The other day, a friend who had read last week’s post specifically made a point of asking me to “keep giving us the medical updates; they’re so funny.” I’ve been wrestling with this comment ever since, trying to decide whether I should feel flattered or insulted. On balance, I’ve decided that, if I have to suffer this string of health issues, at least let it be of some small benefit, bringing a smile to other’s people’s day.

I thought this week I would offer you a bouquet of vignettes, in no particular order. We will get back to my health, tangentially, later, but first:

One of the things that Micha’el and Tslil have discovered during their time here is that the interface of Portuguese and Israeli bureaucracies is the equivalent of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

I looked up ‘marriage’ in the dictionary: ‘the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship’. While Micha’el and Tslil, in their own eyes, formalized their relationship in a wedding ceremony, this was not a ceremony legally or formally recognized in Israel. According to the Israeli authorities, they are not married.

Portugal is a very traditional, Catholic country, and various administrative and bureaucratic procedures will be much easier for Micha’el and Tslil, as well as for Tao, if they are married. They therefore intend to get married in a civil ceremony. This will be in Portugal, not least because civil wedding ceremonies conducted in Israel are not recognized in Israel. (But that’s a whole other story.)

To prove their eligibility to be married, they are required by the Portuguese authorities to provide evidence that they are not already married. When they approached the Israeli authorities to request such evidence, they were informed that Israel does not issue formal recognition of single status. Rereading the last sentence of the last-but-one paragraph, I realize that it has two possible interpretations:

According to the Israeli authorities, they are not ‘married’. In other words, there is no record of them having been through a marriage ceremony.

According to the Israeli authorities, they are ‘not married’. In other words, there is a record of them not having been through any marriage ceremony.

The Portuguese authorities require this second interpretation, but the Israeli authorities do not recognize this.

The kids are left having to try to convince the Israeli authorities to issue a formal statement, while simultaneously trying to convince the Portuguese authorities to waive the requirement for a formal statement. I have a hunch about how this will pan out in the end, but I am, for the moment, keeping my own counsel.

While the kids have wrestled with these, and other, admin issues, Tao has started to get adjusted to life in Ma’ale Adumim. He was initially overwhelmed by the volume of traffic here: ‘Bus! Truck! Car! Digger! Motorbike!’. (Those of you who know Ma’ale Adumim will realize that this indicates just how sleepy Penamacor is.)

He has also had to cope with far more people at one time than he is used to. On Tuesday last week, we invited friends to hear Micha’el talk about their life, their plans, and his interest in water management. On Wednesday, we had our extended family over. As the last guests arrived, Tao was heard to say: ‘More?’.

Among the questions Micha’el was asked on both evenings was whether Tao is in any ‘framework’. I was, of course, unable to take part in the conversation, because I have to rest my voice. Had I been able to chip in, I would have said: ‘Yes! He is in the best possible framework – the nuclear family.’ Anyone who has spent any time seeing Tslil and Micha’el with Tao will understand what I mean.

My accumulated frustration over those two evenings at being unable to take a meaningful part in the conversation made me determined to find a way to change this. I managed to cobble together a kind of solution. I activated the Select to Speak functionality on my phone. This allows me to type a note on my phone, then select it, and have my device speak it aloud.

I haven’t yet tried this out in company, but it was very useful when we went to Kfar Saba last week. Bernice was driving, so I obviously couldn’t message her or show her notes on my phone. However, I was able to ‘play’ those notes to her.

Of course, this is not an ideal solution. Despite my carefully choosing a male voice not dissimilar to my own, my device insists on selecting a female voice. This leaves me feeling like a transgender whose wishes are being ignored.

What actually pains me more is that the voice has no sense of irony, no nuances of stress. All of my sparkling wit is blandly flattened.

Worst of all, repartee is impossible. When Bernice made a comment, I immediately thought of a riposte, typed it, activated the functionality and highlighted the text. My brilliant reply arrived about 40 seconds after Bernice’s comment. My wit suddenly had the turning circle of a transatlantic liner. This was not so much l’esprit de l’escalier as l’esprit de corpse.

Over Shabbat, of course, things were even more challenging. On several occasions, I resorted to miming. Now, our family are very fond of charades, and Bernice and I pride ourselves on being pretty good at miming, and, after almost 49 years of marriage, at guessing as well. However, it is one thing to mime ‘Dr Strangelove’, and quite another to mime ‘Adele and Martin went to an exhibition about the Czechoslovak Jewish teenage refugees who were brought to Britain after the war’.

This was, let us say, a quiet Shabbat, much given to reading and contemplation.

Indeed, Bernice and I are enjoying/suffering a respite from the kids. They went up to stay with Esther and Ma’ayan for a few days, and also to spend shabbat with Tslil’s family, camping on the Kinneret.

In all of these various groups, Tao has blossomed. He has been playing happily with his cousins, interacting with the various adults he has met for the first time, and moving effortlessly between English and Hebrew. It does not seem as though he will have a problem socialising as he gets older.

And finally*, for today, a recommendation. I know I am coming late to the party, and I also know that I have made this recommendation to several of you individually, but nevertheless…

On my morning walks, I have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History. This podcast describes itself as ‘Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past — an event, a person, an idea, even a song — and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.’

It is quirky, stimulating, amusing, fascinating. Gladwell convinces me that these are all subjects he is interested in (and the personal anecdotes that accompany many of the episodes certainly reinforce that impression).

The podcast also passes my two tests. First, despite the fact that Gladwell has a transatlantic accent (albeit Canadian), and despite the fact that I have been listening to an episode a day for six days in a row, neither the voice, nor the mannerisms, nor the structure, are yet grating on me at all. The subjects Gladwell selects are very wide-ranging (if, not unreasonably, US-centric), and the format and ‘take’ of each edition is very different.

The second test is that Gladwell can present a subject in which I have zero interest – Elvis Presley in performance, for example – and have me completely absorbed in his presentation. This is, for me, the mark of true communicators: they sweep you up in their enthusiasm.

*‘Finally’, of course, means except for the pictures. Tao has this week been learning chess with amateurs, as well as studying patisserie with a professional – his aunty ‘Es’.

Sunday

It’s good to know that there are some things you can always depend on. In a constantly changing world, there are still some immutables. Nobody could have predicted what corona has done over the last 15 months to the entire world. It’s a brave man who would have bet on the exact combination of parties that currently form Israel’s coalition government. Even Roger and Rafa may be passing their sell-by date.

And yet, reliable as ever, whenever man proposes, God can still be relied upon to dispose. This time last week, I blithely wrote, regarding my health: I don’t see the need to issue further bulletins.

And then……. And then…….

I’ve been sounding hoarse and repeatedly clearing my throat for a couple of months now, and last Sunday I felt sufficiently recovered from my hip operation to introduce my family doctor to yet another part of my anatomy. (He and I have long agreed that, considering that I have so many things wrong with me, I am remarkably healthy.) He saw me at 5 the same afternoon, took a quick look at my throat and then told me to wait outside while he contacted the ENT clinic to get me an urgent appointment. That rather spooked me.

9 o’clock the next morning found Bernice and myself very nervously waiting to be seen by a specialist, who seemed, by contrast, remarkably calm (But then, it wasn’t his throat!). He gave me a swift examination with a mirror, remained very calm, and then informed me that I had throat polyps. He didn’t examine me further or take a biopsy, but simply prescribed a throat spray for a month, and advised me to talk no more than necessary, and even then not to speak loudly or sing. I have an appointment to see him again after a month.

So, I have been inundating Bernice with WhatsApps several hundred times a day, and, when friends visited on Shabbat, I spent a lot of time nodding, and a little time trying, and mostly failing, to make a contribution to the conversation by assertive whispering. (This is, of course, an oxymoron and physical impossibility – and, incidentally, may cause more damage than normal speaking, according to Dr Google.) Tslil sees this month as a wonderful opportunity for me to meditate and get in touch with my inner self. (I’ll give that a moment to sink in.) Even after several years, she really doesn’t know me very well.

Over the last weeks I have had a few mood swings, particularly when I convinced myself that I was not making further progress in strengthening my legs. However, in the last couple of days I have started feeling improvement again, and have made some occasionally successful attempts to stay sunny. Bernice has, of course, as always, been incredibly understanding, and cut me far more slack than I deserve. After a very encouraging and reassuring visit from the physiotherapist earlier today, I feel a lot happier.

The greatest frustration has been that I am now no longer able to talk or read to Tao in any normal way. He has been as understanding as his nana, and we’ve developed a couple of games where I move my joints in response to commands from Tao, and we have also started reading very familiar books where I turn the pages and Tao tells the story. However, it is not easy for me to keep him engaged for more than a few minutes, without sliding into talking, which I really want to avoid.

Fortunately, I am now able to accompany Tao and Bernice on walks and to the park, and tomorrow we are planning to have a grandparents’ day out at the zoo with Tao.

Monday

And yet, reliable as ever, whenever man proposes, God can still be relied upon to dispose. This time yesterday, I blithely wrote: and tomorrow we are planning to have a grandparents’ day out at the zoo with Tao.

And then……. And then…….

I woke up this morning feeling dizzy and light-headed. Bernice is confident that it is nothing more than the effects of dehydration during the (very hot) night, after fasting yesterday. I probably just didn’t drink enough yesterday evening.

I’m a lot better now (apart from feeling awful that this blog is turning into a rejected screenplay for an episode of Dr Kildare), and I really only bore you with it to explain why, as Bernice and Tao watch the penguins being fed, and ride the zoo train, I sit here feeling sorry for myself and burdening you with my troubles in a way that I would never dream of doing if I were talking to you face to face…even assuming that I was able to talk to you face to face without aggravating either my polyps or you, or indeed, judging by how my luck is currently running, both.

And then, no sooner do I type that last thought, than I realise just how wonderfully my luck is actually running. We are currently in the middle of Micha’el, Tslil and Tao’s five-and-a-half week visit, during which we’ve been able to celebrate Micha’el’s birthday. With Esther and Ma’ayan, all seven of us have been able to spend time together. I’m recovering reassuringly well from my hip replacement op; in fact, my physiotherapist tells me I should no longer consider myself ‘after an op’. I have the most supportive family imaginable, led by the woman with whom I make a perfect match: I honestly don’t deserve her, and she definitely doesn’t deserve me. I have no idea what I did right in a previous existence, or she did wrong, but both acts must have been humungous.

Right! Enough of this cloying nonsense. If I’m going to gush, let me gush about two-and-a-quarter years of sheer delight – Tao. Rather than submit you to another 500 words of elaborating on his placid character, his powers of concentration, his sense of humour, his manual dexterity, his already evident self-possession, let me leave you with a video.

For his birthday, Micha’el and the family went to a climbing gym, or, as we afficionados call it (so I’m told), a bouldering gym. Dressed in his climbing shoes, Tao belied his tender years in a display of concentrated awareness both of space and of his body. His every move was considered, and his bodily control was almost perfect. (Alright then, just a little gush.) Perhaps most impressively, he had confidence in his abilities to go so far, and then he calmly decided when the time had come for him to descend. (Fortunately, his nana and grandpa weren’t there; if we had been, he would never have climbed so high, trust me!

Medical Bulletin: Making great progress. Walked 2 km today without using the stick. I don’t see the need to issue further bulletins. Thanks for all your good wishes.

I’ve been reading quite a lot of books this last couple of weeks, and doing a certain amount of thinking about books, and I decided this week I’d share some of those thoughts with you. I know that some of you are rather turned off by my musings on literature, but please don’t stop reading just yet. I hope this might be a bit more accessible than usual.

Let me first tell you some of the titles I’ve been reading, re-reading and thinking about: Inside, Outside, Upside Down; Five Minutes’ Peace; Meg and Mog; Grandma Goes Shopping; Where the Wild Things Are. Yes, this has been a fortnight of children’s picture books, and I must say it has been a real pleasure revisiting old favourites and discovering new treasures, and a double pleasure reading them to a totally absorbed and very appreciative listener and viewer, albeit one who knows very well what he likes and what he doesn’t. As the days have passed, I have found myself musing, not for the first time, about writing story books for young children. After all, how difficult can it be? All it takes is 200 words and a talented illustrator.

Well, the last month has given us all a painful reminder of the fact that not everybody can succeed in this endeavour. Even if you are a Hollywood actress, even if you are married to a prince, and even if you are a close friend of Oprah, you can still produce a children’s book that is a total embarrassment. If this has somehow flown under your radar, then I invite you to read The New Statesman’s searing review of The Bench, by Merghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.

Almost all of the books Tao has here (many of them saved from Esther and Micha’el’s childhoods) range from good to brilliant, but one or two have me puzzled. I am always surprised how much Tao enjoys one particular book about a builder constructing a bedroom over the garage for a family with a new baby. The book could virtually serve as a do-it-yourself manual: it goes into details of laying floor timbers, mixing sand, cement and lime to make mortar, nailing rafters, laying roofing felt, and so on and so forth. We even see the builder giving the customer a quote for the job.

There is little humour to lift the story, and both the storyline and the prose are…prosaic. Yet Tao finds it fascinating. Of course, this may be because he already realises that it is very much in his own interest to acquire all of these construction skills as early as possible.

Thinking about the books that he and I both agree are well worth reading, I have been drawing a few conclusions, which I present here.

The most successful books are those that engage both the adult (usually parent) reader and viewer and the child listener and viewer. There are two ways to achieve this. The easier way is to interweave humour and interest for the child with humour and interest for the adult. We are used to seeing this in the realm of film with the work of Pixar Animation Studios, whose full-length films almost always combine two sets of content so that they appeal to parents and children. In a children’s picture book, with its inherent limitation on number of words, it is much more difficult to sustain both plot strands.

The more challenging, but more economical, way is to present a single set of content that simultaneously appeals, at two different levels, to parents and children. Jill Murphy’s Five Minutes’ Peace achieves this, by focusing on the relationship between a mother elephant who desperately wants to have a quiet, soaky bath by herself, and her three children who constantly demand her attention.

The dialogue in this book is pitch-perfect: Murphy captures with complete accuracy the speech of mother and children. This must help the child listener identify with the elephant ‘children’, and certainly any mother of three children, or even one child, yearns, like Mrs Large, for five minutes’ peace. The book is accompanied by illustrations that highlight the humour of the situation, and despite the surface conflict of interests, both text and illustration make it clear how warm and close the bond between this mother and her children is.

Of course, picture books do not need to deal with everyday situations. The only thing unusual about Five Minutes’ Peace is that the family are not people but elephants. The Meg and Mog series of books, on the other hand, are about a witch who is always casting magic spells, and her adventures with her cat and owl. I wish I could ask Tao what he enjoys about these books, since he has no conception of what a witch is. I should perhaps ask Esther, whose absolute favourite Meg was, but I doubt whether she can remember exactly what appealed to her at age two.

The illustrations here are very stark, lacking the softness and the domestic detail of Five Minutes’ Peace. They do not expand the horizons of the story, but rather illustrate with great clarity the core plot. The regularity with which Meg’s spells go amusingly wrong and the strong personalities of all three characters make the books enjoyable to read. There is a briskness and energy in text and illustrations, and the text dances all over the illustrations, making an excitingly integrated whole. The word count is about as low as it can be while still narrating a rich story without becoming incoherent. Where Five Minutes’ Peace includes 460 words in 26 pages, Meg and Mog, in 28 pages, contains only 230 words.

A different kind of surrealism can be found in Grandma Goes Shopping, a book that takes an everyday character in an everyday situation, and weaves a bizarre story from this. Finding that the cupboard is bare, and Grandpa is ready for dinner, Grandma goes shopping. Her purchases begin with an amiable alligator and include a bicycle made for two and a variegated vicuna. However, they also include a round cheese and a fish for frying, which means that, in the last picture, we can see Grandma and Grandpa sitting down to a healthy meal.

The text is cumulative – the entire list is recited after each new purchase – which gives the listener ample opportunity to become used to the strange items and obscure words. In parallel with this growing list, the illustrations are packed with the kind of detail that an engaged viewer will love. A mouse that is not mentioned once in the text nevertheless appears in every illustration in a completely different place. Tao also finds great interest in some backgrounds that surprised me. For example, he always spends time identifying the various vehicles on an overpass in one picture – a background that I don’t think I registered until he drew my attention to it.

Looking back, it seems to me that all of my selections so far have been British – some of them very British, so it only seems fair to finish with two books from across the pond.

The first is a Berenstain Bear book: Inside, Outside, Upside Down. In the unlikely event that you are looking for a picture book to teach positional and directional spatial adverbs and prepositions, then this is the book for you. If, on the other hand, you just want a fun book to look at with a toddler, then this is still the book for you. Its 27 pages contain only 66 words, which means that any reader is going to have to improvise. Fortunately, the lively illustrations give reader/viewer and listener/viewer plenty to talk about. Since Tao is fascinated by the concept of position, he loves this book. He is particularly fond of ‘under’, specifically in the context of: ‘How far do I have to push my cars under the sofa so that we will need to use grandpa’s walking stick to get them out?’

And finally, the book that I haven’t yet persuaded Tao to let me read him. He is, in fairness, probably not yet ready for it, but I can’t wait until he is, because Where the Wild Things Are demonstrates just how great an art children’s picture books can be. The prose sings; the pictures dance. The narrative speaks to children and their parents simultaneously. As Max goes deeper and deeper into the imagined world, the illustrations take over the page, leaving no room for text; as he is pulled back to the real world, the text drives out the illustrations again. Celebrating both the power of children’s imagination and the strength of family love, Where the Wild Things Are is a magical journey and a profound lesson for children and their parents.

Well, that’s 1490 words, so I’m stopping here (and keeping the other 56 books on my list for another time). I’d love you to leave your recommendations in the comments. We’re always on the lookout.

No videos this week, I’m afraid, but I managed to catch a couple of reading sessions.

Medical Update: Making good progress: walking unaided around the house, with a stick outside; going for 30-minute walks; very little pain; approaching the point where I will have to pretend my recovery is slower, or Bernice will stop waiting on me hand and foot.

What do you do with the estimated journey time that Waze gives you? There are some people who trust Waze implicitly, and leave at exactly the time Waze indicates. A few people reckon they can shave at least 5 or 10 minutes off the time Waze suggests. And then there are those who allow twice the time Waze suggests, because ‘You never know what might happen.’

We have all, this week, been blessing the fact that Tslil falls into the last group, and that she was able to persuade Micha’el to leave early. Let me explain.

Direct flights between Portugal and Israel have not yet resumed, and so when the kids started planning their trip, they looked at a two-leg flight from Lisbon, with a layover in Madrid. We then pointed out to them, and they agreed, that it would probably be easier, with Tao, to drive to Madrid airport. At 370 km., it is only 100 km further than the drive to Lisbon.

The only concerns involved their truck. First was the question of parking, but Micha’el found a very reasonably priced long-term car park within ten minutes’ shuttle drive of the airport. It sounded ideal for their five-and-a-half week-stay.

The other concern was that the truck’s annual roadworthiness test was due shortly before their trip. The truck failed, unfortunately, and Micha’el had to take it to their local garage, where the necessary repairs were carried out at not too horrendous a cost. Micha’el felt he was cursed with car tests, since he had a record of several failures, after one of which, on the drive home from the test centre in Castelo Branco, the car broke down irretrievably.

So Tslil took the truck for its retest, three days before they were due to fly. The plan was that, if the truck failed, they would find a taxi-driver to take them to the airport. Fortunately, the truck passed.

So, around the middle of the day, Tslil, Micha’el and Tao set off for Madrid airport, allowing about 10 hours for the four-hour drive. Since their Portuguese mobiles do not have international roaming, Micha’el had loaded into Google Maps the car park address that he had previously saved. (Hold that thought!)

It was probably not a good omen that, on the journey, when they were stopped at a petrol station, a smoking car swerved into the station and screeched to a halt, two people leapt out, just before the car burst into flames. However, the kids were so relieved to have achieved, in the previous week, all of the tying up of loose ends, bureaucratic and on the land, that they needed to achieve, that they refused to be phased by the omen.

They made fairly good time, and were able to break their journey to give them all, and especially Tao, a chance to stretch their legs. Then they hit Madrid, and found themselves caught up in a horrendous traffic jam. It also seemed that they were driving much further into the heart of the city than they would have expected, for an airport car park. However, there was not much they could do except follow Google Maps, which eventually led them to a location that was clearly not a car park.

At this point, they started wondering whether the entire transaction (which had involved paying in advance) was a scam. That’s just the kind of thought you need when you are suffering from both chronic and short-term sleep deprivation, you are at what you hoped would be the end of what has so far been a nine-hour drive, with a two-year-old who, however sunny his natural disposition, is about to start expressing the wish that the journey would end, and you are now only two-and-a-half hours from take-off.

With no internet, and no local phone, they wondered what they could possibly do, especially since the ‘ridiculous’ cushion of time that Tslil had insisted on allowing was swiftly losing all of its stuffing. Micha’el, displaying a typical combination of sound commonsense and total faith in karma, suggested that they drive to the airport, since the car park must be somewhere around there.

At the airport, they found a long-term car park, which was, however, deserted. So much for commonsense. They also found a passing pizza deliverer, who spoke enough English for them to be able to explain their difficulty. That’s karma for you. The pizza boy very kindly entered the correct car park’s address into his phone, found the location on the map and showed the map to Micha’el. Micha’el then found the location on his Google Maps map, and marked it manually.

The kids then drove to the correct car park, where the guard admitted their truck, took the keys, hung them up with hundreds of others, and then drove them to the airport, leaving the key cupboard and the car park unlocked and unmanned. We’re all hoping they will find their truck still there when they return.

‘Within ten-minutes’ drive of the airport’ of course means ‘within ten minutes’ drive of the outer perimeter gate of the airport’, which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be another ten minutes’ drive from the actual terminal. However, they arrived, without further trouble. The guard/shuttle driver gave the kids a phone number which (theoretically) they can call to order a shuttle when they return.

Astonishingly, after all that, check-in, including security and Covid documentation, was smooth and fast. A shuttle train whisked them to the departure gate, where they arrived 15 minutes before boarding started. Easy, really.

It was only some time later that Micha’el realized that he must have originally loaded into Google Maps not the address of the car park, but another address that he had saved earlier for another reason. I suppose we should all be grateful that the address was at least in Madrid.

Tao (and Tslil) slept well on the flight; our regular taxi-driver (who had driven them to the airport when they left Israel for Portugal almost two years ago) collected them, and they were on our doorstep before 7:30 last Monday morning. Despite his surfeit of vehicles – truck, car, shuttle train, plane, taxi – over the previous 17 hours, Tao arrived with his usual smile, and it took him hardly any time to make himself at home here.

For me, he has been the best incentive to recover from my op; for Bernice, he has been the best fitness exercise program imaginable; for both of us, his company, and that of his parents, has been an absolute joy; of which more next week, bli neder.

So, this was the plan. Last Monday: operation; Tuesday: out of bed and walking the ward; Wednesday: home; Thursday: off painkillers; Friday: graduate from the zimmer frame to a walking stick; Saturday: start building up from 300-metre to 1000-metre walks in the streets. By Monday (yesterday, when this is published), I expected to be able to keep up with Tao and to be completely ready for a wonderful five-and-a-half weeks.

First of all, wipe that smug, knowing, pitying smile off your face. I’m right alongside Harry and Megan on this: It’s my body and my truth and you simply can’t deny it. I can remember exactly how things went 9 years ago, and even though I am now 9 years older and 6 kilos heavier, I have absolutely no intention of letting that make the slightest difference.

Next, I hope you will understand that I am not in any kind of state to write a 1500-word post, let alone one that is a light, frothy entertainment. I can’t handle that, and I’m not going to allow myself to break down in public (the only other realistic option), so you’ll just have to accept my apology. Sorry, but… no post this week, because I have a very sorry butt.

Not a good enough excuse? Well, perhaps you’ll not be quite so judgmental, and at least first let me explain why I can’t come up with the goods this week.

I don’t know what kind of a week you had, and, frankly, I don’t care, because unless you’re married to me, it was quite conceivably better than mine.

First of all, as mentioned last week, my op was inexplicably delayed two days, setting my whole timetable back before it even started. On Wednesday, I was taken down fairly early. The anaesthesiologist had planned to give me a very light general that would, he assured me, be just enough to give delightful dreams of running as a 12-year-old through fields of corn. Instead, it turned out to be just enough to make me vomit, so I ended up hearing every detail of the op.

This actually didn’t bother me. Although some people find it offensive to hear the operating team joking around and mocking each other and feel insulted that they are not taking the whole thing seriously, I actually find it immensely reassuring. As long as things are jogging along in a jokey atmosphere, I am persuaded that there is nothing to worry about. The last thing I want to hear is the surgeon screaming: ‘Will you all shut up? I think we’re losing him.’

My experience back on the ward on the first day was far different from my memory of my left hip. I’m sure that I was in considerably more pain, far less mobile, and, on the whole, not my usual sunny self. Strangely, I did not find Bernice’s assurance that I was kidding myself about the previous experience at all comforting, and, piecing together the events of last Wednesday, I am fairly convinced I was not the happy bunny that I usually am. It is fortunate that Esther was with us throughout Monday, so that they could console each other about my black mood.

The hospital physiotherapist shed light on this experience. He took me to the back staircase of the ward on Friday morning, to teach me how to negotiate stairs. This is the last obstacle that a patient has to get over before being released. I remarked that the stairs hadn’t changed in 9 years, and then reflected on how strange it was that I remembered the staircase vividly, but I did not remember the pain at all. His reply was: “Have you got any children? Then ask your wife what the pain is like.” I immediately realized how true this was. It is probably a good thing that the body is usually very good at forgetting the experience of pain.

By the time we left the hospital at noon on Friday, the progress I had made in manoeuverability and muscle-strength was very encouraging. Since then, my time at home has been spent working out the logistics of keeping equipment near at hand in a two-storey house, while trying to keep the number of times a day that I say to Bernice: ‘Could you possibly fetch my…?’ down to below 500. The problem is that our staircase at homs is narrower than the one in the hospital, and I cannot use the zimmer frame on the stairs. I am therefore using a stick and the railing, which means that I arrive upstairs while the frame is downstairs, or vice versa.

I think the solution is to hire two zimmer frames and two mechanical grabs from Yad Sarah, rather than one, although Bernice assures me this would simply result in my being downstairs while both zimmer frames were upstairs. (She speaks as the daughter of a man who single-handedly guaranteed the continued economic viability of the British umbrella industry for a couple of decades by building up a stock of several dozen umbrellas at work while having none at home.)

As I write this, it is Sunday noon. On Shabbat, I walked to the children’s playground 150 metres from our house…and back. This at least means that I will be able to go on some outings with Tao. I’ve also worked out strategies for independent showering and dressing, so that I feel less of a burden. This morning I prepared our usual breakfast. Even though it took three times as long as usual, and left me totally exhausted, I felt very empowered, a bit like SuperWetRag. So, we are getting there.

And, lo and behold, my non-post is over 1000 words long. Small but beautifully formed, as they say.

Next week should bring lots of news of the Portuguese family, who arrive early tomorrow. Meanwhile, they appear to have found a smart way of reducing the cost of travel.

They have also just produced a new video on the YouTube channel, which gives a detailed account of one of their major projects, You can view it (and also like, subscribe and comment), here.

Blogger’s Note:

This week’s blog was written early, in the expectation that by now (Monday afternoon) I would be either under the knife or not yet coming round from the anaesthetic. However, as my email on Sunday briefly explained, my surgery has been postponed to Wednesday. This may be because the hospital had, yesterday, run out of money (see below). It may, on the other hand, be because the nurse who is the ward’s eminence grise took objection to my suggestion to her, after we had waited over four hours on Sunday, that giving all of the candidates for surgery a 9:00AM appointment for pre-op was possibly inefficient and even inconsiderate.

Whatever the reason – and I don’t expect we will ever know the real reason – I should probably rewrite this entire blog, in the light of the changed reality. However, I prefer to argue that the whole essence of a blog, like any other diary, is that it captures the blogger’s subjective reality at a specific moment. This post, then, reflects with searing authenticity my thoughts last Friday, and, for that reason, is a valuable artefact – although reading it through just now I can’t honestly see its value. Anyway, here goes….

Last week, on two occasions in my post, I made passing reference to a particular topic, and promised “…of which more next week.” By the time you read this, next week will have come, although I am actually writing this last Friday….Or should that be: I wrote this last Friday? Or perhaps: I am writing this this Friday? Or maybe: I am/was writing this on what is/was/will have been this/last Friday. Oh, what the hell!

David’s blog, Earth date 2021.05.28.
Not to be read before 2021.06.01

The first of the two topics was my hip. More time travel: I am writing this with one artificial hip and one crumbling natural hip. By the time you read this, I will, God willing, have two artificial hips. Of course, since the Israeli Treasury has been dragging its heels (as have I, coincidentally – or at least one of them) shamelessly over transferring the Government-pledged 600 million shekels to the 7 public hospitals, and since the head of Hadassah Hospital Har Hatzofim (where I am having my surgery) announced yesterday on the radio that the hospital does not have sufficient funds to pay its suppliers after May 31, there is always the possibility that, by the time you read this, the supplier will have repossessed my artificial hip!

However, I have every confidence that everything will turn out for the best. I take my inspiration from Geoffrey Rush’s immortal line in Shakespeare in Love, trusting that his comment applies to all kinds of theatres, including operating ones. (Blogger’s note: Some regard my Polyanna optimism as my most endearing feature; others see it as an embarrassment.)

I realise that it is unrealistic of me to rely on being able to update you in detail after my op, in time to publish my blog at 9:00 am on Tuesday. So, I have decided to write the post early, and just leave the dispatching of the emails for Tuesday. If, for any reason, the blog isn’t published on Tuesday morning, don’t panic. (This last sentence is, of course, completely pointless, since, if the blog isn’t published on Tuesday morning, you won’t read the sentence telling you not to panic.)

Which brings us, not a moment too soon, to the second topic, the ever-more-imminent arrival of Micha’el, Tslil and Tao from Portugal. They are due to arrive on Monday 8 June, which gives me even greater incentive to plunge myself into post-op physiotherapy and exercising in the hope of making my recovery time as short as is safely possible. They will be in Israel for about 5 weeks, including an initial 10 or 14 days of isolation for Tslil and Micha’el. They will be based with us.

This means, tragically, that Bernice and I will have to entertain Tao for that first period. Bernice started her preparations weeks ago, touring Ma’ale Adumim to discover a park that has baby swings (although now we understand that Tao has meanwhile graduated to a swing without a safety bar), making lists of possible outings, writing shopping lists, planning in-house activities.

Last week, we had a grandparent shopping day, starting at Ikea outside Bet Shemesh, continuing to the Hadar Mall in Talpiot, and ending at our own mall. We returned home with a number of practical pieces of equipment, as well as all sorts of goodies to supplement the fairly good toddler’s library and the Duplo and other toys that we have kept for decades for just such an occasion.

This morning, I discovered a used spice jar soaking in a bowl of water in the kitchen. When I asked Bernice what that was about, she explained that she was soaking off the label, because the jars are such fun for water play. Something tells me that our house is going to be looking like the set of Blue Peter for much of this summer. (If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, Blue Peter is now the longest-running children’s TV programme in the world, having been launched in 1958 for a planned six episodes. This clip, from the 1980s, will give you an idea of what I am alluding to, and of just how wholesome the programme was…and still is.)

And, speaking of ‘Here’s one I made earlier’, the last couple of weeks have also been devoted, on my part, to preparing for the culinary onslaught that awaits us. Micha’el is, by nature, something of an obsessive in all things, including food: he knows what he likes, and he doesn’t hold back. I have therefore made two kilo jars of piccalilli, with the expectation of needing to make two more halfway through their visit, and also some shesek (loquat) chutney, which is another wonderful use of that versatile fruit I celebrated a few weeks ago.

This week I have devoted to baking. Whereas I normally bake 500-gram loafettes, which last the two of us a couple of days, I went this time for a 2-kilo loaf, and also a 3-kilo batch of platzels and baigels. I only hope that my recovery from surgery is fast enough for me to be up to baking again by the time that all gets eaten…but I’m not optimistic.

As regular viewers of the videos will know, Tao is a keen baker, and Micha’el tells me he is excited at the prospect of making bread with me. I’m not trying to be competitive, but I bet he isn’t half as excited as I am. I’m sure he will also be cooking with his Nana, and gardening.

Touched by the news of Eric Carle’s death this week, I just hope that Tao hasn’t outgrown The Very Hungry Caterpillar yet. It was one of his absolute favourites when we were last in Portugal…but that is now 15 months ago. I know he’s moved on to loftier things, but some of us are in no hurry to let go of the old favourites.

Of course, some friends are warning us that we don’t know what’s hitting us, and that suddenly increasing by 150% the mouths to feed, bodies to clean clothe, minds to entertain, is going to hit us very hard – and particularly the one of us that doesn’t have a note from the doctor. However, I know that Bernice is more than up to this. After all, she’s used to handling 25 times this number of toddlers, and their parents! On the other hand, grouchy one-legged septuagenarians are another matter entirely.

Meanwhile, Tao’s wheelbarrow is still right up there at Number 1. Does anybody have one we could borrow for a few weeks?

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.