Imagine, for a moment, that you are in the matchmaking business. (I can’t, by the way. The concept of taking responsibility for recommending which two people will live happily ever after is one I simply cannot grasp – how does anyone dare?) You decide to devise a simple quiz to help you find the perfect lid for each pot on your books: you will prepare a list of ten questions, each question selected in the belief that if a couple give identical answers to all ten questions, they will be a match made in heaven.

So, my question to you is: what are your ten questions?

As you start to think about that, those of you who are, or have ever been, married may find yourselves realising that this is in fact the list of ten questions that you wish you had asked your prospective spouse before the fact…and didn’t.

While you’re thinking about that, let’s consider the questions you probably did discuss: taste in music, literature, the arts; preferred holiday destinations and types; number of children you would like to have; political positions.

Far be it from me to denigrate this list, but lots of happily married couples conduct parallel but separate arts lives – there’s really no problem in feeling differently about ballet, Lionel Shriver or Phantom of the Opera, for example. Even holidays can be taken separately (although Bill Gates’ recent experience suggests that that is probably better if the husband’s holiday is not taken with an ex-girlfriend). Alternatively, they can go to Barcelona and she can lounge on the beach while he visits museums, or he can watch the bullfighting while she paraglides. As for children, there may be couples who discussed how many children they wanted, came to a joint decision, and ended up with that number, but my gut feeling is that life takes over in more cases than not.

So, I’m not at all convinced that these are the important questions. By now, you probably have at least two or three of your own questions in mind, and you may also have realized that they potentially say a lot about your particular marriage. I thought this week I might offer you some of mine. (Although I’m beginning to feel this is not one of my smarter thoughts.)

To make it more fun, I’ll give you the multiple-choice answers before each question, and, if you feel so inclined, you can try and guess the question before reading it.

Q1: 18; 21; 24; 27.
What is the optimum temperature for the air-conditioning thermostat?
I know that one partner can wear a thick winter sweater, or the other can strip down to Bermuda shorts, but the whole point of air conditioning is to avoid the need for that. Incidentally, this question is as relevant to office-sharing colleagues as it is to life partners. Those of you who have worked in mixed-sex office environments will, I am sure, be nodding in agreement at that last sentence. There is, apparently, a scientific reason why women prefer a higher room temperature than men.

Among other things, women have a lower metabolic rate, leading to less heat production, and they have a larger ratio of body surface to body mass, allowing for greater heat loss. If two people are the same height, weight and age, if you only change whether it’s a male or female, you expect 10% to 20% difference in metabolic rate. If you have a higher body surface area to lose heat relative to the volume available to produce heat, you tend to lose heat more easily and are more sensitive to cold.

Incidentally, a temperature of between 23^o and 26^o C is apparently acceptable to 80% of men and women. (You can read more about this here.)

Q2: Up; Down; As you found it; As you used it; The reverse of as you used it.
In what position do you leave the toilet seat after use?

Is it only chivalry that declares that toilet seats should be left in the down position? In a house occupied by two people, one of each sex, there is a case to be made for leaving the toilet seat down if you are the man and up if you are the woman. Not only does this show consideration to your other half, it also reflects the probability that the next user will be your other half rather than you.

Of course, there is an aesthetic aspect to this question, in addition to the utilitarian one, and I am prepared to accept that a closed seat is more pleasing to the eye.

Q3: Wardrobe; Chair; Floor.
When you undress, where do you put the clothes you intend to wear again?

Q4: Daily; Weekly; Monthly; Before parental visits.
How frequently do you clean the house?

I could go on…but probably not if I value my life.

Questions 3 and 4 are of particular interest in our marriage, because they represent that most dangerous of surfaces – a fluid playing field. Take Question 3, for example. Growing up, it is fair to say that Bernice and I were both the untidy sibling. We each shared a bedroom with our older, tidier sibling.

I understand that Bernice’s sister Sue drew an imaginary line down the middle of their bedroom and forbade Bernice to bring any of her stuff over that line. Martin was of a milder nature (as I grow older, and reflect on our childhood, I recognize and appreciate more and more the length of his suffering of me as a younger brother) and I had an easier time of it.

When we married, we each felt we had indeed found our perfect partner….someone just as messy and untidy. In our early married years, our bedroom – indeed, much of the time, our whole house – was a tip.

Over the last decades, something extraordinary has happened. We have both reformed, to the point where, in our own eyes, we are borderline obsessively tidy. Several factors have contributed to this admirable, if slightly disturbing, state of affairs. The departure of both children; the discarding of large quantities of junk; several waves of renovation, so that our kitchen and bedrooms now have sufficient storage space for all we possess. Growing older (some of us).

Magically, Bernice and I have progressed along this path in extraordinary unison; at no point has it been one of us dragging the other screaming into a more ordered world. It’s true that I had a brief flirtation with KonMa, the Japanese decluttering method described in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (which manifested itself in my case more in tender rolling of individual socks and less in laying teeshirts out and listening to discover which of them spoke to me).

However, Bernice was very tolerant, and hardly laughed at all, and resisted the temptation to gloat when I gave the whole thing up as a load of nonsense a short time later. Apart from that brief aberration, we have consistently seen eye to eye on what is a desirable level of order in the home.

Which brings us, sadly, to Question 4. This is the fatal question for us, because we have drifted apart, particularly over the last couple of years. I would be the first to admit that Bernice has always been more troubled by household dust than I have. There is a part of me that admires Quentin Crisp’s discovery that the cumulative weight of dust compacts the pile, so that it never gets deeper. (You can hear his message of hope at 2:00 minutes into this documentary.) However, I am not proud of that admiration, and, while much more than the lion’s share of cleaning (indeed, of all the housework) has always been Bernice’s, I’ve tried to play at least some part over the years.

In the last decade, our circumstances have changed. With just the two of us here, there are rooms that are hardly used. We are also both retired now, and, theoretically, have more time for housework. At the same time, we are not as young as we once were, so that housework now looms as a much more formidable task.

I also have to say that, when the stairs and first floor were carpeted throughout, the dust was much less visible, and the question of dust could be addressed less frequently. Now that our floors are tiled or parqueted throughout, every mote of dust is visible. Add to that the desert exposure of Ma’ale Adumim, and you have a situation where there are a mighty mount of motes.

When Bernice’s Mum, z”l, used to complain that, as she dusted a table, she could see the dust settle again before her eyes, we used to laugh. Now, to my horror (and, I believe, to hers) Bernice has been infected with the same madness. There are some days when she seems to divide all of her time between bemoaning how filthy the house is (which it never is), bewailing the fact that cleaning is a Sisyphean task (which it certainly is), and cleaning (which never seems to me to be as urgent a priority as it clearly is to her).

Currently, I have a get-out-of-jail card – my crumbling hip. However, next Monday I am due to have it replaced (of which more next week). Once I have fully recovered, I can see that I will not be able to continue to get away with refusing to be associated too closely with cleaning the house.

I am, it is fair to say, a major contributor to the dirt: in the kitchen, particularly, I leave behind me a trail of destruction: I almost always do all of my washing up (although occasionally some of the doughier items are a bit curate’s-egg-y). I make a reasonable-ish job of the work surfaces. However, I leave the floor looking like CIS have just sprayed their magic spray and switched on the ultra-violet lamps.

Meanwhile, Tao is enjoying the latest toy/piece of equipment his father has made for him. Fortunately, they won’t be bringing it when they come to stay (of which more next week); if they did, I suspect cleaning the house might be an even more daunting task.

Question: What do you call leftovers of a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream?

Answer: Read on to find out. (Although, if you don’t recognize the dessert, you might want to google “strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream” to give yourself a chance of working out the answer.)

This blog-writing is a rum business. As last week drew to a close, I realized that publishing the blog this week would be a challenge. With Shavuot falling on Sunday night and Monday, and Sunday taken up with baking challa etc., making chopped herring, and sundry other chores, I had limited time for writing a post. (How fortunate it is that we count the Omer and get plenty of warning about when Shavuot is coming.) So, I spent last Friday deciding on a topic for this week, and some of Friday evening and Shabbat afternoon plotting out in my head how I was going to tell this week’s story.

Sadly, I woke on Sunday morning, with a sinking feeling and the realisation that I was less than happy with what I had planned to write; on the other hand, I didn’t feel there was time to regroup. And then, as I was doing something in the kitchen (of which more later), a whole other post leapt almost fully formed into my mind. So, there you have it! Sometimes I choose the post, and sometimes the post chooses me. This week is definitely one of the latter.

I feel sorry for Bernice (not as sorry as she would sometimes want, but she’s learnt to take what she can get). When we married, she didn’t know how to boil an egg, as it were, having been raised by a mother who firmly believed that “you’ll have plenty of time to cook when you’re married”. I did know how to boil an egg, and also how to poach a whole salmon (it’s a long story that will have to wait for another time), but little more than that.

Now, almost 49 years later, I bake the bread, brew the beer, mull the wine, make the liqueurs and a couple of flashy desserts – ice cream, chocolate meringues, tiramisu – and pickle cucumbers, leech olives, make piccalilli, chutney and jam…and chopped herring. (All of which, I hasten to add, I only started relatively recently.) So, I basically do all the fun stuff that’s high-profile and gets noticed. (No, I’m not proud, since you ask, but it is how it is.)

Meanwhile, Bernice does everything else, which basically means that she has been putting one or two healthy and delicious balanced meals on the table every day for half a century. I think they call it division of labour, but Bernice, I believe, has a different name for it. All I will say on the subject is that she was a good cook as soon as she started, and she continues, unbelievably, to be a better and a more adventurous cook with each passing year. I count my blessings after every meal.

As mentioned above, one of my party pieces is tiramisu, and when Bernice was discussing with Esther what she should make for dessert on Shavuot. (I’m ambivalent about cheesecake in Israel, since you can’t get the really dry curd cheese to make a proper dry, baked Anglo-Jewish cheesecake – the kind that you can’t eat without a cup of tea, because it sucks all the saliva from your mouth.) Esther suggested I make my tiramisu – a dessert based on the principle that anything containing liberal quantities of coffee, chocolate and alcohol cannot possibly fail). Since our guests on Monday were Esther and Ma’ayan, we thought we should fall in line.

As it turned out, we had friends round for dinner last Wednesday night. How exotic and bizarre that sounds…and how wonderful it was just to relax around the table and catch up with everyone’s news. Bernice suggested that I make a small tiramisu for Wednesday, and another small one for Shavuot. I made the first and we finished two-thirds of it on Wednesday. Bernice then pointed out that I didn’t need to make another. She isn’t eating sweet desserts at the moment, and I really didn’t want half a tiramisu staring at me from the fridge while I desperately try and at least not put on more weight before my hip-replacement surgery, scheduled for the end of May.

The problem was that I didn’t really like the first tiramisu all that much, for two reasons: the coffee and the coffee. Let me explain. The recipe that I use calls for soaking ladyfinger biscuits in a mixture of very strong coffee and coffee liqueur. I always used to make a strong mixture of instant coffee, but now, infected with my daughter’s food snobbery, I make the coffee in my Nespresso machine. However, I forgot this time how strong to make it, and I badly underestimated.

In addition, we suddenly remembered that we had no coffee liqueur. We had been unable to find it when we finished the bottle last time I made tiramisu, and then forgot to keep looking! This time I winged it with a blend of brandy and chocolate liqueur, but the end result wasn’t the same, hardly tasting of coffee at all. In addition, I felt the texture was a little drier than I like it.

So, on Thursday we went in search of coffee liqueur, and actually found some. I decided that I would attempt to make a small mixture of very strong coffee and coffee liqueur, pour it alongside the bottom stratum of biscuit on the exposed face of the remaining third of the tiramisu and gently tilt the dish so that the biscuit soaked up the liquid. When the bottom layer of biscuit was well moistened, instead of quitting while I was ahead, I decided to tilt the dish further so that the liquid would reach the top layer of biscuit. I don’t know if you’ve read The Tipping Point. If you have, you will probably guess that I crossed it with the tiramisu, and two blocs from the centre of the strip of dessert separated off and tumbled across the dish.

Question: What do you call leftovers of a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream?

Answer: Well, a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream is known as an Eton mess, so leftovers might well be called a half-Eton mess.

Which is what I had at that point. I didn’t panic. Listening to some of Esther’s tales from the professional kitchen has taught me that almost any dish can be salvaged from disaster, and what the diners don’t know won’t kill them. I simply eased the two breakaway blocs back into place, and dusted some more cocoa powder over the cracks, where the white cheese layer had been exposed.

The question now is whether my deconstructed/reconstructed tiramisu will be a success. By the time you read this, Esther and Ma’ayan, the family foodies, will have tasted the tiramisu blind. When Esther reads this, I’ll learn whether I got away with it. By the time you read this, the proof of the pudding, as they say, will already have been in the eating.

Of course, it isn’t only in the kitchen that I get considerably more than my just desserts. (Apologies!) For example, Bernice goes to the mall, buys clothes for Tao, buys a padded envelope and brings it home. I print an address label, stick it on the envelope, and pack the clothes. Bernice then goes out and posts the package at the post office. This last task alone is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. So, about 98% of the total effort is Bernice’s.

Then, lo and behold, when the package arrives in Portugal, I discover that I have equal billing. I am truly blessed.

I was going to tell you this week about my Nespresso machine, but I’ve decided to put that on hold. Instead, I want to tell you about my thespian adventure last Shabbat.

The occasion was the barmitzvah of one of our multitude of great-nephews. Danny, my brother and sister-in-law’s third grandchild, acquitted himself magnificently, much to nobody’s surprise, despite the considerable challenge of having to read a very long and challenging double portion not in an acoustically-constructed synagogue as would happen in a normal year, but, rather, in the street, for a congregation that included those socially distancing outside their houses some tens of yards away. His reading was tuneful (how wise he was to arrange for his voice to break early enough for him to be already more or less settled into his adult voice), accurate and crystal clear, despite the considerable acoustic challenges.

The only thing to spoil what was a wonderful shabbat was the fact that none of his three surviving grandparents were able to attend, all being held more or less prisoner in England. Which is where I come in.

My brother Martin, showing a flattering level of trust in me, asked me whether I would be prepared to deliver his ‘address to the barmitzvah boy’ on his behalf. No pressure there, then!

I, of course, assured Martin that I would feel privileged. In other circumstances, the following week – waiting for the script to arrive – would have been a little nerve-wracking: What have I let myself in for? I have my reputation as a public speaker to consider! However, I only needed to remind myself that this was Martin to know that, when the text arrived, it would be beautifully written, simultaneously profound and simple, and very moving. As, indeed, it was. What it also was – and this did, to be honest, surprise me – was early, arriving in my inbox six full days before last Shabbat!

Which, of course, gave me plenty of time to practice my Chigwell accent and to get used to wearing a thick, white wig. I sorted out suitable slacks (Martin and I are, so we are told by our wives, the last two people left alive who call slacks ‘slacks’ – and they say that as if it were a bad thing!), and the Martin-est pair of loafers I own. (I remember reading that some great actor or other always starts getting into character by deciding what shoes the character wears, and putting them on. Works for me.)

Eventually, my moment arrived, at 7PM on Saturday afternoon. (As my late father always said: ‘I don’t know why they can’t have before-dinner speeches – then we could all enjoy our meal!’) I was, I admit, extremely nervous. After all, I was carrying a heavy responsibility on my shoulders.

Speaking for myself, I enjoy speaking for myself (although I still get nervous – but a bit of adrenaline never hurt anyone). However, speaking ‘as’ my brother was a whole other ball game. And this wasn’t a 50-second perfunctory Oscar acceptance speech on behalf of a colleague; it was an 11-minute, 30-second full-blooded exegesis and tear-jerker, best appreciated with an IQ of at least 125 and a small pack of Kleenex, on behalf of a close blood relative..

However, I needn’t have worried. If you’re working with good enough material, then that’s more than half the battle. When it was all over, several of the guests said some very kind things; one even suspected me of being not a great-uncle at all, but a hired gun just playing the part. Those who are serial attenders of the family’s smachot said that it was almost as if Martin were delivering it himself, and that I took as a great compliment.

Of course, I dialed a lot of the comments down, since they were made by Americans, and I learnt long ago that there is hardly any limit to how far a reasonable English accent and clear enunciation will get you with Americans. Even so, I found myself wondering about the fact that, if I may be immodest, both Martin and I are able to draft, and deliver, a speech that will hold an audience.

Is this, I mused, an inherited or acquired skill? As it happens, both of our parents were also good public speakers, although my mother came to it quite late. (Now I think of it, all four of our children also speak very well in public.) Nevertheless, I think part of the credit goes to Ilford County High School, which we both attended for seven years.

Among the extra-curricular activities at ICHS were thriving junior and senior debating societies, and we were both enthusiastic members. As well as formal debates, there were other occasional activities.

One of these was the Balloon Debate, in which it was imagined that a hot-air balloon holding four disparate personalities was plummeting to earth, with no further ballast to jettison. In order to save the balloon, one of the passengers needed to be thrown overboard. Each of four pupils was assigned one of the personalities in advance, and each had to argue why they should not be the one to be discarded. After the four speeches, the audience voted on which of, for the sake of argument, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and William Shakespeare to eject.

More challenging was the Hat Debate, in which a number of motions for debate were placed into a hat and two speakers were selected to draw one motion from the hat. The toss of a coin determined who would speak in favour of the motion, and who against. With no preparation time, the two then spoke, and, again, the audience voted.

This was always a fairly risky entertainment, because sometimes speakers were not up to the challenge of ad libbing on the motion, let us say: ‘This House believes that the world would be a better place had television not been invented’. Fortunately, many, if not most, 15-year-old boys would find watching a classmate dry up completely and stand, frozen, like a deer in the headlights even more enjoyable than listening to a cogent argument on the evils of TV.

However, nothing could compare to the majesty of a full-blown debate, with a motion chosen and publicized two weeks in advance. The order of speaking (with strict time limits for each speaker) would be: proposer, opposer, seconder for the proposition, seconder for the opposition. The debate would then be thrown open to the floor, and the air would grow thick with arguments and counter-arguments, points of information and points of order. Eventually, the opposer and then the proposer would sum up, and the motion would be put to the vote.

I loved every aspect of it! The satisfaction of a speech carefully prepared, rehearsed and delivered, with its focus on the marshalling and construction of the arguments, but equally on the theatricality and the various techniques of persuasion. Balancing all of that was the ability to think on one’s feet, to adjust the prepared text so that it addressed, and undermined, ideally demolished, the points made by the other side.

And, to top it all, it was a competition, with a winner and a loser. I was, even then (perhaps even more then) a cut-throat competitor.

There were two years when Martin and I overlapped in the senior debating society, and, during those years, it was fairly usual for us both to speak at every debate, once the debate was thrown open to the floor. I remember a friend coming up to me after the fourth or fifth such debate and saying: ‘You do realise that, every time, you wait until after your brother has spoken, and then you always argue for whichever side he has not taken?’

I hadn’t actually realized, but, once it was pointed out to me, I had to admit that it was true.

Once a year – the mere memory of it sends a tingle down my spine – we held an inter-school debate, pitting our wits against those of the pupils of St Ursuline’s Convent School. Even at this distance, I find it hard to believe that the powers-that-be in both schools sanctioned this extraordinary co-mingling of 17-year-olds: boys in a single-sex school where the school secretary and the dinner ladies represented our only scholastic exposure to womanhood; Roman Catholic girls schooled by nuns.

It is difficult to exaggerate the degree to which the atmosphere was charged at these debates. A ground note was laid down of school pride and intense competitiveness. Flittering all around this was the frisson of seeing girls of the opposite gender actually on school premises, and in the same hall as us. As the debate wore on, a further layer was added. How many, and how explicit, doubles entendres could speakers from the floor introduce into the debate without being castigated or ejected.

I am not proud of this confession: in mitigation, I can only plead heptadecimality. In other words, we were seventeen. What did anyone expect?

Anyway, happy days! To be free to debate questions of cosmic importance: ‘This house believes it is better to know that one lives in the dark than to believe falsely that one lives in the light’ or of no consequence whatsoever: ‘This house believes in bubble gum’. To revel in our sophistry and intellect. To celebrate our wit and our brilliance. Above all (I see, from the perspective of 60 years ahead): to develop a whole range of abilities: to persuade and to carry an audience; to weave a logical argument and to follow another’s logical argument; to have convictions, and to recognize when they are fundamentally flawed; to listen critically; to be inspired. Looking back at Ilford County, I am not at all sure about the overall quality of the education I received, but the Debating Society was an education for life.

One effective device in public speaking is, of course, the use of repetition for emphasis.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned an unwritten rule among the circle of friends that I was in Israel with on a programme 53 years ago: whenever we meet, each of us is allowed to show just one photo of their grandchildren, and to talk about just one of their medical conditions. The group has another unwritten rule, one which I reinforced fiercely at our 50-year reunion: no religion, no politics.

In 1968, we were all united by our love for Israel, and by the common ground in our separate visions of what the country could become (would become, we were convinced). In the intervening half-century, it’s a sad but unavoidable fact that some of us have moved some distance away from that common centre, and many of us have found it increasingly difficult to focus on that centre, rather than on the issues that divide us.

‘No religion, no politics’ was, therefore, undoubtedly a sensible policy for our reunion, and it ensured that we all enjoyed three days of unadulterated nostalgia and warm, fuzzy feelings. (We did, however, veto the singing of Kumbaya. There is, after all, a limit to how much warm fuzziness a grown adult can take.)

In my blog, I have attempted to follow a similar path. I do not seek to court controversy, nor do I want to antagonize any of my readers.

This week, however, is not, in any sense, a normal week. I am writing this on Monday, and I find myself looking back to yesterday and forward to tomorrow.

Sunday (my yesterday) was declared a national day of mourning in Israel, to mark the terrible tragedy on Mount Meron last Thursday night, when 45 lost their lives, trampled underfoot. In a uniquely Israeli way, Israel radio marked this day with sad, reflective, wistful songs. There is a whole body of such songs that everyone here associates with the aftermath of terrorist attacks or other disasters. On this occasion, the selection of songs appropriately, and uncharacteristically, reflected the sensibilities, the idioms, the musical style and the tropes of the haredi (ultra-orthodox) community.

After a corona year in which tensions between the haredim and the rest of the population have often been strained, it felt as if the nation came together, if only fleetingly.

On the other hand, Sunday was a reminder that, despite two damning warnings by the State Comptroller in recent years, and despite warnings from various authorities, governments have repeatedly shirked the extraordinarily challenging task of compelling the ultra-orthodox authorities to recognize the urgent need to address the problem of severe over-crowding at Meron.

Tuesday (my tomorrow) is the day by which Binyamin Netanyahu must either form a government or return the mandate to President Rivlin. While there are still many possible permutations that could result in the formation of a (more stable or less stable) government, the dreadful prospect still looms of a fifth general election in 28 months.

The whole period since the last election has been marked by wheeling and dealing, horse-trading, brinkmanship, false-kite-flying, jinking and feinting. To watch the multitude of political parties manoeuvering around each other is to despair of ever seeing anything approaching consensus in Israel.

I feel that, this week, it would make no sense for me to write about anything other than the state of the nation.

From my window, I can see the line of bunting suspended across our garden; the string of small Israeli flags flutter blue and white in the early evening breeze. Not so many years ago, most houses in our street, and almost all cars, flew the national flag at least for the two days of Yom Hazikaron (the memorial day for fallen soldiers and other forces and also for victims of terror attacks) and Yom Haatzma’ut (Independence Day), and often from Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) a week earlier until Yom Yerushalayim (marking the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967) some three weeks later.

This year, continuing the trend of recent years, flags seem to be much fewer and farther between. I sometimes feel this reflects a deeper malaise in Israeli society. The Israel Democracy Institute found, between June and October 2020, a very significant decline in public trust in most State institutions, including the Supreme Court (trust down from 52% in June to 42% in October), Israel Police (down to 41%), the media (32%), the Government (25%) the Knesset (from 32% in June to 21% in October) and political parties (from 17% to 14%).

For a democracy, these figures are little short of frightening. (I originally wrote ‘functioning democracy’; however, I find myself wondering to what extent a democracy can be described as functioning if 79% of the population do not trust their elected representatives.) You can view the full report here.

W B Yeats wrote, in other circumstances: ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’ and I feel, and sense that others feel, that this may reflect the situation we are facing in Israel. Someone made the point to me last week that part of the reason for this is that, over the last decade, the perceived shared centre, the sense of a commonality of purpose, the social contract, respect for the other, have all but disappeared in many quarters. Historically, while the various factions in Israeli society had very different ideologies, they all respected the rule of law and the decisions of the electorate.

It is, perhaps, only natural that, in the early years of the State, that mutual trust and sense of shared purpose was stronger. After all, the very establishment of the State represented an immense achievement for the Jewish people, and a total contrast to what was happening to Jews in Europe a mere four years previously. There was so much clear common ground to stand together on, waving the flag and singing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, in unison.  

The euphoria of the establishment of the State, and the thrill, 19 years later, of the miracle of victory in the Six-Day War, have moved from being current affairs to being historical events. In their wake they have brought other existential challenges that cannot be so easily met, and moral dilemmas that offer no easy solutions. Uniting around a common cause is no longer so clear-cut.

However, there are still occasions when the country comes together, and this is the season of the year when this is most noticeable. It starts with Pesach’s seder night, observed in one form or another by a staggeringly high percentage (perhaps as high as 96%) of the Jewish population. It moves on to Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron, climaxes on Yom Ha’atzma’ut, and fades away with Yom Yerushalayim.

Every year, the central and defining element in the official opening ceremony for Yom Ha’atzma’ut is the lighting of 12 beacons, by 12 invited honorees. Every year, a theme is chosen for the selection of honorees. This year’s theme was Israeli Brotherhood. (In the name of political correctness, that should probably be Israeli Siblingitude, but I can’t quite bring myself to write that.) Bernice and I found this year’s selection of the honorees, and their brief speeches/declarations, very moving. Celebrating both the diversity and the inter-dependence of Israeli society, the ceremony provided the starkest possible contrast to the Prime Minister’s self-congratulatory pre-recorded presentation that was screened during the ceremony, which was little more than a personal political promo.

The most depressing aspect of this entire political season is the total absence of any discussion of ideas or ideologies, policies or manifestoes. What should be, for a political party, the means to an end – gaining enough political influence to be able to enact policy – has become an end in itself. The entire ‘debate’ over the last weeks has been about how a government can be formed, and not a word has been spoken about what that government will plan to do, once it is formed.

This is not for lack of problems that need to be addressed. While the challenges from outside attract attention – Iran, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey, Russia, America (feel free to choose your favourites, and, indeed, to add to the list) – the internal challenges pass virtually unnoticed. In the fields of social welfare, equality of opportunity in the workplace, affordable housing, development of natural resources, educational and medical infrastructure, there are so many areas that need urgent attention. The tremendous quantity and quality of the contribution made by voluntary organisations in Israel and in the Jewish world partially masks the neglect shown by the State in all of these areas.

So, do I focus on the honorees’ selflessness or the Prime Minister’s self-regard on Yom Ha’atzma’ut? On the way the country came together on Sunday to mourn those who died at Meron, or the way the country failed to come together in the last years to address the problem of the disaster that was waiting to happen? On the sense of public duty that attracts young women and men to enter politics, or the cynicism of political leaders sacrificing principles to expediency in order to hold on to political power, then doing nothing with that power?

Perhaps it is wrong to think that the world is made up of those who see the glass half-empty, and those who see the glass half-full. Perhaps what we need is to be able to draw strength and encouragement from the half that is full, so that we can strive to combat the half that is empty.

And here’s someone who seems already to be aware of both halves.