Week 15: Monday

Yesterday marked 100 days, a figure which not only resonated here in Israel, obviously, but which also echoed worldwide, in a variety of ways. Most notably in Turkey, perhaps, where Sagiv Yehezkel, an Israeli footballer playing for local team Antalyaspor, dedicated to the hostages a goal he scored, displaying on a bandage on his hand the inked message ‘100 days 7.10.’ As a consequence, he was suspended by his team and detained by the police for questioning with regard to a possible charge of incitement against the state. We have just heard that he has been released by the police and is expected to be expelled from the country. (Update: he has landed safely back home.)

In South Africa, the Jewish captain of the national under-19 cricket team was relieved of the captaincy on the eve of the Cricket World Cup being hosted by South Africa ‘for fear of endangering his safety in the face of expected pro-Palestinian protests at the event’.

In Mauritania, the exhibition that an artist friend of ours was invited to make, after travelling in West Africa and painting what she saw, has been cancelled for fear of antisemitic and anti-Israeli demonstrations and a real worry that the gallery would be burned down if it displayed non-political paintings of West African scenes by an Israeli artist.

And, of course, in The Hague, the International Court of Justice is trying Israel for genocide. Israel agreeing to this Orwellian trial is either a very smart or a very stupid move.

The statement from the German Government spokesman, when discussing his country’s request for third-party status at the hearing, was very encouraging: “In light of German history and the crimes against humanity of the Shoah, the German government is particularly committed to the [UN] Genocide Convention…We stand firmly against a political instrumentalization [of the Convention]… The German government decisively and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice.”

David Cameron, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, when asked whether he thought Israel has a case to answer in the ICJ, stated: “No, I absolutely don’t. I think the South African action is wrong, I take the view that Israel is acting in self-defence after the appalling attack on October 7… To say that that country, that leadership, that armed forces…have intent to commit genocide, I think that is nonsense.

The US has stated that the allegations against Israel “are unfounded” and has called the submission at the ICJ “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

So far, so good. Naturally, the hearing also gives Israel an opportunity to make its case before a world audience that may find it difficult to ignore that case. While many of the ears Israel’s presentation of its case falls on will doubtless be deaf, there may be others that are prepared to listen.

The make-up of the justices hearing the case suggests that South Africa’s claim may even be rejected. While the judges do not represent their governments but are independent magistrates, nobody is under any illusions that Iran and its axis of evil partners will be swayed by Israel’s arguments. However, among the nationalities of the judges are several whose governments are not irrevocably hostile to Israel.

The 15 permanent judges hail from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Morocco, Russia, Slovakia, Somalia, Uganda, and the United States. In addition, the parties to the hearing (South Africa and Israel) are each allowed to nominate a judge. It is not impossible to imagine a scenario where that panel votes 8-7 to reject the South African claim of genocide.

As I remarked to Bernice the other day, either the claim is rejected, which will be a good thing, or we will have an even clearer understanding of who our enemies are, which will be a good thing.

Meanwhile, in today’s (Monday’s) Jerusalem Post, Senior Editor David Brinn makes the excellent point that the slogan ‘Bring Them Home Now’ implies that the obstacle to the return of the hostages is our government or our army. Of course, this is not true. “The enemy is Hamas, and they would like nothing more than for the internal struggles that gripped Israel before October 7 to reemerge as a dominant force, with blame replacing unity as the primary fuel running the country… Hamas…could spare their people unimaginable suffering by simply doing one thing:” releasing the hostages. That, argues Brinn, needs to be the slogan going forward. Let us call on Hamas to ‘Let Our People Go!’ He makes a lot of sense.

Happy Talky Talky

After due reflection, we have come to the conclusion that we are a family for whom language matters, and one of the joys of this visit has been observing the language skills of all three of the boys.

Tao has spent most of his first four years with his parents, both of whom – Micha’el in English, Tslil in Hebrew – have avoided talking childishly to him. He also seems to have inherited his parents’ relish for language and his father’s ear. As a result, his command of English is very impressive. This obviously includes a mature vocabulary, but also an ear for accents.

Exposure to American children’s videos means that for his own imaginative play, when he is pretending to be a super-hero (or, more often, a super-villain such as the Green Goblin or Dr Spooky), he speaks in a pretty convincing American accent and register. In addition, when he combines his language skills with his considerable negotiating skills, he is often able to persuade his parents to see his point of view on issues such as bedtime or food treats.

Tao’s Hebrew is not as strong as his English. Although Tslil is very disciplined about always speaking to him in Hebrew, he usually answers her in English. One considerable side-benefit for Tao of his visits to Israel is that his interactions with his mother’s family, and with children of friends, help his fluency and confidence in Hebrew.

While his Portuguese is currently very much his third language, this is something that will, naturally, become stronger in the years to come.

Ollie, on the other hand, gets by at the moment with basically one sound: the schwa. (This is the sound of the second ‘a’ in ‘America’ or the ‘e’ in ‘item’.) Remarkably, Ollie can use this single sound, in combination with a set of hand signals, head movements, and body postures, to convey almost anything he wants to express.

While he usually only verbalises this one sound, there is nothing that Ollie does not understand. Indeed, the gap between his listening comprehension and his spoken expression sometimes seems ridiculously large. However, Bernice keeps reminding me that Micha’el did not speak until he was almost three (since when, of course, he hasn’t stopped).

What is slightly surprising, given his current limited range of speech, is that Ollie is quick to mimic, and has a good ear for mimicking, sounds that he hears. His animal sounds are very good; he quickly copied my tongue-clicking when I was imitating a horse’s clippety-clop; he adopted his brother’s raspberry blowing depressingly quickly; and, when Tao blew through a long tube and produced a note something like that from a shofar, Ollie immediately reproduced a remarkably similar sound without any tube or other artificial aid.

On our weekly visits to Zichron, we of course have the opportunity to see Raphael’s progress, in language acquisition. Like Ollie, he understands everything, and, unlike Ollie, he has a rapidly-growing vocabulary. While he very much favoured English until a couple of months ago, the influence of his gan has brought his Hebrew on tremendously (not least with such phrases as “בא לי” (I’d like…) or even, occasionally, “לא בא לי” (“Don’t want to). Paradoxically, what was always “מים” has now, for some reason, become “water”. He has also now graduated from a generic term that covered both Esther and Maayan to referring to Esther exclusively as “Mummy” and Maayan exclusively as “אמא” (Ima).

In addition, Raphael is now moving from single word statements to two- and three-word sentences, which he does not really appear to find quite as exciting a development as I do. Indeed, rather like his, and Ollie’s, ever-advancing walking skills, he seems to take it all in his stride.

As always, to spend any time with young children is to stand in awe of how they achieve what they achieve, at what speed, and with what apparent lack of effort.

A House Full of Action…and Then It Wasn’t

From Shabbat afternoon until Sunday morning, we had a houseful. Esther, Maayan and Raphael arrived to join Micha’el, Tslil, Tao and Ollie for a last overnighter. What a joy to see the three cousins interacting!

Then on Motzei Shabbat we had all the adult extended family round to see our lot, and for us to celebrate, very belatedly, Esther’s 40^th birthday. Uncharacteristically for us, the evening was marked by no formality: no speeches, no music, no presentations; just an opportunity for everyone to catch up and make a fuss of the three boys, all of whom stayed up and sociable way past their normal bedtimes.

The following morning, the kids somehow managed to keep the grandkids away from Nana until 8:30. When they could contain them no longer, they erupted into our bedroom, and we were soon up and into action. After Esther and family left mid-morning, Bernice and I spent the rest of the day with Tao and Ollie, while Micha’el and Tslil somehow managed to condense all of their varieties of stuff, including the many gifts the boys had been given by generous family and friends, into their cases and rucksacks.

This morning, after a last breakfast, and games, and stories, and one last puppet show from Nana (with Zippy – a shout-out to all the Rainbow fans among my readers), the taxi arrived at 9:45 and suddenly we were, once again, two old fogies banging around our suddenly huge house.

Games, toys, books, trikes, baby chairs, floormats, kids’ table and chair were all stowed away in record time. Birthday banners and balloons were taken down; floors were swept; kinetic sand was cleaned from Lego cars; marbles were retrieved from under sofas; the extraordinarily loud and aggravating battery-operated noise-maker toy that Micha’el and Tslil conveniently omitted to pack was discreetly disposed of. Finally, Bernice and I sat down to a quiet and leisurely breakfast.

…and in five weeks we fly off to Portugal.

Meanwhile, some photos, including a rare one of all three boys together (at Esther’s last week).