The Great Depression was, ultimately, a good thing for Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish furniture maker. In reaction to his business struggling in 1930, he started building miniature scale models of his various designs, to show to potential customers. This inspired him to branch out into toys, and, in 1934, he gave his company a new name based on the Danish for “play well”. In 1947, injection moulding as an industrial process was introduced to Denmark, and Christiansen, ever enterprising, bought an injection moulding machine for his company. In the same year, he obtained samples of plastic, interlocking Kiddicraft bricks. In 1958, he patented a toy brick with cylindrical protrusions on the top face, and hollow tubes on the undersides, and Lego, as we know it, was born.

Fast forward to 2025 and Lego seems to have weathered several storms. Despite its patents having expired all over the world, and competition from many copycat manufacturers, Lego is still a prestige brand, and, astonishingly, manufactures more tyres every year than any other company in the world. The question of copies is ironic, since Lego arguably copied the interlocking concept from Kiddicraft.

All of which is an introduction to the fact that one of this Portugal trip’s greatest hits was a non-Lego rip-off pirate ship kit that Bernice spotted in Maxstock. Tao is a great Lego fan, and we have been fairly impressed with the quality of the significantly cheaper copies we have bought him a few of in the last year or so. The pirate ship was a particular hit, not only because it feeds into one of his favourite imagination games, but also because the ship comes equipped with an anchor that can be wound up (not, sadly, by turning a capstan in a horizontal plane, but rather by turning a cog-wheel in a vertical plane, but you can’t have everything). It also features a ship’s wheel that actually turns, a rudder that moves from side to side, a trapdoor that reveals a treasure chest with jewels, and, the cherry on the top, a cannon that actually fires a Lego cannonball an impressive distance. This guarantees hours of fun as you fish under the cupboard with a broom handle, in an attempt to locate the fired cannonball.

It was probably a mistake to follow up the pirate ship (which was our last Shabbat’s present to Tao) with a film night on our very last night in Portugal (Sunday night) that featured Disney’s 1952 animated Peter Pan. While Tslil was a little concerned by the darkness of a few moments, and I was appalled by the shameless sexism of the portrayal of Tinkerbell, the mermaids, and even Wendy, Ollie enjoyed his first entire film, particularly the ticking crocodile, and Tao was captivated by Peter’s antics, delighted laughed hysterically at Smee’s bumbling ineptitude, and completely captivated by Captain Hook’s suavity and sinister aura.

What this meant on Monday morning was that Tao insisted on wearing his magician’s cape – inside out, so that the scarlet lining was on the outside; he also insisted on a long-sleeved t-shirt (despite temperatures in the high 30s), because it enabled him to hide his hand and clutch a terrifying hook fashioned from a tube game. Hardly any area of the house was safe; at any given moment, the sofa, or the kitchen table, might be requisitioned as Hook’s pirate ship. Unfortunately, his pirate’s hat has, over the last months, been ravaged in numerous near-fatal encounters with opposing navies and other enemies, so we will have to be sure to bring out a sheet of black sol (a kind of centimetre-thick, rubberised foam sheet, a little more flexible and durable than card, that can be easily cut, shaped and stuck, and is used in craft projects) for making a tricorn.

In all of these games, as in so much of their lives, Ollie is both a valuable playmate and an eager sponge. By osmosis, he seems to be absorbing more and more of Tao’s knowledge of arithmetic, as well as his abilities for very rich imaginative play and construction work, with Magnetiles or Duplo. He also unerringly echoes some of Tao’s favourite phrases, with very accurate intonation. As the boys grow, one of the great pleasures during our visits is to see how well they get on together.

On Sunday afternoon, we all went down to the gym for a private unveiling. After huge efforts over the last couple of weeks, with Grandpa chipping in as floor-layer’s first mate, and Micha’el and Tslil putting in long hours, the gym is now virtually ready to open, and they hope to start taking paying customers in another week or so. It certainly looks and feels a very professional space, and, having tried out, for the briefest of sessions, the multigym and the rings, I can vouch for the enthusiasm and positive attitude of the personal trainer, as well as the challenge of bodyweight training.

This family outing was also an opportunity for a whole range of family photos. Needless to say, we have taken hardly any photos on this trip, but we certainly made up for it on Sunday, and have a number of great shots to take home.

Apart from pirates, Monday morning was spent packing, clearing away, ticking our way through our ‘leaving Portugal’ checklist, and wondering whether the industrial action at Lisbon airport would affect our flight. I am writing this from the departure lounge. So far, things have gone smoothly (although I am once again reminded of the man dropping past the 29^th floor of the Empire State Building). If you are reading this on Tuesday morning, then you will know that we are safely back in Israel, in Zichron Yaakov actually, ready to resume our adventures with Raphael and catch up with Esther and Maayan. All the family within 24 hours! Bernice and I never dreamed we would have so much to look forward to in our retirement.

Philosophical question. If I tell you that a post headline is clickbait, have I effectively de-baited it. Whether I have or no, this week’s post title is unabashedly clickbait. I’m here to talk about life in rural Portugal. Gotcha!

I was reading the Penamacor municipality’s glossy twice-yearly magazine the other day (that Google Lens is pretty good at translating while standing on one leg!) and my eye was caught by an article describing a public meeting in Penamacor, presenting a report commissioned by the inter-municipality of Beira Baixa.

Since Beira Baixa is not a name I have dropped in these pages much, if at all, over the last five years, let me bore you with a brief description of Portugal’s political structure.

All of Portugal is divided into some twenty provinces (seventeen more than Gaul). Penamacor is in the fourth largest province (in terms of area): Castelo Branco (which is also the name of the province’s capital city). Each province is divided into municipalities. The village of Penamacor, with a population of about 6000, is the largest parish in, and the ‘capital’ of, the municipality of Penamacor, which is itself part of the inter-municipality, or district, of Beira Baixa, a looser association formed to formulate and carry out policy common to several municipalities (in Penamacor’s case, 8) within a single district.

Castelo Branco is Portugal’s fourth largest province in terms of area, covering almost 7% of Portugal’s total land mass. However, its population of 226,000 represents only about 2% of the country’s population. This reflects the imbalance in the distribution of Portugal’s population. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto together constitute only 5% of its total land area, but they contain almost 45% of the country’s population.

This uneven distribution is largely a result of the economic boom that began in the 1960s and led to mass migration from the hinterland, especially the rural North (where Penamacor is situated) to the urban centres. This was coupled with a drop in the birth rate to well below natural replacement levels,

So, back to the report commissioned by Beira Baixa. The authority commissioned the Castelo Branco Polytechnic to conduct an analysis of population change in the district. Specifically, the report focussed on the immigration situation and dynamics in Beira Baixa from 2008 to 2023.

The report revealed that recent migration has played a fundamental role in reshaping Beira Baixa’s population dynamics, reflecting growth trends that contrast with the region’s historical recession. The total population of Beira Baixa is just over 80,000, having dropped by about 10,000 in the decade before 2010. However, the number of legalized foreigners living in the inter-municipality was 1,856 in 2008. By 2023, it had grown to 6,786, a 265% increase. In Penamacor itself, over the same period, the number grew from 58 to 440, a 758% increase. Since Ollie is a Portuguese citizen, our family has contributed only 3 to this figure.

If the kids’ subjective perception is a guide, this number has increased considerably in the two years since the survey was completed. Even on our visits, when I venture no further afield than the supermarket and the dog walk to the forest, I almost always come across at least one or two new faces during every trip.

Due to this growth, the real population in the territory of Penamacor, in 2023, increased by 49 inhabitants, resulting from a positive migratory balance of 130 inhabitants, as opposed to a negative natural balance of 81 inhabitants. This growth and population inversion is happening for the first time in the last 50 years and enhances the development strategy of the municipality, reinforcing the growth of the school community in the last three years.

The report also indicates that the United Kingdom and Germany are the countries that supply the most new residents to the municipality, although other North European countries are also well represented.

During the preparation of this analysis, about 400 surveys were carried out with immigrants residing in the territory, which showed that, despite the structural challenges, Beira Baixa has been attractive to immigrants and has the potential to deepen this path of animating development at local and regional level. Researchers also carried out interviews and focus group sessions with a very large number of local interviewees, from a variety of institutional and business spheres, and the general perception of immigrants was positive in most municipalities, highlighting their contribution to the local economy and to the maintenance of essential services.

The authors also highlight that, from the community’s perspective, this immigration represents an opportunity to revitalize the economy and combat depopulation, but it requires effective inclusion strategies, with the most pressing challenges including housing, language barriers, and access to public services.

From our limited perspective, it seems to me that Tslil and Micha’el and the boys are integrating successfully in the local community, meeting all of the above challenges successfully. I suspect, looking at their circle of immigrant friends, that their integration is well above average for the immigrant community. They certainly deserve for it to be, because it is something whose importance they have long been aware of, and they have invested considerable time and effort in ensuring their successful absorption in the local community.

Which is just as well, because Micha’el’s parents have made hardly any effort. We can still barely scrape together two words of Portuguese, and our interactions with the village include a lot of Bom diases or Boa tardes (depending on the time of day), a fair number of Obrigados and Desculpas, and an inordinate amount of smiling and nodding, but precious little more than that. Almost everyone we meet knows who we are; half the time, Lua, or the boys, are our calling card. We, on the other hand, know very few locals, beyond shopkeepers and the kids’ immediate neighbours. Fortunately, being the kids’ parents wins us a fair degree of affection and regard with no effort required on our part.

As I have grown to know Bernice better over the years (indeed, let’s be honest, decades), one of her qualities that I have grown to admire more and more is the extraordinary intelligence she shows in understanding people, their emotions and their motivations. If I cast my mind back, I think it was something that I was aware of even way back when, but, with each additional year, I grow more acutely aware of it, and admire it more and more.

In fairness, there are times when I admire it more, and times when I admire it less. As it happens, last week marked one of the latter occasions. Micha’el and Tslil are very much occupied with the final stages of renovation of the premises they are renting for their gym and studio, and, when Micha’el announced that the studio walls were ready to be painted, I offered to help. Quick as a flash, Bernice observed that I was only volunteering because it would look good in the blog, a remark no less hurtful for containing just a sliver of truth in it.

Micha’el and I had a very productive couple of hours, and completed the painting of the upper half of the walls, which, because it is a very attractive mid-grey with a slight bluish tinge, being painted on top of a not dissimilar existing grey, required only one coat. I’m hoping that we will be able to repeat the double act on the lower half of the walls in the next day of two. Since this will not require me spending extended time on a stepladder, it promises to be kinder to my calves. Mind you, if you spend a couple of hours in a gym, I suppose you should expect to come away feeling achy.

Since a couple of you have asked me privately for an update on this exciting project of the kids, this seems like the perfect time. To put the story in context, you have to remember that their efforts to register the business are being conducted in Portugal…and, in provincial Portugal at that….and, to make matters even more interesting, in rural provincial Portugal.

By this time, the kids had hoped that they would already be up and running, but there are two inter-connected obstacles that are preventing that. The first is the question of obtaining a licence. They are renting two premises opposite each other on a narrow side-street very close to the centre of Penamacor, a street that, in a normal town, would be an alley leading nowhere with no passing trade, but that, remarkably, in Penamacor enjoys a fair amount of pedestrian traffic throughout the day.

One space, which they will use as a studio for private lessons, was fairly recently renovated; the other, which will be the gym for general use, and will include a small office, the owner had been using for storage.

Ready to lay the floor

In order to start trading, the kids have to register their business and obtain a commercial licence. Micha’el accordingly arranged a meeting with the municipality, at which he submitted all of the necessary documentation. Extraordinarily, all of the paperwork was in order and he had brought all of the paperwork needed. It only remained for the clerk to determine into which category of commercial business the gym falls, and to issue the appropriate licence. Unfortunately, it appears that nobody had ever sought to register an equivalent business in Penamacor, and neither the clerk, nor, after consultation, his colleagues, were able to decide exactly which licence was appropriate. Currently, the problem has been kicked up the bureaucratic chain, and the kids are waiting for a decision. However, the municipal architect has given them the go-ahead to begin operating regardless; if there are any issues down the line, they will be addressed as and when they arise.

To complicate matters, the premises do not have a valid electricity clearance. This is much less serious than it sounds. Between the time that the building was renovated, a few years ago, and today, the regulations for electricity supply have changed, and the owner needs to arrange for the electricity company to carry out the necessary, but minor, adjustments required.

All being well, this should be resolved very soon, and then Tslil and Micha’el will be able to launch their business with an easy mind. They already have a number of potential clients interested in group classes. Increasing numbers of locals are asking the kids when the gym is going to open. Micha’el has actually already started individual training sessions with one client, and is offering a free assessment session to a second. While neither of them is in the kids’ target customer group (family men and women in their thirties), they both seem keen. One is in his fifties and the other in his seventies, and Micha’el is enjoying the challenge of building an individual program that is age- and fitness-appropriate, as well as the challenge of polishing his Portuguese. After his first sessions, he realised that he needs to strengthen his body-part vocabulary, but, as I pointed out, at least when he needs a word he has the necessary body-part on hand (or foot, or torso) to demonstrate.

When Tslil and I were at the pool with the boys last Thursday, a woman she knows from Pilates and from the forest school that Tao attends came over. She is currently launching a program of free classes for local residents to be offered by the municipality, and asked Tslil if she was interested in teaching a yoga class. Since this offers a steady income and no need to find students or chase them for payment, Tslil is understandably keen.

So, things are developing: a little slower than hoped, perhaps, but reassuringly steadily. You have to learn to adjust to the rhythm of Iberian life. Meanwhile, both of the kids are continuing with their existing work – Tslil teaching yoga and Micha’el teaching English online to Israeli schoolkids.

The other major development is that Tao is now officially registered in the Portuguese home-schooling program. In practice, this means that, starting in September, he will be taught at home, following the Portuguese school curriculum, and required to sit the national school tests. He is registered with the local school, which means in practice that he is eligible to participate in extra-curricular school activities. Tslil and Micha’el plan to teach him themselves, as well as hiring a tutot for the Portuguese-based subjects (language and culture/history). This last will almost certainly be online.

All of this means that at any time in the coming years, Tao will be able, should he wish to, to transition to merging into the formal school system, or, if later, to apply to university. The formal scheme offered by the authorities allows the kids to home-school while keeping all options open – the best of both worlds.

Which more or less brings you up to date, other than to say that last Friday we celebrated Ollie’s third birthday, a day of balloons and cake and a lot of wonderful presents. It is heart-warming to see how Tao and Ollie are very ready to share their birthday and un-birthday presents with each other – they do play together really well.

By the time this post is published, we will, astonishingly, be halfway through our four weeks here. It feels as though we only just arrived!

My goodness, we have a lot of ground to cover this week, so we had better get started.

It may come as a surprise to some of you to learn that this week’s is the first of four planned posts from Portugal. I know that I normally give some warning of any impending trip, but the fact is that things were very uncertain in the weeks immediately preceding our planned departure of July 1, what with the Iranian campaign and all. Bernice and I postponed our preparation until virtually the last moment, not wishing to tempt providence. Not that we are superstitious, of course. I used to be, but then someone told me that being superstitious is unlucky, so of course I stopped immediately.

Anyway, in the event, and despite Eeyore’s worst fears, Piglet won the day, and our entire journey day was almost as smooth as possible. Five days before we were due to leave, Bernice reminded me that we still needed to book a taxi to the airport. This is a mild bone of contention between us. Bernice feels that we are now too decrepit to face the walk from where a taxi would drop us close to the railway station in Jerusalem, to a seat (if we’re lucky) on the train. This involves lifting our luggage onto a security conveyor belt, negotiating three separate lifts or escalators, steering through the ticket gate, lifting the luggage onto the train, finding places to store the cases out of the way on the train, then, at the airport, retrieving our luggage, lifting it off the train, negotiating the ticket barrier and walking into the airport, which is on the same level. The alternative, a comfortable taxi ride with a friendly driver from outside our house to the airport entrance, has only one downside: the 350-shekel fare. I find it difficult to admit that we are so old and frail as to justify the fare, even though I know in my heart that Bernice is right.

However, when Bernice raised the question of booking a taxi, I was blessed with one of those rare inspirational moments of clear thinking that serve to reassure me that I have not yet completely lost it. I suggested that, rather than missing seeing Raphael (and his parents) on the Tuesday we return, we should pack and leave home on the Monday, drive to Zichron, pick up Raphael from gan and stay overnight with Esther and family, leave the girls our car for the month, take a taxi to Binyamina railway station (for only 40 shekels!), take the train to the airport, and then return to Binyamina, sleep for a couple of hours in the girls’ flat, pick up Raphael from gan, and then go home in the evening. Since the platform at Binyamina is at street level, this journey is much easier.

This meant that, for the first time, we were able to take Raphael to gan, rather than just pick him up. He is now approaching the end of his second year in this gan, and it is lovely to see how he has matured there and how he relishes his role as one of the big boys. Interestingly, he chose to play by himself on one of the swings, rather than playing with any of his friends. Normally, when we take him to the park, he always has half an eye looking for one of his friends from gan, and he always enjoys himself much more if he can run around and climb and kick a ball with friends, rather than having to rely on the inconsistent agility and limited stamina of his grandparents.

After a few minutes, we said our goodbyes to Raphael and returned to the flat, to pack our overnight things and prepare to leave. Esther had arranged to time her journey into work so that she could drive us to the station in our car (no need to transfer our cases), help us get the luggage on the train, and travel with us most of the journey. (She was working in Tel Aviv that day.) Although the day was, as always, very long, the journey was uneventful, although we experienced a couple of delays, and arrived in Penamacor an hour and a half later than we had hoped. We even managed a not unreasonable night’s sleep, and were ready for the boys when they came into our room in the morning.

Since then, our days have been as full, and as fun, as they always are here. We arrived to be greeted by a heatwave. Having left Israel in the high 30s, we were greeted by temperatures reaching 40^o for the first couple of days. Since the house is now equipped with an upright fan in each room, and the air conditioner in the kitchen is effective, conditions were less intolerable than we had initially feared. An added bonus is that it appears that 40^o is too hot even for flies, and there were far fewer in the house that we remember from last summer.

Over the last couple of days, the heatwave has broken (if that is the right word for temperatures around 35^o), and the flies have returned, at least in the cooler morning and evening hours. Even 35^o is a bit much for Lua, the family dog, who has so far refused to go into the forest when I take her for a morning walk. She doesn’t really ant to go out at all, but after I drag her up the road, we reach a point where she accepts the fact of the walk. However, there is a further point, beyond which she has, until now, refused to go. I have, I must admit, a certain amount of sympathy for her position.

Last Thursday, Tslil and I took the boys swimming in the local open-air pool. Although it is only a seven-minute walk from the house, it is located at the very top of the hill that our street climbs, and it is a challenging walk at 37^o with two children whose combined age is 9. I was therefore very pleased when Tslil suggested we drive. When we arrived, at about 4PM on a cloudless July afternoon, there were just two couples sunbathing on the grass slopes that surround the pool, and both the children’s pool and the main pool were completely empty. By the time we left, two and a half hours later, there were perhaps 15 people in the pool. The boys had free admission, and Tslil and I, as ‘residents’, were charged EUR 2.70 each. So, that is the equivalent of ILS 21,00 for the four of us to have a full-size pool virtually to ourselves.!

Since we were last here, Tao has become much more comfortable in the water. The kids have an inflatable toy dinghy that Ollie was happy to sit in almost the whole time, squirting water to put out imaginary fires. Having been given a couple of hours’ warning, I had time to buy a very fetching pair of bathing shorts from the China shop, and I was happy to spend a couple of hours cooling off in the pool with the boys.

Other than that, and the usual multiple supermarket shopping expeditions, there is not a lot to report. We have already given the boys two of the books we brought out, and they appear to be the only books Ollie wants to have read to him. He is, it must be said, rather an obsessive listener. Once he attaches to a book, he doesn’t want to let go. Fortunately, one of the two books is The Cat in the Hat, which, as far as I am concerned, stands up to being read multiple times every day. The only problem is, of course, that any mistake in reading is immediately pounced on by Ollie, who quickly committed the entire book to memory.

On Shabbat afternoon, Tao and I built a Lego robot, and I have found it fascinating how Tao has interacted with the robot since. We were both pretty pleased with the end result, but I did not expect the robot to prove as popular as it has. Since Shabbat afternoon (about 53 hours at time of writing), the robot has barely left Tao’s hand. It has featured in all of his imaginative play, and has had a starring role in all of the interactive puppet shows that Bernice and the boys improvise several times a day. When we played a board game this morning, the robot played for Tao.

I used to think of Lego as a construction toy, but Tao has demonstrated since Shabbat that it is, of course, a construction, destruction and reconstruction toy. Literally tens of times every day, Tao breaks the robot up and then effortlessly builds it again. The breaking-up is often a side-effect of the robot wrecking a magnetile tower-block, However, sometimes Tao just disassembles and reassembles the robot, treating it almost as a six-year-old’s equivalent of a set of worry beads.

This is, of course, also a large part of the appeal of magnetiles, which are even easier than Lego to take apart and put together. Tao has been a dedicated magnetiler from a very young age, and Ollie has learnt from sitting alongside him. Tslil mentioned the other day that, although she rotates many of the boys’ toys, she never ‘rests’ the magentiles, because they are played with every day.

The other day, we were able to observe the extent of Tao’s construction skills. In the past, Tao has helped Micha’el assemble a number of standing fans. This time, with no guidance, Tao assembled the fan we had just bought. When Micha’el checked the fan afterwards, he only had to make one minor adjustment. We can only hope that, finally, someone in the family will have a marketable skill that pays well. It should also improve Tao’s chances of being taken in by a closed community in the event of the apocalypse. My reading of the geopolitics suggests these are not trivial considerations.

There! Even in deepest rural Portugal, I can’t quite clear my mind of what is happening elsewhere. Perhaps by next week I will have managed to detox more effectively.

This week, I feel as though I want to step back and attempt to assess where we are. There are a few things I want to say in this post. Some of them may contradict others. I apologise for that. It seems to me that it is still premature to attempt any final assessment (of something that clearly isn’t finished). However, this feels like a good place on the road to pause and reflect. I apologise for any lack of clarity, and I’m really not sure that I can bring anything new or particularly insightful to the table. However, that has never stopped me before, so here we go.

Since 7 October, 2023, we have been fighting a war against Iran and its proxies. This war still has no name. That may be partly because the war has no single theatre: it has been waged and is being waged in Israel, in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iran, in Yemen, and, conceivably, in other theatres that we will learn about at some point in the future, or possibly not.

The lack of a name may also be partly because, for Israel, the war has never had a single, clear, achievable aim. Throughout the last 20 months, various aims have been proclaimed. Principal among these are: eradicating Hamas; returning the hostages; breaking the ‘ring of fire’ around Israel; preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; destroying Iran’s missile capability. Let’s take a closer look at these.

Israel cannot remove Hamas from Gaza: it can certainly mow the grass shorter than ever before (and has done so), but Hamas cannot be separated out from the population of Gaza and defeated. As long as there are Arabs in Gaza, and as long as some of them are attracted to Hamas, Hamas will continue to recruit new members to replace those who have been killed.

There are two possible ways to remove Hamas from Gaza. The first is to expel the entire Arab population from Gaza, and I am not proposing that. The second is for the population of Gaza to undergo a social reform. This would, presumably, need to be sponsored, fostered and nurtured by Arab countries that are allies of Israel, and would, I imagine, involve dismantling the entire corrupt UN infrastructure in Gaza. This is not something that will be completed in my lifetime. My feeling is that a 30-year plan is needed to achieve a situation where Gazans under 40 years of age are all deradicalized.

Israel cannot return the hostages from Gaza. It can work towards that, but only Hamas can return the hostages, and to couch the desire in terms of ‘bringing’ them home has been a constant source of unresolvable contention within Israel. Neither the Government, nor the IDF, nor the Mossad, can ‘bring’ the hostages home. In addition, creating the negotiating conditions under which Hamas will be prepared to return the hostages will certainly mean giving up on the aim of removing Hamas from power.

In terms of breaking the ring of fire, Israel has achieved a great deal, but, on every front, Iran’s proxies are weakened but not destroyed. This is, of course, a function of those proxies being terror organisations rather than sovereign states. A terrorist organisation cannot be defeated in war with the finality that a nation state can.

As for Iran’s nuclear capability, who knows how much we achieved? Were several hundred kilograms of enriched uranium smuggled out of Fordow before the American B-2s struck? Have we assassinated enough of the scientists and administrators of the nuclear program to set it back a generation? Regarding missile attacks, have we destroyed enough missile launchers, stockpiled missiles and missile factories to remove the threat of further missile attacks from Iran?

Much of the above feels like kicking the can down the road. Undoubtedly, a long way down the road; further than ever before. However, it is difficult, at this stage, to know how much the fundamental existential threat to Israel has been removed.

Let me say, at this point, that the name 12-Day War, to describe the campaign directed against Iran by Israel and then the US, is a misnomer. This was not a war, but rather a single campaign in the war that began on October 7. To see the threat of Iran as separate from the threat of Hamas, Hizballah, the Houthis and others is to misrepresent the role of Iran in the Middle East.

In fact, I would like to propose that we call the current war the Israel-Iran war, both to emphasise that all of the other forces of evil involved are mere tentacles of Iran, and to point out that America’s involvement, valuable and valued as it was, was momentary, and came only after the bombers’ path to and from the bombing site had been secured by Israel.

Last Friday, which was Rosh Chodesh, the first day of the month of Tammuz, shuls in Israel said full Hallel, rather than half Hallel – the shortened form of Hallel that is recited on Rosh Chodesh. (Hallel is a collection of psalms expressing thanks to God.) The reason for this decision was to express thanks for the success of the campaign in Iran over the last couple of weeks.

While I expressed, above, reservations about coming to any final conclusions regarding our success in waging the war and the impact it will have on the geopolitics of the Middle East, it is difficult to argue with the decision to say Whole Hallel. Let me try to give a sense of what I feel we have to be thankful for.

First and foremost, we need to give thanks that Hamas acted unilaterally and impetuously on October 7, assuming, as it did, that the other tentacles of Iran, and maybe even Iran itself, would join the assault on Israel. Horrifying and devastating as the assault on the Southern communities and on the Nova festival was, imagine how much worse it would have been, how much more thinly our national resources would have been stretched, if, at the same time, Hizballah had launched rocket attacks and a major incursion in the north, while the Houthis fired missiles from Yemen and Iran sent over wave after wave of ballistic missiles.

Then, we need to give thanks for the nationwide, immediate, unhesitating response to this assault. Countless stories of individual heroism continued to emerge even months after the events of those first 36 hours. Without in any way belittling the horrifying suffering visited on the thousands of victims of this assault, those who were murdered, raped, abducted or otherwise assaulted, it was only the selfless courage of so many of those present, as well as of the hundreds who rushed to the area, that prevented many thousands more being similarly abused.

We must also give thanks that each of the vast number of pieces that constituted the jigsaw of the Hizballah pager sting fitted perfectly. There were so many points at which the plan could have failed. That this sting demoralised the organisation as completely as it did is an incredible game-changer, and that this seems to have emboldened the government of Lebanon to stand up to Hizballah is even more remarkable.

The timing of the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria opened a potential air corridor for our fighter planes that we could secure, bringing Iran within much easier and safer reach of the Israel Air Force. Coupled with the ease and speed with which we neutralised Iran’s own air defences, this meant that we had total control of the airspace over Iran, and our planes were able to traverse the country with no losses.

Not least of all, we must give thanks that, within the Haredi community, there are growing numbers who recognise that they are part of this national struggle, and are choosing to serve in the army. From this modest but already growing start, a national change may well grow, until Haredi military exemption and avoidance are sought by only a minority of that community. What seems clear to me is that this necessary change can only come organically. No attempt to impose it by force can succeed.

Each part of this is deserving of thanks. Taken as a whole, it represents an alignment of positive outcomes that invites the adjective miraculous, whether used literally or metaphorically. All of the above is, of course, also testament to years, if not decades, of assiduous intelligence-gathering, brilliant planning, meticulous preparation and, finally, flawless execution. It all shows what can be achieved by a nation whose citizens recognise the justice of their cause and are committed to their surviving, and their flourishing, in their homeland.