members. Not the activists, nor the rabbis and Torah leaders. You all rightly expect air force personnel to face missile attacks from Iran and do everything to intercept drones. You rightly expect infantry, armor, and artillery soldiers to clear Lebanese villages threatening northern settlements, intelligence soldiers to provide accurate information, artillery and navy to cover, transport and logistics to transfer necessary equipment, medics and doctors to accompany everyone entering. Like all of us, you’re horrified by what’s revealed in villages across the border and the thought of what would have happened if Redwan forces had joined Hamas on Simchat Torah 5784. You’re as terrified as we are, expecting the IDF to do everything to ensure a pogrom never happens again in Israel. Just like all of us. With one difference—you’re not willing to take part.

I have no doubt that your family’s Torah scholars in Morocco, like my family’s Torah scholars in Poland, would never have imagined a Jewish state where Jewish citizens refuse to participate in the army defending them. I’m sure your grandfathers wouldn’t have conceived of a reality where a Jew expects his fellow to send his family members to fight and risk themselves for him, while he sits protected and safe, fighting not to take part in the effort to protect lives. Especially, they wouldn’t have imagined someone doing this in the name of Torah. If they had heard of a Torah community shouting “We’ll die rather than enlist,” while its leaders dare to sit in government and send soldiers of their people and country to fight, they would surely have torn their clothes and put on sackcloth for the Torah so distorted.

I ask myself how a Jew can send his brother to war while fighting to ensure he and his children don’t take part. How can Torah scholars ignore the obligation of “Do not stand idly by your brother’s blood,” the duty of returning your brother’s lost property, which our sages taught includes his body, and the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. I’m horrified by what I’m about to write, but I find no other explanation—we are not considered “your neighbor” in your eyes. I wish I were wrong. The burden of proof is on you, leaders of Haredi society, yeshiva students and their families, and there’s only one way: Get up, send your sons to the recruitment offices. Accompany them with concern, love, and tears as we do, and tell them as we tell ourselves and our sons: Fulfill the Torah’s obligation to defend your fellows and your people from the enemy’s hand. If you do this, perhaps we’ll merit the blessing “And grant us the blessing of Your festivals for life and peace.”

Tehila Elitsur, Jerusalem

And now I turn to all the Zionist members of Knesset: My appeal to Minister Aryeh Deri is also addressed to you. It’s doubtful whether Minister Aryeh Deri will read it. It’s highly doubtful whether the Haredi political and rabbinical leadership will do what’s expected of them. Either way, my children and yours will continue to defend, at risk to their lives, him and his children like everyone living here. This is the Jewish, Zionist, and moral requirement we’re all committed to. Don’t lend your hand to a draft-dodging law that legitimizes the Haredi position distinguishing between tribe and tribe, between blood and blood. You can’t be Zionist and support such a law. It’s not about 3,000 or 6,000. It’s not about the IDF’s absorption capacity or even the possibility of maintaining a Haredi lifestyle in the IDF. It’s about lives, about the ability to maintain the necessary force now and in the future to prevent another pogrom in Israel. If there’s no change in Haredi enlistment, we might reach high school senior conscription within a decade. On a moral level, this law is not Zionist, not Jewish, and not ethical. Don’t support it.

Last Thursday night, I lingered outside shul after the evening service marking the transition from full-blown festival to the intermediate days, which are referred to in Hebrew, (rather quaintly, it always seems to me) as Hol HaMoed, which roughly translates as ‘the weekdays of the appointed time’. One of my fellow-congregants mentioned that, when Sukkot is over, he will be making a liqueur from the etrog, the citron which is one of the four species we ‘take’ on Sukkot, to hold, shake, and parade around the shul, echoing the Sukkot ceremony in the Temple. I mentioned that I would be doing the same (although I suspect I will have to freeze my etrog – and any others I can beg from my neighbours – and make the liqueur after we return from Portugal).

I then mentioned to my friend that, always ready to employ a pun, I call my etrog liqueur (which is, unsurprisingly, very reminiscent of limoncello) etgrog, with the same verbal wit that leads me to call the liqueur I make from loquats (shesek, in Hebrew) shisky. I suspected that my friend might understand the pun, because he is a native Dutchman, and I always suspected ‘grog’ came into English from the German. The word has, to my ear, a Germanic ring to it. However, he had no idea what the word ‘grog’ might mean.

It occurs to me that some of my readers might be in a similar state of ignorance, so let me explain.

It can’t have been much fun being a sailor in the Royal Navy in the 18^th Century. Off the top of my head, I can think of several less attractive features of life at sea. The cramped and uncomfortable accommodation; the need to work outdoors in all weathers, from blazing heat to violent rainstorms; the hazards of climbing the rigging or even just negotiating the deck in stormy weather; the lack of fresh meat, fruit or vegetables and the monotony of the diet.

Let’s take a quick diversion. In 1731, Spanish sailors boarded the British brig Rebecca off the coast of Cuba and sliced off the left ear of its captain, Robert Jenkins. This traumatic auriculectomy was used as a pretext by the British to declare war on Spain in 1739, a conflict that is now known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

In 1740, British Commodore George Anson led a squadron of eight ships on a mission to disrupt or capture the Pacific Ocean possessions of the Spanish Empire.

Returning to Britain in 1744 by way of China and thus completing a lengthy circumnavigation of the globe, the voyage was notable for the capture of the Manila galleon, but also for horrific losses from disease, with only 188 men of the original 1,854 surviving. Some 1400 of the men died of scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency.

As fortune would have it, in 1739, James Lind, a Scottish medical doctor, had joined the British Navy. By 1747 he had become surgeon of HMS Salisbury. He conducted an experiment on the crew of the ship, supplementing their diet with limes and lemon juice. Although the value of citrus fruits in preventing and curing scurvy was known beforehand, Lind was the first to conduct a controlled experiment to demonstrate the benefits unequivocally. Within a short time, the British navy had adopted Lind’s recommendation to provide limes and lemon juice to all sailors when at sea. The Americans, for some reason, took over a century to be convinced, spending most of that time burying far too many sailor victims of scurvy, while mocking British sailors as Limeys.

Resuming our main story, I should properly speak about the lack of fresh meat, fruit or vegetables, with the exception of limes, and more limes, and even more limes. I am reminded of the Monty Python spam sketch. I hasten to add that I don’t recommend you follow the link. I find the sketch puerile, painfully drawn out, and utterly stupid. However, I recognize I may be in a minority here, and I offer the link as a public service.

Another dietary supplement offered to British sailors, as long ago as the 1600s, was rum. (I hazard a guess that the rum ration was more immediately popular than the lime ration. In 1740, Admiral Vernon made the already established tradition a formal daily practice. At the same time, concerned for the sailors’ health and ability to function, he ordered that a mixture of one part rum to four parts water be distributed to ratings (the naval equivalent of privates) every day. The amount of rum in this ‘tot’ was about an eighth of a pint.

 Admiral Vernon was known by the nickname ‘Old Grog’ on account of his fondness for wearing a cloak made from a coarse, loosely woven fabric that was a blend of silk and mohair or wool. This fabric was known as grogram. While the ratings may have been pleased that the ration had been formalized as part of Navy regulations, they were undoubtedly far less happy that the rum was now watered down. This ration soon became known as ‘grog’, placing the blame for the watering down firmly on Vernon’s shoulders, together with his cloak.

The rum used in the 1900s was 55% proof. The diluted grog would therefore have been 11% proof, somewhere between beer and dinner wine in potency.

At this point, of course, I have answered the question: What is the origin of the term ‘grog’? However, I am now left with a supplementary question: Why is a coarse mixture of silk and mohair or wool known as ‘grogram’? It turns out that my suspicion that the origin lies in German was very wide of the mark. In fact, it is an Anglicised corruption of the French term ‘gros grain’, which means ‘coarse grain’.

In French, I believe the ‘o’ in ‘gros’ is pronounced more or less as the ‘o’ in ‘so’ and the ‘ai’ in ‘grain’ as the ‘a’ in ‘apple’. So, the sound of ‘grogram’ is not a million miles from the sound of ‘gros grain’. These days, Bernice tells me, the fabric is known in English as gros grain rather than grogram.

While ‘grog’ tends not to be applied to strong drink outside its navy context, the adjective describing the effects of alcohol on one who drinks not wisely but too well – ‘groggy’ – is used much more widely.

One final note. In the 1970s, the Admiralty agreed that the tradition should end, because ships were by then equipped with many sophisticated weapons and other systems that meant the level of hard manual labour was much lower than previously, and that also meant that the risk of being drunk on duty was much greater to the world at large, and no longer confined to the sailor himself. Since then, July 31^st, the date the official daily rum ration was scrapped, has been marked in the Royal Navy as Black Tot Day. On that black day every year, ratings are served a commemorative tot of grog. With apologies to those who were anticipating an in-depth geo-political analysis of the ramifications of the killing of Yahya Sinwar. I really fancied a week off from ‘the situation’. There will still be enough time to file a report from the home front next week, although by the time you read it we should be in Port

Blogger’s Note: It may well be that, some weeks, when you start reading my post, you find yourself wondering just where it’s leading. It may or may not surprise you to know that the experience of writing it is often the same. What could easily be mistaken for a lazy lack of planning is, in fact, an attempt to achieve an easy flow of spontaneity.

The downside of this is that sometimes, when I discover where the post has led me, I’m not that enamoured of the final destination, and then I have to retrace my steps and choose the road more taken instead. This week, I was quite surprised to see where I ended up, and really couldn’t decide whether to stick with it, or start again. While I know at least several of my readers will find little, if anything, here to interest them, with apologies to them, and after reflection, I feel I want to stand behind where this week’s musings led me.

In the Jewish calendar, in a normal year, these few days are very unusual. If we are fortunate, the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, have led us on a spiritual journey up to the peak of reaffirming acceptance of Hashem as both King and God at the very end of Yom Kippur, in what we truly believe may be and hope is indeed as close to a state of being unencumbered by our sins as we can ever aspire to. Immediately, a whole slew of mitzvot crowd in on us. While the sound of the shofar’s final long single note, the Tekia Gdola, still reverberates, we recite arvit, the evening prayer, then hear Havdala, the ceremony marking the transition from Shabbat to weekday, then move outside shul to recite Kiddush Levana, the blessing on the New Moon. The next days are filled with erecting and decorating the sukkah, acquiring the arba minim, the lulav and etrog and cooking and learning for chag.

All of this is true this year, and yet, in this most unusual year, these few days seem even more unusual than normal. It began, for me, with the prayers of the Yamim Noraim, which seemed to have an additional resonance, reflecting the particular sensibility that I brought to them this year. To give just one example: how can I have failed to notice, until this year, that the first block of specific appeals to ‘Our Father, Our King’ in Avinu Malkeinu, after the general introductory group, are appeals to remove all of the external threats to our wellbeing, including the nefarious plans of our enemies. This is a timely reminder that only someone who has been removed from immediate physical danger has the clarity of mind to reflect on their sins. The war creates its own priorities. When the siren sounds, you first find shelter and only then continue your prayer.

More immediately striking is the fact that the looming sense of Sukkot approaching has an additional and antithetical layer to it this year. October 7 fell, this year, on the fifth of the ten Days of Penitence, at the very heart of the Days of Awe. Even more significantly, as we look forward to Sukkot, we see, immediately following it, Simchat Torah, and the first yahrzeit of the victims of the pogrom.

Nobody can say what Simchat Torah will feel like in our shuls this year. Being asked to rejoice in the Torah on this most bitter of yahrzeits, one for which none of us can feel ready, is both the least imaginable and the most Jewish of asks. How will we, how can we possibly, be overwhelmed with joy at the gift of Torah Hashem bestowed on us, when all we see, every day, is the horrifying price tag attached to that gift? How can we rejoice in our privileged position as those who accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven at the same time as we are asking God every day how long He will continue to hide His face from us, and how He can bear to allow to be visited on us what has been visited on us as a nation over this last year?

And yet…and yet. What choice do we really have? October 7 was the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Usually, when we hear that sentence, the speaker’s intention is that we should feel how exceptional October 7 was. However, let us keep a sense of perspective. The Holocaust ended less than 80 years ago. If we measure Jewish history from the Brit ben Habetarim – the Covenant of the Pieces – that God made with Abraham, and if we imagine Jewish history from then until now as a single 24-hour day, then the Holocaust ended at about 23:30, just half-an-hour ago.

What this tells us is that October 7 was not all that exceptional. Our liturgy reminds us, in so many places, that throughout our history we have suffered atrocious pogroms and unspeakable acts of hate-filled violence, sometimes carried out in uncontrollable anger, sometimes in fiendish glee, and sometimes in cold-blooded calm. As we read on Seder night, “in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us”.

Today (Monday, as I write this) is an especially difficult day. We learnt last night and this morning the details of the direct hit on an army training base dining room during the evening meal, killing four 19-year-old soldiers – whose given names were Yosef, Yoav, Omri and Amichai – and injuring 58 others. In addition to the pain of those losses and that suffering, this attack has raised a slew of worrying questions. Did the drone release a missile immediately before it crashed? How is it that the drone was, apparently, originally identified and tracked, and then lost to radar? Were the timing and the precise location of the hit cruel misfortune or precise design and GPS navigation? Is this a one-off event, or does it mark an escalation of Hizbollah weaponry for which we have no definitive answer?

Any euphoria we allowed ourselves to feel over our multiple intelligence and tactical victories over the last weeks in Lebanon now begins to look as though it may melt into hubris.

It increasingly seems that any talk of achieving an absolute victory, in the North or the South, is unrealistic. The ‘Never Again’ that we lived with for most of the last 80 years seems to have proved to be an illusion. This was always a slogan that faced both ways. The world would never allow another genocidal attempt, and the Jews would never submit to another genocidal attempt. The last year has arguably made it clear that in neither of those two ways is the slogan necessarily true. Looking outwards, we see a world in which antisemitism continues to flourish. Looking inwards, we see that our survival is fragile, and that it does not lie within our power to change reality sufficiently to create a climate of peace.

At the end of the day, everything is in God’s hands. The very fragility of our survival emphasizes our dependence on God. Our acknowledgement of that dependence is our acceptance of His dominion, and our rejoicing on Simchat Torah will reflect that acceptance. When you buy a season ticket for the rollercoaster, you know that you are going to be facing ups and downs. On the rollercoaster there can be no ups without the downs. The very fact of your buying the ticket affirms that you accept the downs as well as the ups.

No. On reflection, not ‘accept’, but ‘embrace’. You embrace the downs as well as the ups. If you believe that everything is in God’s hands, then you have to strive to find the meaning, the potential, that is in everything, however hard it may be to see. Victor Frankl striving to help his fellow prisoners find a sense of purpose in Auschwitz; Golda Meir emerging from the cellar in which her father hid the family as the Cossacks raped and pillaged; emerging determined not to be that frightened little girl any longer. The thousands liberated from the camps who then married and built themselves new lives, new families, that could never replace those they had lost, but that gave them a life infused with a previously unimaginable richness and sweetness. The thousands of individual acts of bravery, self-sacrifice and public service that flashed brilliant on October 7 and every day since.

Human life, Jewish life, is made up of dark and light. Without shadow, there is no brilliant sunshine. We strive to keep the shadow away as much as possible, but when it sweeps over us, we must face it, and inhabit it, and strive to grow from it.

Wishing you all a Chag Sameach, despite, and in defiance of, our existential crisis.

I am writing this post on October 7, 2024, the first anniversary of Hamas’ pogrom. In the world as a whole, and, within that, in the Jewish world, and, within that, in the State of Israel, we are all very familiar and very comfortable with the marking of anniversaries and commemorative days. This anniversary, however, is like no other I have ever experienced.

First, it started on Saturday. Shabbat marked Day 365 of October 7, and everywhere this was being spoken of as “marking the year”. Of course, 2024 is a leap year, and so, technically, the first year was completed yesterday, on Sunday, and not on Saturday. However, we normally mark anniversaries on the same date as the event, and so it is today that is being marked nationally, in official and unofficial ceremonies, in the streets and the cultural centres and in the media, as the first anniversary.

This marking of Day 365 that completes a simple year, and of Day 366 that completes the leap year, and of Day 367 as the anniversary of the date, is not something that we do in other circumstances. It has happened here, this week, I believe, because every single day since October 7 2023 is another day that 97 children, women and men abductees have been surviving in sub-human conditions in Gaza; another day that their wives, husbands, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, wider family and friends have suffered the constant pain of not knowing where they are, what state of physical health and state of mind they are in. It also marks another day for the four hostages who have been held in Gaza far longer. Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, two soldiers who crossed into Gaza in 2014; Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu, who crossed into Gaza separately in 2015: all are still held captive in Gaza, bringing the number of hostages to 101.

The hostages, their loved ones, and, to a lesser but not negligible extent, the nation, are all marking not a year, as a single block, but a year of days, on each of which we wake to the renewed realisation that our captives are not yet redeemed. Every single day brings its unique burden. Every day, every single day, the mainstream media bring us interviews with more bereaved families and families of hostages.

This is another feature of this year. We are not marking the anniversary of an event whose magnitude, whose nature, whose multi-facetedness we understood in real time. We are marking the 367^th day of an event whose details are still being uncovered.

This morning, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced that Idan Shtivi, 28, had died at the Nova festival and his body had been abducted to Gaza, where he is still held. “On October 7, Idan arrived at the Nova Festival in the early morning to document his friends’ performances and workshops,” the forum said. The IDF spokesman later referred to the announcement, and stated that the decision to determine his death was based on intelligence information and was approved by an expert committee of the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Israel Police. This is the reality of a year ago that is still being painstakingly, and paingivingly, unearthed.

And of course, Idan, like every single one of the 101 hostages, alive and dead, is an entire world. Some worlds are more dramatic than others, some more prosaic; but each of them is an entire authentic world to those who inhabit it with the hostage. Here is the Instagram entry of Idan:

“Idan Shtivi is a loved child, a family man, a loving partner to Stav, and a loved son to Dalit and Eli. Idan is a true gentleman, a genuine and generous soul, always putting others before himself and caring for everybody’s best interests. Idan was about to start an exciting new chapter in his life: moving in with Stav. The couple even adopted a dog together. “We talked about how our home would look, and in the end, I entered the apartment alone and hoped every day that he would return to me.”

Here is the poetry and nobility of what we call an ordinary life, lived with integrity.

In addition, of course, we are not marking the anniversary of an event that was completed in the past. The war of which the pogrom was the opening salvo continues today, on multiple fronts, and every day of the 367 has brought its own stories both of bravery and of suffering and loss.

This morning, the death was announced, in battle in southern Lebanon, of IDF Staff Sergeant Major Etay Azulay, aged 25. This raises the total number of Israeli soldiers killed on or since October 7 of last year to 727. If, on average, two of your nation’s fighters are falling every day, then you count the passage of time in days, and not in years.

As I write, I know no details of Etay’s life, other than the fact that he was 25 when he fell, and that, judging from his picture in uniform, he had a warm, infectious, and slightly mischievous smile. May his memory, may all their memories, be for a blessing.

One of the many women widowed by this war, speaking on the radio this morning, drew attention to another sense in which this anniversary does not mark something completed in the past. Ordinarily, she explained, when a person suffers bereavement, 90% of their life continues as normal.

In her case, a year ago, on October 7, when she lost her husband, she also lost so much more. She lost her home on the kibbutz, destroyed by Hamas. She lost the kibbutz as a place to live, since it was uninhabitable, and she and her children were compelled to move from a pastoral, small-community life to an anonymous apartment in a big city, a way of life unlike anything she had ever known. Her children all had to switch from attending a small school with the children who had been their neighbours and closest friends all their lives, to attending a large school where they knew nobody. She lost her job and was unable to find work. When she suffered bereavement, her entire life was completely uprooted in a moment. A year later, a year of 367 days later, she still has no roots.

The survivors of October 7 live every day with their trauma. Every day that the war continues, the emotional burden on our fighters grows heavier. Every day that the hostages are not returned, each one of them grows inexorably weaker and closer to death, and so, in a different way, do their loved ones. Every day that the nation does not grow together, it grows further apart. Each one of these 367 days has made the path back to a normal life that much longer and more choked with weeds.

My prayer, today, is that we may be able to commemorate the second anniversary of October 7 in a single ceremony, united as a nation, looking back on a cataclysmic past event. Until then, we are compelled to continue to observe that today is Day 367 of October 7, and tomorrow will be Day 368.

There must be something about this time of year that affects me strangely. Looking back, I see that at the end of October, almost three years ago, I offered you a pot-pourri post entitled A Healthy Portion of Salmagundi. 51 weeks later, I proferred A Modest Helping of Gallimaufry. I find myself having to resort to the same cheap trick today. I thought the least I could do is find a different dish this time, and so I offer you an olla podrida.

In the 16th century, while Middle-French speaking cooks were cooking up a gallimaufry, which is a meat stew, a hash of various kinds of meat, Bartolomeo Scappi, the cook of Pope Pius V, was preparing a Spanish stew, usually made with chickpeas or beans, assorted meats like pork, beef, bacon, partridge, chicken, ham, and sausage, and vegetables such as carrots, leeks, cabbage, potatoes, and onions. The recipe can be found in Scappi’s Opera dell’arte del cucinare (A Work on the Art of Cooking), published in 1570. This week’s dish is called olla podrida. The literal translation of this is apparently “rotten pot”, but podrida is probably a version of the original word poderida, so it could be translated as “powerful pot”. What this post threatens to be is a similar collection of a number of stray thoughts that, after a strange last couple of days, are all that I can manage to dredge up. I apologise in advance for the lack of internal cohesion – and possibly interest – but the fact remains that some weeks this blog virtually writes itself, and other times it….doesn’t. I leave it to you to decide whether the result is rotten, or powerful. I know that I can expect from at least some readers rather less obsequiousness than the curate displayed, and a good job too, on balance.

Well, there we are. Over 300 words already (of which about 100 are copy-pasted from the post two years ago) and I still haven’t said anything. So, let’s get to it.

I’m planning to avoid talking about current affairs as far as possible, but I hope you will allow me two observations. The first is that many of the Hassan Nasrallah obituaries offered in the mainstream media beggar belief. For the Washington Post, Nasrallah was “a moral compass” (always pointing due South, presumably) and “father figure”. (Not everybody, clearly, had an idyllic childhood). The New York Times noted that he “created a state within a state that provided social services”, without drawing attention to the extent to which he was personally responsible for creating the conditions within Lebanon that made such provision necessary.

My second observation concerns another terrorist, killed in another airstrike in Lebanon on Monday. This was Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, the co-ordinator of Hamas activities in Lebanon. He was also, according to Arab media reports, the principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in El-Buss, and, additionally, head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, overseeing 39,000 students in 65 schools.

You may think that UNRWA could be accused of turning a blind eye to a potential conflict of interests here. However, UN Watch highlighted early in the year his involvement with UNRWA. According to UNRWA, Abu el-Amin was suspended without pay in March for three months for violating regulations and was investigated over his political activities. I infer from this that in June he was reinstated. For my money, UNRWA ignoring the facts that UN Watch highlighted early in the year would have been less outrageous than them suspending and then reinstating him.

Enough of these world affairs. You’re all doubtless wondering what was strange about my last couple of days. The fact is that I woke up on Shabbat morning to discover that I could not put my right foot down without suffering excruciating pain in metatarsals 4 and 5. It’s fair to say that I’ve got through 74½ years giving not a thought to metatarsals 4 and 5 (nor, to be honest, to 1, 2 or 3). I vow never to take them for granted again. I spent Shabbat and early Sunday morning with my feet up, keeping walking to a strict minimum, armed with my late mother-in-law’s trusty walking stick, and very tentative.

On Sunday morning, Bernice had to abandon the first two assaults of her planned military campaign to conquer the preparations for the Rosh Hashana-Shabbat three-day festival of eating that awaits us starting Wednesday night, in order to, first, drive me to the doctor’s surgery, then pick me up and go to the pharmacy to pick up the prescribed meds. The doctor suspected gout (as my friend and gout-sufferer had diagnosed on Shabbat), but was also not prepared to rule out an infection. After consultation with the Health Fund’s chief pharmacologist over potential contra-indications, the doctor contacted me later in the day with a different pain-killer prescription, and Bernice had to make yet another expedition to the pharmacy. In addition, of course, I was completely helpless when it came to setting up or clearing away from meals, and so everything fell on Bernice. She always says she has no patience with patients, but you probably believe her no more than I do.

By this morning, the excruciating pain had diminished to a very dull ache, so I was able to drive myself to the surgery for a bank of blood tests. By this afternoon, the results were in, and, in a brief WhatsApp exchange, the doctor was able to confirm our analysis that it is, apparently, gout and an infection. (As I wrote to him: “That’s how we read it, but it’s very good to have it confirmed by someone who knows what they’re talking about.”) All of the prescribed medication is working its magic, and I am, once again, full of praise for our excellent health system, our efficient health fund, and, best of all, our tireless family doctor, who, having asked me, yesterday, to WhatsApp him today (Monday) to let him know how I felt, ended up beating me to it and WhatsApping me as soon as he saw the results..

All of this means that I will be on antibiotics on first day Rosh Hashana, and therefore possibly prohibited from drinking wine. I still have to pluck up the courage to ask my doctor. Or perhaps, having just asked Dr Google about “antibiotics and alcohol”, I won’t ask any kitbag questions, as they are referred to in Hebrew.

Which brings us to beer. As you may know, I brew my own, buying my supplies from an establishment in downtown Jerusalem that has an excellent range of craft beers and has always provided a very good service in providing supplies for home brewing. A couple of years ago, they stopped offering a drop-in service, and instead required customers to email their order a day before they came to pick it up. This worked fine, until it didn’t. A month or so ago, I decided to brew a batch so that it would be ready to drink for the chagim. I emailed in my order, and, although I was mildly surprised not to receive an acknowledgement, I wasn’t worried. The next day, we were in central Jerusalem, and swung by the supplier to pick up the order.

When we arrived, the bar looked to be in the middle of renovations, and a rather surprised manager casually told me that they no longer supply raw materials for home-brewing. I pointed out that their website made no mention of this, and still offered the email address. He was completely unmoved by this. He told me they had stopped several months ago, and asked when I last placed an order. I told him it had been several months, and he said: “Well, there you are. That’s why we stopped the business. What did you expect?” I felt it was a little unfair to lay the failure of the business at my feet; I can’t believe that a man in his seventies drinking largely alone ever represented their core business. However, I wasn’t in the mood for what would anyway be a pointless argument, so I just left.

A couple of hours scanning the internet revealed no suppliers closer than Tel Aviv or Rishon Lezion, and, annoyingly, nowhere on the way to, or fairly close to, Zichron Yaakov. However, there were online suppliers, and it was very easy to place an order online, which duly arrived two days later. When I unpacked the order, I found all the ingredients I had ordered, plus a bag of dry malt grain which was not part of the recipe…but no yeast. Although this is a small bag with only 10 grams of yeast, it’s the yeast that works a lot of the magic. Without it, my 19 gallons of wort would basically be grain and malt cordial.

I emailed the supplier, explaining my problem, and, the following day, I received, by courier, a 10-gram bag of yeast, wrapped lovingly in a cushioned bag. I duly made my wort, sealed it in the vat, with the water-vent inserted for the air released by the yeast (which is basically the yeast breaking wind after it has consumed the sugars in the malt extract). Then comes the waiting, sometimes for just 12 hours, more often for 24-36 hours, until the bubbling starts. It then increases in frequency, from one burp every four minutes to virtually continuously, until, after a week or two, a hydrometer reading shows that the specific gravity of the wort has reduced from around 1.048 to 1.012, (1.0 is the specific gravity of water.) This means that three quarters of the sugar has been converted to alcohol, yielding a beer of about 4.5% strength, which is plenty for me.

Only this time it didn’t. I caught an occasional break of wind, but it never increased in frequency; it was always 4 or 5 minutes between each incident. I waited a week, two weeks, three weeks. Eventually today I decided to take a hydrometer reading, and discovered that the specific gravity had dropped from 1.047 to 1.013, which represents about 4% alcohol. All I can imagine is that an imperfection has developed in the hermetic seal of the plastic vat, and air has been escaping under the lid. So, I somehow have to find time to bottle the beer (a 3-hour process).

I would ideally like to do this tonight, so that the beer will be ready for me to enjoy and offer guests on Sukkot. However, it is already almost 9pm and I still haven’t finished this blog. Tomorrow we are in Zichron all day, and by the time we get home we will not really be ready for a full-scale bottling exercise. Wednesday is Erev Rosh Hashana, so I’m not even going to consider suggesting to Bernice that we bottle then.

It begins to look as though next Sunday will be B-Day. If the beer matures in the bottle fairly quickly, it will probably be drinkable by Shabbat Hol Hamoed. Nine days after that, we fly to Portugal, where I will spend a month praying that none of the bottles explodes in our absence. (As part of the bottling process, I add a mild sugar syrup to the wort, to encourage a little more conversion to alcohol in the bottle, so as to create effervescence when pouring. If the sugar syrup is not distributed evenly between the bottles, it can cause one to explode. If you have 57 bottles of beer stacked close together on a shelf, and one explodes (the technical term is a bottle bomb)…I leave the rest to your imagination. I have never had it happen, but I have had a bottle fall on the floor as I was stacking them after bottling, and even that is not a pretty sight.

On which note, I will wish you Shana Tova uMetuka – a sweet and happy new year: tova mikodmata – happier than the last one.

The “3D test” of antisemitism is a set of criteria formulated in 2003 by Natan Sharansky in order to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three Ds stand for delegitimization, demonization, and double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism.

Applying this test to what is happening in Britain, it seems clear to me that large sections of the mainstream media, some backbench and some frontbench MPs from the governing Labour Party, and many voices on the street, while attacking Israel, are in fact revealing their antisemitism. To what extent this antisemitism is a consequence of the rise of the far right, the far left, or militant Islamism, is debatable, but that it is the reality today in Britain is, I would argue, an undeniable fact. This is a situation that I see only deteriorating in the future.

At the same time, militant Islamism in Britain is occupied not only with Israel and the Middle East, but also with the political and cultural future of Britain. I fear for the future of British society and, indeed, of Western civilisation.

This was the warning voice that I hoped to capture with my blog today. From the feedback I have received, and some I haven’t, it would appear that I failed in my mission. My fable was presumably insufficiently accurate a parallel of the reality I was seeking to reflect, not a tight enough fit. I was also, as Bernice feared, too caught up in my own apprehension of reality to feel the need to make the metaphor clearer for anyone who was not already consumed by the same fears as I am.

Rest assured that I’ve learnt my lesson. From now on, I will either be explicit or confine myself to trivia. Having established that I’m not Eric Blair, I’ll leave literary allegorical fables to the big boys.

Here’s a story I’ve been hearing and reading versions of repeatedly recently. To be honest, it makes no sense to me, but perhaps you’ll be able to make sense of it.

Once upon a time there was a mine-owner. The coalmine that he owned was a profitable mine, with rich seams that ran not too deep underground and that were wide enough for a man to be able to work them without having to lie down. Not, of course, that the mine-owner worked the mine himself. No: he paid men from the neighbouring village to work for him, and it was they who went underground every day.

The work itself was, naturally, physically demanding, but there were always plenty of men willing to take the job, because the mine brought in a handsome income for the owner, and he, being a fair man, ploughed much of that income back into the business. He paid the miners a more than fair wage. He also took good care of them, providing them with hot-water showering facilities, clothing allowances and subsidised healthcare.

In the long term, the mine was, of course, a killer, with the miners suffering from, and many dying from, lung disease. However, life expectancy in that region was not high anyway, and the miners stoically accepted the risk they took.

A more dramatic risk was of drilling into a pocket of carbon monoxide trapped in the seam; the gas would then escape and asphyxiate the miners. To detect such potential disasters early, the mine-owner kept a community of young boy and girl choristers. He provided each team of miners with one of these young children in a cage, who would descend into the mine with them. All of these children had beautiful singing voices, and they would happily sing all day in their cages. In the event of the release of the odourless gas, the child would succumb to the gas before the adult miners were aware of it. When they heard the child’s singing stop, they would know that they needed to escape from the seam immediately.

When the boys reached the age where their voices broke, and when the girls reached child-bearing age, the mine-owner would ‘retire’ them, and they would then breed a new generation of choristers.

Initially, the miners were grateful for the children, whom they recognised as lifesavers. They grew attached to them and found that their cheerful singing made the long hours of each underground shift pass a little more quickly and lightly.

However, as time went on, the miners’ attitude changed. The choristers’ ceaseless joyful singing, apparently ignoring the fate that they might face at any moment, began to aggravate some of the miners. Others, recognising that the singers were a signal of misfortune, started to blame the children themselves for bringing this misfortune. Some miners started refusing to take the children down into the mine with them, or to have anything to do with them.

Over the years, some of the choristers being taken down seemed to develop extraordinary abilities to avoid their fate. Seemingly unaware that their whole purpose was to succumb to the gas, some of them evolved, over several generations, respiratory systems that mitigated the effect of the poison, and they took much longer to die. There were even some cases where choristers were able to carry on singing after the weaker of the miners had started to be affected by the gas. Needless to say, the miners resented such stubborn resistance on the part of the children, and insisted that the mine-owner start a genetic programme to breed a strain of children that would offer no resistance to the carbon monoxide.

In other cases, choristers started constructing rudimentary face masks, which they then slipped over their head in the darkness of the mine. These masks appeared to give them some protection against the carbon monoxide. When the miners discovered this was happening, they insisted the mine-owner keep the children locked up twenty-four hours a day, with no access to any construction materials. They were determined that the choristers accept their role as helpless victims.

Eventually, all of the children in the mine-owner’s stock were weakened. As luck would have it, this coincided with a period when the miners were working a seam that was riddled with pockets of carbon monoxide. Every day a pocket was hit. Every day, more and more children died.

In a relatively short time, the entire community of choristers was wiped out. The very next day, the miners, now unprotected, started to be killed in increasing numbers by the gas. A few months later, there was not a single miner left alive. The mine-owner was forced to close his mine, and the families of the miners, with no financial support, slowly but inexorably starved to death.

It was only at this point that it occurred to the mine-owner that, if he had invested money in developing the gas masks that the children had invented, he could have equipped all his miners with them, and nobody, miner or chorister, would have had to die. But by then it was too late. Nobody should wait until it’s too late.

Most weeks I get to choose the topic of my post. However, some weeks the topic chooses me. This is one of the latter weeks.

One news story of the last week defines for me so clearly the best and the worst of Israel in September 2024 that, difficult as it is to write about, I feel I have to write about it.

A shiva call is rarely an easy thing to make. If I am not particularly close to the mourners, I often feel awkward about finding something suitable to say. However, if I take my lead from the mourners themselves, as we are required to do by Jewish law, and allow them to initiate and lead the conversation, then some way will usually suggest itself for me to offer comfort to them, which is, of course, the object of the call. At the very least I can offer a listening ear.

I do not envy public figures who are expected to make regular shiva calls as part of their duties. Some clearly have a natural empathy that is clear to see; Israel’s President Herzog seems to be such a person, Others clearly don’t.

One of the noticeable features of the last eleven months has been the fact that Prime Minister Netanayahu has not made shiva calls to the families of those, civilians and soldiers, killed on October 7 and in the war. Clearly, this is a conscious decision on his part to avoid situations that will potentially expose him directly to the anger of bereaved families who feel that he has at best let the country down badly, producing scenes that will play very badly in the media.

However, last week, Netanyahu, and his wife, chose to pay a shiva call. They visited the family home of Ori Danino z”l, one of the six hostages executed underground by Hamas. Ori had been at the Nova party, and, after he managed to escape the party unharmed on October 7, he chose to return to try to help others escape, and managed to save three others. He himself was then captured and taken hostage.

Why did Netanyahu choose this particular shiva house? It is difficult to think of any reason other than the feeling that Ori’s father, Rabbi Elhanan Danino, and his family, whose roots lie in Morocco, represent part of Netanyahu’s core constituency. Netanyahu must have felt that he would be among friends.

If this was his reasoning, then it was a severe misjudgement, because, some time into the visit, Rabbi Danino informed Netanyahu that he had some hard truths to tell him. He suggested that Netanyahu might prefer not to hear them, but rather to cut short his visit. However, Netanyahu chose to stay.  

Rabbi Danino then criticised Netanyahu’s long-term response to the rise to power of Hamas in Gaza and his handling of the war. The appropriate way for Netanyahu to respond to this criticism would have been in humbled silence. Instead, he responded with the following self-pitying comments.

“I won’t tell you what happened behind closed doors. It’s not very interesting anyway.” (Here Sara Netanyahu interjected: “You were pretty much alone.”) “Alone.” (Sara: “Facing the whole world.”) “Exactly. Facing the whole world. Facing the US President. I went into the room every day and asked myself: ‘Why am I here? What am I here for? For what? For the perks of office?’” (Sara: “What perks?”)

I don’t want to understand this response in the way I’m going to explain it, but I cannot see any other explanation. Netanyahu is here appealing for sympathy from the family of a 23-year-old man who was kept prisoner underground for 11 months and then shot in cold blood. He is asking for their sympathy for him because, surrounded by his adoring family and his loyal supporters, commuting between his home in Jerusalem, his luxury home in Caesarea, and the White House, given standing ovation after standing ovation while addressing the US congress, he felt alone: while their son was rotting, underfed, starved of fresh air, urinating in a bottle, in a tunnel in Gaza so low-ceilinged that he could not stand upright.

Contrast the content of this (and, if you listen to the recording on YouTube, contrast the tone of voice) with the content and tone of Rabbi Danino’s response.

“You didn’t do this for 15 years. Don’t come now, when they are there, to do this. 15 years you sat quietly. You didn’t do anything.”

After R Danino accused Netanyahu of equipping Hamas with swords, tunnels and dollars, Netanyahu politely asked if he could reply. R Danino said that he didn’t intend to get into this. He asked whether Netanyahu had come to listen or to be heard, because what Netanyahu had to say we had been hearing for 15 years.

Rabbi Danino later begged Netanyahu to stop wasting time and energy on what he called nonsense. He then explained that he was referring to the endless pursuit of mandates and studying of opinion polls – what’s going to yield political results and what isn’t.

At one point in the shiva call, Sara Netanyahu accused Rabbi Danino of repeating what others had told him to say. She couched this in an apologetic tone, but it is, obviously, a deeply insulting observation. This elicited a wry laugh from Rabbi Danino, and a response that asserted, as was very clear from his whole manner and dignity throughout the visit, that he was his own man and beholden to nobody.

Eventually, Netanyahu referred to the fact that he too is one who has suffered bereavement, citing his older brother Yoni, who was the only Israeli fatality during the dramatic rescue of 102 of the 106 hostages from Entebbe in 1976. There is a way to introduce a reference like this into a conversation like this and to make it a way of recognising, and identifying with, the depth of the grief of the newly bereaved family. When Netanyahu refers to his brother’s death, and he certainly refers to it very often, it is with something of a sense of competing for sympathy, rather than expressing empathy.

After this shiva call, Netanyahu addressed the nation, stating: “I hear the cry of the families of the hostages. I hear. I listen. I don’t pass judgement either.” I can’t imagine a more patronising comment, a greater demonstration of Netanyahu’s total incapacity to understand the relationship between one paying a shiva call and the mourner, than that reference to not passing judgement.

Rabbi Danino urged Netanyahu to rewind to the time of Yoni’s death and to recapture his true Zionist self from that period, forgetting the distractions of the last 50 years. He also urged him to reflect on the fact that he has been charged by God with the welfare of the Jewish state, and he recommended that he close his office door for 10 minutes each day and ask himself what the Jewish value is that he is bringing.

The contrast in human dignity between the two men in this exchange is as stark as it could be. To empathise with Rabbi Danino and his family is very easy. To empathise with Binyamin Netanyahu is more difficult. However, there is one sense in which I feel very sorry for him. As a young adult, he lost the older brother he adored. He then set out, I believe, to devote his life to matching his brother’s achievement. However, this was always going to be a hopeless task. Yoni z”l paid the ultimate price in a truly heroic and magnificent military operation. Nothing that Bibi could do could match that. He has, I fear, spent his whole life measuring himself against Yoni and, inevitably, finding himself wanting. Eventually, such an effort takes its toll on a person. Along the way, he has lost his way, and is in danger of dragging the country after him. I can only hope that some of Rabbi Danino’s measured, quietly impassioned, words found their mark, although, sadly, all the evidence to date suggests not.

I pray that next week I may have something more uplifting to write about. At the time of writing, sadly, all the evidence suggests not.

Blogger’s Note: There’s esoteric and then there’s just impenetrable. Having googled and discovered Prima Donna, I couldn’t resist enlisting it for my title, but I won’t pretend I was familiar with it before. It is, apparently, a Dutch cheese, closely related to Gouda but with notes of Parmesan. This week’s title is therefore a Rigolettoish rendering of ‘Somebody moved my cheese’. If you’re waiting for an explanation of Rigoletto, or Gouda, then you’re probably here by mistake. If, on the other hand, you suddenly feel you must listen to the aria in question, let it not be said that I don’t anticipate my readership’s every last wish. This is, I’ll have you know, a class establishment.

Regular readers will know that I am not one to let himself be troubled by the vicissitudes of daily life. I’m always ready to make lemonade at the drop of a lemon and I cut the bread in half before I freeze it, so that there’s never a risk of it going a bit Saint Agur bluish before we manage to finish it. In other words, ours is a kitchen where half a loaf is not just better than no bread; it’s ideal.

Blogger’s Note: Two paragraphs and already three cheeses named. If you think you’re detecting a theme here, you’re completely wrong.

So, no, I take the rough with the smooth, roll with the punches and whistle while I work. But, my goodness, this has been a tough week. Scarcely a single cheese has been left unmoved.

For starters, here’s a handy tip: if you listen to Reshet Bet of Kan, Israel radio’s news and current affairs station, don’t drive through Ma’ale Adumim. As you approach Ma’ale Adumim from Jerusalem, you find that you need to retune from 95.0 or 95.5 (which of the two is stronger seems to depend on wind direction) to 95.2. In Ma’ale Adumim itself, this gives good reception in most of the city, although Mitzpe Nevo is, in this as in so many things, a bit of a law unto itself. Poised as we are on a ridge running between Jerusalem and the Judean Desert, our ears are competed for by Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian stations. However, 95.2 will serve you pretty well within MA.

Or at least it did until last week, when, suddenly, the signal became weaker in various locations, including our street, and 95.0 and 95.5 became louder. If this reflects a permanent change, then it may well turn out to be a good thing, since it will render obsolete retuning to 95.2 on entering the city and from 95.2 on leaving. However, where was the memo from the broadcaster? I can’t be doing with these unannounced changes.

Note to Bernice (the rest of you can skip this paragraph): Are you listening? I can’t be doing with unannounced changes.

Then, the following day, I bent down to retrieve my ground coffee from the freezer. (Yes, I pre-grind my beans once a week, and keep the ground coffee in the freezer. I know at least one of my readers needs smelling salts at this point, but there it is.) I opened the middle drawer of the right-hand side and there the little Tupperware container wasn’t.

It was mere seconds after that, as I staggered, distraught, around the kitchen, that Bernice blithely informed me that she had needed the room in that drawer and had therefore moved the coffee to the drawer below, without telling me. Even as I typed that last sentence, I needed to pause to breathe deeply into a brown paper bag. (I wonder, incidentally, about people who don’t bake their own bread and store it in brown paper bags – more, to be honest for the frisson of nostalgia than for any reason connected with keeping the bread fresh. What do these people breathe into when they need to calm down?)

Then I discovered that America may not be named after Amerigo Vespucci, who set foot on what was to become known as American soil in 1498. However, it was John Cabot who first explored, and set foot on, coastal North America, a year earlier, under the commission of Henry VII, King of England. Cabot’s sponsor in Bristol was Richard ap Americ ( a good Celtic name). The continent may well be named after Richard rather than Vespucci.

Why should we favour Richard over Vespucci as the origin of the name America? One good reason is that one cannot imagine the Medicis, Vespucci’s patrons, being ecstatic when he returned from ‘discovering’ the New Word, and proposed naming it after himself, a mere navigator.

On the other hand, we have the evidence of a humanist, Martin Waldseemüller, who, in 1507, reprinted the “Quattuor Americi navigationes” (“Four Voyages of Amerigo”), preceded by a pamphlet of his own entitled “Cosmographiae introductio,” and he suggested that the newly discovered world be named “ab Americo Inventore…quasi Americi terram sive Americam” (“from Amerigo the discoverer…as if it were the land of Americus or America”).

On the third hand, Richard ap Americ was the man who paid for Cabot’s voyage. Arsenal still play football in London, but their new stadium is known as Emirates Stadium. ‘Follow the money’ is a reasonable working practice in these cases.

Anyway, if my further research confirms the Cabot theory, then this will be right up there with the revelation, several years ago, that bears don’t actually hibernate, a fact that still has me occasionally waking up in a cold, gaslighted, sweat.

To round off what has been a very tough week, while we were out in the car yesterday, we saw a teenager with mauve hair. A little disturbed, if not in the least surprised, by the warmth of Bernice’s admiration of this, I tentatively inquired whether she was considering something similar herself. She pointed out, very fairly, that when, a couple of decades ago, she had wanted to dye her hair aubergine, I had expressed my opposition. (2024 David is, of course, shrieking: “And just what do you think it has to do with you?” Unlike John Osborne, I tend to look back mostly in acute embarrassment.)

In response, the best I could think of by way of belated apology was: “You shouldn’t really have married me, should you?”. I’m not sure exactly what response I was expecting, or indeed hoping for, but whatever I was expecting was a bit wide of the mark. What she actually said was: “If I’d known you were always going to be a miserable old ****, I wouldn’t have.”

Blogger’s Note: I feel I must explain that **** represents a word much less shocking that what you are probably thinking, although more shocking than Bernice’s Mum, z”l would have thought.

Since then, 18 hours have passed, and we’re still together, so I expect our marriage will survive this particular hiccough. I know that the lesson to take from this is not to ask a question to which you are not prepared for the answer. I also know that I won’t take this lesson. I also know that Bernice didn’t really mean what she said. And I also know that she meant every word.

What is a mystery to me is how somebody who knows so much can feel so often as though he doesn’t know anything, and as soon as he does know something, somebody moves his cheese. Ah! Sweet mystery of life!