As I built up to starting to write this week’s post, I felt that I really had to write about the situation. However, I don’t feel I have anything particularly insightful to say that you couldn’t glean from the few media outlets I regularly mention. Nor, indeed, did I feel like adding to a mood of despondency in a week that is already coloured grey by the looming imminence of Tisha b’Av, the fast commemorating the destruction of both Temples and the exile from the Land.

At the same time, when the elephant in the room plants its rump on your lap and sticks its trunk in your morning coffee, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. So, I thought I would explore a mildly interesting and less ponderous aspect of living in Israel in August 2024, and couple that exploration with one or two utterly trivial diversions.

Diversion 1. Bernice and I celebrated our wedding anniversary last week by going into Jerusalem for a meal and ice-cream. First the light rail, then the extremely popular downtown restaurant, then the heart-of-downtown ice-cream parlour were all so much emptier than they should be in early August that we were able to get seats on the light rail, a table at the restaurant, and served at the parlour without having to wait at any point. The almost total absence of foreign tourists was matched by the equal scarcity of out-of-town Israelis; those not wary of leaving the safety(?) of Tel Aviv for the danger(?) of Jerusalem were probably trapped abroad, regretting that they had chosen to fly AbandonAir, rather than reliable El Al. Just saying. I’m not saying I welcome the Iranian threat for enhancing our anniversary experience, but I am saying I’ll take any silver lining I can find.

Living in Israel: Much of the talk around these parts in the last ten days has been about the reaction of the Israeli in the street to the threat of Iranian retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Ever since Israel did or didn’t eliminate Haniyeh by planting a bomb in his hotel room or firing a rocket from across the street using either a human launcher on a nearby roof or a remote launcher, or by firing a missile either from beyond Iran’s border or from an aircraft flying over Teheran…whatever. Ever since then, Israelis have been watching out for Iran’s promised retaliation, while at the same time observing fellow Israelis’ reactions to the threat of retaliation.

I have to report that the public’s reaction has been more low-key than last time round, in April. The Home Front has advised that we stock up on water and canned goods, ensure that we have a torch, a rechargeable radio and a first-aid kit, and keep a radio on over Shabbat, tuned to a ‘silent station’ that will only broadcast in an emergency. However, on our visit to the supermarket last week, we saw no panic buying of anything. This may be partly because many people keep a permanent emergency supply, which they use and replenish on an ongoing basis. It is certainly true that everyone seems to be taking impending Armageddon in their stride.

We haven’t actually been into our pharmacy to seek advice about a first-aid kit suitable for dealing with the after-effects of a direct hit by a Shahab-3, with its fetching pastel yellow décor and its 750kg payload, but we suspect that our Mister Men elastoplasts and small tube of Polydine might not quite do the job.

However, we have bought a radio: a curious blend of old and new that I find very satisfying. Its colour scheme is evocative of the Swiss Army Knife, and it also has some of the same compact heft and gee-whizz versatility that makes said knife so seductive. Let me take you on a short virtual tour.

The front panel sports a satisfyingly 1960s transistor radio analog tuning dial and display. The top panel offers solar charging panels and the button to activate the side-panel LED light, which has two different strengths: emergency “I’m down here!” and subtle atmospheric background saferoom. Holding down the button also activates a piercing siren and automatic flashing of the lights to produce SOS in morse code. The back panel houses the FM aerial and the handcrank as an alternative method of generating power. The other side panel features a socket for charging the radio from the mains, and a USB outlet for recharging mobile phones.

In short, all it lacks is that most coveted tool on the Swiss Army Knife: a thing for getting stones out of horses’ hooves! Personally, I can’t wait for Iran to attack and knock out our power supply.

Diversion 2: Spoiler alert: prepare to have a long-held illusion shattered.

It’s not actually a thing for getting stones out of horses’ hooves. The item in question is the right-hand tool of the three that unfold from the right-hand side of the knife: apparently a blade that comes to a point and has a hole in the centre a third of the way down.

Online research reveals that it is not a hoof pick, both because hoof picks are hooked to enable getting under the stone to prise it out, and also because a hoof pick has a rounded, rather than pointed, end, to avoid puncturing the horse’s hoof. Here are two examples.

Some online commentators believe the tool is actually a marlin spike – used for separating rope strands and for other rope-related tasks. However, I am persuaded that it is in fact an awl or punch, a tool for making a hole in leather or canvas. The hole in the awl is for passing thread through if it is being used to carry out a repair on a tent.

You might also call it a punch/reamer. Making a hole where there wasn’t one before is punching it, done with an inserting motion. Opening it up wider, with a twisting motion, is reaming it.

It appears that the only person who actually had a knife with “a little thing for getting stones our of horses’ hooves” was Dorothy L Sayers’ amateur sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey. Everyone else has an awl. (By the way, the radio serialisations of Sayers’ Wimsey novels, starring Ian Carmichael, are highly recommended if you need an escape from today’s insane world. They are doubly evocative of earlier eras: both the era in which the stories are set (upper-class England of the 1930s) and the era in which the radio adaptations were produced (the 1970s and 1980s). You can find an example here – Have His Carcase.

I think that has carried us satisfactorily away to a place of comfort and safety, where the worst thing that happens is a single gruesome murder, so I’ll leave you there for another week.

Let’s begin with a song, to wake us all up. Your starter for ten is: whose national anthem are these sentiments taken from?

Heroes of the sea, noble people,
Valiant and immortal nation,
Raise once again today
The splendour of ???????!
Among the haze of memory,
Oh Fatherland, one feels the voice
Of your distinguished forefathers,
That shall lead you on to victory!

To arms, to arms!
Over land, over sea,
To arms, to arms!
For the Fatherland, fight!
Against the cannons, march on, march on!

Let the echo of an offence
Be the sign for a comeback.

Ten points if you spotted this as the national anthem of quiet little Portugal. A bonus of twenty if you know the back story of how this became Portugal’s national anthem. No? Well, let me plug this gap in your education.

England and Portugal, as you may know, are the co-signatories of the oldest alliance still in force. The Treaty of Windsor was signed on 9 May, 1386, 638 years ago, and is still active today. However, despite the alliance, relations have not always been amicable between these two great erstwhile maritime powers and imperial nations.

In the mid-19^th Century, Portugal strove to consolidate its control of territories in Southern Africa, creating a ‘rose-coloured map’ of contiguous control of a large area of land linking its colonies of Mozambique and Angola, passing through what are now Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, and essentially offering a Portuguese land route between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. England disputed Portuguese claims to these territories, and eventually issued the British ultimatum in 1890.

This was a memorandum sent to the Portuguese Government by Lord Salisbury on 11 January 1890 in which he demanded the withdrawal of the Portuguese troops from the areas where Portuguese and British interests in Africa overlapped. It meant that the UK was now claiming sovereignty over territories, some of which had been claimed as Portuguese for centuries. Within a year or so, Portugal had, with scarcely a struggle, acquiesced to the demands, an action seen by many Portuguese as a national humiliation. This led ultimately to the fall of the government, and contributed to the overthrow of the monarchy 20 years later.

In response to the ultimatum, republican Portuguese composed a patriotic protest march, which was adopted, after a democratic government replaced the monarchy, as the national anthem.

All of which is merely an introduction to this week’s topic: a look at national anthems. If you want a hook to hang it on, consider the fact that the world will, over the next two weeks, be listening to a lot of national anthems, at the Paris Olympics. (Portugal’s anthem may not feature, since Portugal won its first gold medal at its 16^th Olympics, in 1984, and in the nine subsequent Games has won only another four.)

The Portuguese national anthem celebrates a glorious history, while wryly recognising that things have gone a bit downhill since then. “Portugal has not perished…Let the echo of an offence be the sign for a comeback”.

Compare that to Britain’s national anthem (especially the verses that never get sung).

God save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King!

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks…

…Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world o’er.

No recognition there that things have gone downhill! Rather a declaration that, with Charles on his throne, and God on their (our?) side, the British will conquer all enemies and, simultaneously, teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

Our next exhibit is the French national anthem. Composed overnight during the French revolution, and reflecting the invasion of France by Prussian and Austrian armies, it does not pull its punches.

Arise, children of the Fatherland
Our day of glory has arrived
Against us the bloody flag of tyranny
is raised; the bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear, in the countryside
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your comrades!

To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions
Let’s march, let’s march
That their impure blood
Should water our fields.

Banned outright from 1804-1830, for its revolutionary associations, it was officially reinstated only in 1879.

Which brings us to the American national anthem, and a nuanced change. The war and bloodshed are confined here to the country’s foundational struggle, like La Marseillaise but unlike God Save the King or A Portuguesa. However, The Star-Spangled Banner is written from the perspective of a time in the immediate wake of the struggle for independence. The struggles are all in the past. The anthem celebrates the golden age.

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Bosnia and Herzegovina, as befits a country created artificially as an amalgam of various ethnic groupings, has been unable, to date, to reach consensus on a suitable lyric, and so their anthem is officially wordless. However, the following unofficial lyrics are sometimes sung. You will note that they are carefully uncontroversial. Despite that, even the tune is not universally accepted, with Bosniaks generally liking the national anthem, Croats being ambivalent towards it, and Serbs overwhelmingly disliking it,even booing it at some performances

You’re the light of the soul
Eternal fire’s flame
Mother of ours, o land of Bosnia
I belong to you

The beautiful blue sky
Of Herzegovina
In the heart are your rivers
Your mountains

Proud and glorious
Land of ancestors
You shall live in our hearts
Ever more

Generations of yours
Show up as one
We go into the future
Together!

Which brings us, finally, to an anthem that is, I suspect, unlike any other. I have brought only a few examples here, but many others that I have read in preparing this post tread the same well-worn path: celebrating the bloody foundation, either at the time (as it were) – La Marseillaise – or the day after (as it were) – The Star-Spangled Banner – or declaring the justice of the continuing struggle – La Portuguesa, God Save the King – or celebrating the beauty and greatness of the country – the as yet untitled anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Let us look, now, at the Israeli national anthem.

As long as in the heart, within,
The Jewish soul yearns,
And towards the ends of the east,
An eye gazes toward Zion,

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our own land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Consider the following.

Hatikva (The Hope) was written as a poem by Naftali Herz Imber in 1878, 70 years before the state was founded. After he came from Poland to Eretz Yisrael, the poem struck a chord with the pioneers, and, in 1887, Shmuel Cohen sang the poem using a melody he knew from Romania. The song then spread rapidly throughout the Zionist communities of Eretz Yisrael, and was eventually adopted as the anthem of the Zionist movement in 1933.

What makes this anthem unusual is that it reflects neither on the qualities of the country nor on the struggle for independence. In the only verse that has been retained since its adoption as the official anthem of Israel there is no fulfilment, not even any genuine anticipation; there is, instead, hope. The only emotion expressed is hope; the ‘triumph’ is nothing more than the fact that this hope is not yet lost. While it is understandable that, in the uncertainty of the state’s early years, this emotion may have resonated with a population engaged daily with creating a state from nothing, it is, perhaps, a little surprising that this unfulfilled note was not ‘updated’ after the Six-Day War in 1967, when even Zion and Jerusalem were suddenly in our hands.

Listen to the uncertainty in this lyric:
“As long as…” and no longer.
“Our hope is not yet lost”; not yet, but it could be, at any moment.

It strikes me that this is a lyric that has become more resonant, again, since 7 October, when we woke up to the realisation that to be a free people in our own land is still as much an aspiration as a reality. While hostages languish in subterranean dungeons in Gaza, while tens of thousands of citizens in the North have no prospect of returning to their homes, many of which have been damaged by rocket fire, while tens of thousands of reservists face another tour of duty that wrenches them from their families and their livelihoods, talk of being a free nation in our own land seems, once again, as much a dream as a reality.

Hatikvah is an expression of yearning for becoming, not a celebration of being. As such, it seems to me profoundly Jewish, and profoundly diasporic. It is in a minor key (a rarity for a national anthem), cut from the same cloth as the image of the fiddler precariously perched on the roof. (Any excuse to watch that opening monologue.) In the good times, the aspiration expressed in Hatikvah can be inspirational. In the less good times, it can sometimes seem melancholic. Having been profoundly moved by it throughout my life, I still yearn for the day when, with the entire Jewish population returned to Zion, and Israel living at peace and in prosperity with its neighbours and itself, the Knesset will vote unanimously to replace the no-longer-relevant Hatikvah with a new, celebratory, national anthem, in a major key. If that ever happens, I shall miss it terribly. However, rereading the vision of a future Israel that I have just painted, I don’t see Hatikvah becoming outdated any time soon.

Sorting through my store cupboard of potential topics, I see that I still have a few odds and ends from our trip, so, for the purposes of this week’s post, my heart is still in the West (of the Old World, you understand).

First, an epiphany for Micha’el. (If you’re not tech-minded, feel free to jump to the next paragraph.) One of our annual pleasures is asking Micha’el what he would like for a birthday present, because almost every year he asks for something which, until that moment, we had not realised existed. This year was no exception. He asked for (I do hope I get this right) a DIY ergonomic, split keyboard kit (specifically a Dactyl manuform iterated and modifiable open-source design). Once he had shown us the idea online it made a lot more sense, and once he had explained the cost of an off-the-shelf product, his desire to take the DIY route also made a lot more sense. DIY in this case means, among other things, 3D-printing the keyboard and soldering the mechanical keys. We look forward to seeing the final result when we next visit. Meanwhile, here’s an illustration using a Qwerty layout. (Micha’el is going to try using Halmak.) Here endeth my impersonation of someone tech-savvy (a term that is probably, as someone will doubtless point out, forty years out of date).

All of this is only a prologue to Micha’el’s early Chanukah present. His birthday present from Tslil was a punchbag (or, more accurately, a heavy kick-boxing bag). He planned to suspend this from a bracket arm attached to the solid wall of the outhouse/shed. He fashioned an excellent bracket from an old bicycle fork and then started drilling the holes in the wall. When I realised that over an hour’s work had resulted in one-and-a-half holes, and a considerable sweat, the penny dropped that Micha’el did not possess a hammer drill. When I questioned him about this, he said, reasonably enough, that it had never achieved a high enough position on his list of priorities.

I explained that that was because he had never used a hammer drill, and, after a brief conversation, Bernice and I offered him an early Chanukah present. Fortunately, thanks to Amazon Germany, whose service to Portugal is very fast, the drill arrived a day or two before we left. This was when I discovered that Micha’el had not ordered hammer drill bits; indeed, he had not realised that he needed different bits. Fortunately, his local hardware store stocked them, and so I was able to witness the moment of epiphany, when Micha’el first drilled into the wall with the correct tool. It was, as I suspect it is for anyone who has long struggled to penetrate a wall with a rotary drill, a moment as powerful as hearing Verdi’s Requiem for the first time. His whoops of delight were well worth the cost of the drill.

On the subject of presents, Ollie and Tao received a joint gift of a bumper bundle of books, among which was one that I have subsequently been thinking about a lot. The book is entitled Where’s the Poo?. The reader is challenged on every page to “search for six very special poos in every scene”. For the benefit of those of you who had managed to get through life until now without being aware of the book, I’ll pause here for a moment to give you time to read that sentence again.

My initial reaction when I looked at the book was one of extreme discomfort. Since I don’t think of myself as a prude or particularly Victorian in my attitudes, I was curious as to why I found it so distasteful. Having given a great deal of thought to the matter (conceivably an unwarranted amount), I have come to certain conclusions that I would like to share with you.

First, there is the fact that the concept of the book (searching for something hidden in plain sight in a very ‘busy’ pictorial scene) is shamelessly copied from the Where’s Waldo books. In this case, even the style of drawing and the palate used seem to me modelled on Waldo. The book makes no attempt to develop the concept at all; it simply plagiarises it.

Second, the premise of the book, that poos with distinct characters and appearance (an Elvis poo with shades and pompadour, a Queenie poo with a crown) wander around shopping malls and airports once they have been flushed, is clearly ludicrous. However, the book does not attempt to develop the potential humour in that situation at all. Everything is presented in a serious and informative tone.

Whereas many children’s books operate simultaneously at two levels, designed to appeal equally but differently to the child being read to and the adult reading, Where’s the Poo? Is completely flat and one-dimensional.

All of the ‘humour’ lies in the bad taste. This is, for me, a disturbing trend in modern children’s fiction: the introduction of scatology as a substitute for humour. Let me emphasise: this is not scatological humour – it is not jokes based on scatology; it is rather scatology used as humorous in itself. There is nothing clever, or funny, or witty, in saying:”Poo!”

The reason why children find saying “Poo!” funny, and exciting, is because they know it is dangerous and forbidden. Where’s the Poo? removes all of that excitement, danger and humour, by making the adult complicit in the seditious act. For an adult to share this book with a child is to deprive the child of an important experience of childhood rebellion. This book should be passed secretly from older to younger child, and hidden between the mattress and the bedsprings, not read out to the child by an adult.

For some reason that I cannot fathom, neither Micha’el nor Bernice share my discomfort. They both enjoyed searching for the poos with Tao. Here endeth the rant.

Let me end with a less controversial topic. On one of our major supermarket visits on this trip, at the checkout the cashier, who spoke good English, asked me whether we had a cartão de poupança or savings card. When I said that we didn’t, she urged me to get one, because it could save us 10% of our bill. Since that seemed a significant saving, I told Bernice that, next time we came, I would start by enquiring about the card at the main desk.

This I duly did, or would have done, had there been anyone at the main desk. I pointed this out to a cashier, who put out a call for an English speaker, and, within a minute, a young male shelf-filler arrived, and explained to me that “My colleague will return in 20 minutes.” Sure enough, when I interrupted my shopping to check, there was a woman on the desk. I managed to explain to her what I wanted, principally by pointing to the poster advertising programa geração +. Some 15 minutes later, when she had put into her computer all of my passport details, and my NIF (a financial identity number that serves as the standard ID in Portugal), she handed me a card with a barcode, and explained that all I had to do was to present the card to the cashier before checkout. In addition, she gave me a second strip of plastic with perforations that made it easy to split it into three mini-cards, each of which contained the same barcode. This enables families to share a card. There you have another example of a simple, smart idea that has been adopted in one country but not another.

Presenting the card worked perfectly. Unfortunately, when I looked at the final bill, I saw that no reduction had been given. When I questioned the cashier about this, she explained that I was not eligible for the geriatrics’ card, because I wasn’t old enough. I wondered whether, given the aging population in rural Portugal, the age of eligibility was perhaps 75, but, anyway, I asked. When she told me the age of eligibility was 65, I thanked her for making my day and returned to the main desk to get my card amended.

That was quickly done. However, when I returned to the cashier to request a new bill and a refund, she said that the card wasn’t eligible. When I asked why, I thought that the reason she gave was that the card only becomes active after 10 days, and this was only the 9^th day. Since it wasn’t the 9^th day – I had only had the card 5 minutes – I realised I was missing something. Eventually, after carefully rereading the poster, I realised the truth. The card can be used to obtain a 10% discount only on the 10^th of each month, and that day was, as luck would have it, the 9^th.

Now, of course, we will have to try to schedule our visits to Portugal so that our first enormous supermarket shop is on the 10^th of the month. Of course, we also have to hope that the 10^th does not fall on Friday or Shabbat, when a supermarket shop is not feasible. The fact is that, even if the 10^th is halfway through our visit, and the supermarket shop is therefore only big and not enormous, we will still probably save over 100 shekels. In addition, the clerk assured me that there are ‘specials’ every day that are discounted for cardholders.

So we now have another card, this one declaring not, as I at first thought, that we are geriatrics, but, rather, that we belong to Generation +, which sounds rather good – almost as good as being mistaken for being under 65. I have added this card to the customer loyalty card we obtained when we bought the fixtures and materials for our bathroom renovation a couple of years ago. The fact is that these are the small increments by which I persuade myself that we are something a little more than ‘tourists’, if considerably less than ‘locals’, in Penamacor.

And that really is the end of this trip to Portugal. Next week, I suspect my attention will turn back to Israel, in some form or other. Until then, I wish those of you who are fasting today an easy and meaningful fast.

Until yesterday evening, I thought I knew what the main topic of today’s post was going to be…and then life, as it has a habit of doing, got in the way. The result is that this week’s offering is very different from what I had planned…or maybe not. I will leave it up to you to decide whether this results in a happy ending.

I had planned to talk about the domestic pleasures of our last days in Portugal. I particularly admired Tslil and Micha’el’s masterstroke – the decision to make Ollie’s birthday party a pizza party, and kill two birds with one oven stone. The morning of his birthday was dedicated to streamers, balloons, cards and presents, all of which proved very successful, both Ollie’s birthday presents and Tao’s un-birthday presents.

At Tslil’s suggestion, we gave Ollie a kitchen play set, comprising an ‘electric’ hob, frying pan, saucepan, a teapot, crockery and cutlery, as well as a selection of food items that makes for a limited and rather unbalanced restaurant menu: three different kinds of cracker, three different doughnuts, and one fried egg. This means that whoever Ollie, or Tao, is serving first is expected to eat their fried egg very quickly, so that the kitchen can fill the next order.

The hob requires batteries, to power the glowing light of the ‘element’ and to provide sound effects. Much to everyone’s relief, the sound is no more dramatic or intrusive than a convincing imitation of water boiling. I am the only one inconvenienced by this, or perhaps I should say ‘convenienced’, since it means I get the urge to go to the toilet even more frequently than usual.

Then, in the early evening, when the weather was a little cooler, the shaded backyard was a very pleasant pizza piazza. As always, the whole family got involved with the various stages of pizza preparation, and then we enjoyed a relaxed and delicious family supper, of which one of the highlights was a birthday greetings video Esther sent that Raphael had recorded for Ollie earlier. Ollie and Raphael blowing kisses to each other was enough to melt the cheese on the pizza, let alone all of the adults’ hearts.

After our last Shabbat together, which was, as always, very special, we all went to a reservoir beach on Sunday (yesterday, as I write). Only a 20-minute drive north from Penamacor, the site nestles among the tree-covered slopes of the foothills of the Sierra de Malcata national park. The reservoir itself is about 2 kilometres long and 500 metres across, and the beach occupies a triangular promontory that extends 200 metres into the reservoir. Most of the area is a grassy slope, with a stretch of sand at one point.

On one side of the promontory is a small children’s playground and a pizza café and bar, plus a jetty, at the end of which is a floating platform that features a very small infants’ paddling pool, a larger children’s pool and a small diving board. Off the jetty the water is several metres deep.

On the other side is a mooring for pedalos that are available for hire. Grandpa went out with Tao, who demonstrated a confident and capable hand on the tiller, managing to steer us away from crocodiles and marauding pirates. Micha’el then managed to persuade the delightful young man in charge to let him go out with Olly, who thoroughly enjoyed his short voyage, but very wisely held on to Abba’s hand and to the guard rail the whole time, while Nana hid her face in her hands and prayed very hard.

After both younger generations had worked up an appetite in the pools we all enjoyed a picnic tea with sandwiches made with the last of Grandpa’s rolls and rye bread. Then it was time for sandcastles, and burying Tao in the sand. Eventually, at around 7:45, we packed up and headed home, where I discovered that I was not wearing my wedding ring. I remembered taking it off to wash before the picnic, and I assumed I had put it in my trouser pocket. However, I soon established that it was in none of my pockets. It was then that I remembered that I had stupidly put it down on the picnic blanket, rather than in my pocket, and I had no recollection of putting it on again. It is, anyway, too tight a fit to slip off.

Even though I knew it was pointless, I searched the car. Bernice then searched the car, although I made her promise that if she found the ring there she would pretend that she had picked it up from the picnic blanket and not told me, as a practical joke. When I undressed last night, I searched all of my clothes thoroughly, then shook them all thoroughly, but with no success. I went to bed last night having decided that I would drive back to the beach this (Monday) morning, arriving as soon as it opened at 9AM, and search the area of the grass where we had picnicked.

So, this morning Lua and I had an earlier and rather shorter walk than usual, and I was indeed able to arrive at the beach just after 9 o’clock, feeling not very hopeful and not at all expectant of a good result. The whole area was completely deserted, and I started combing through the grass around where we had been sitting. Automatic sprinklers water the grass early every morning, so it was sodden, which didn’t make the search any easier.

After twenty minutes of searching in ever larger circles, I went down to the sand and combed through the area where I had dug a trench for Tao. I then worked my way down to where Tslil and Tao had run with the picnic blanket streaming out behind them. Finally, I returned to the area where we had sat. I made deals with bees: “The third flower you settle on will be where the ring is hiding in the grass.” I spun round with my eyes closed, walked four paces forward, turned left, walked another two paces, and looked down, hoping to see the ring gleaming in the grass.

I returned to the spot where I was fairly confident I had set the ring down on the blanket and scoured a circular area with a 30-centimetre radius as thoroughly as I could. I then walked to where we had parked the car the previous day and searched the unpaved area there. At this point, having spent in all 40 minutes searching, I accepted that I would not find the ring.

I walked back to my car and started the engine, feeling rather despondent. It’s not that my ring is particularly valuable. It is a thin, plain band of 9-carat gold that Bernice paid ₤3.50 for in 1972. Even allowing for inflation, the equivalent today is only about ₤35, or 165 shekels. While that was about all we could afford back then, I do accept that it is a modest sum. However, the sentimental value is of course very great.

And yet…As I drove, I started thinking, and, by the time I arrived back in Penamacor, I realised that this band of gold represented how precious is the life Bernice and I have made together over the last (very nearly) 52 years, but it was not in itself the preciousness of that life. What is truly valuable is the bond between us and the life and family that we have built together. Having spent the last month with the Portugal branch of the family, I don’t really need reminding about what is truly valuable. In the same way, returning tomorrow to Israel and to the other branch, I again won’t need any reminder.

As we steel ourselves for the inevitable downsizing that will have to accompany any move that we make to Zichron, the loss of my ring is a useful reminder that what we will be parting with does not measure up to what we will be gaining by being able to spend more time with Esther, Maayan and Raphael.

So, don’t you think that’s really a happy, 24-carat ending?

In addition to all of the expected pleasures, our life in Penamacor sometimes brings completely unexpected satisfactions, one of which I experienced last week.

Olly, in his taste for stories and songs, is very much a creature of habit. Most days, at some point, he asks, or agrees, to sit on my lap for songs. There are six or seven songs that I sing to him, all of them including various actions. However, the decisions as to the choice of songs and their running order are firmly in Olly’s hands. This can be quite challenging, since his vocabulary is still limited, However, he usually finds a way to make himself understood.

“Wheel”, for example is a word Olly only acquired last week but already drops casually into his conversation as if he had mastered it months ago. When he asked for “Wheel’ today, I initially, understandably, but mistakenly, assumed he was asking for “The wheels on the bus”, which is actually more often one of Bernice’s songs than one of mine. However, when I launched into that, and was met by a firm rejection in the form of a dismissive shake of the head, I thought again and eventually realised Olly wanted “Horsey, horsey, don’t you stop”, which includes a particularly extravagant rotating of my knees, on which he is precariously balanced, to accompany the line “And your wheels go round”.

When we are not working through those English songs, Olly often wants to thumb through the Israeli children’s classic “מאה שירים ראשונים” (100 First Songs) a collection of nursery songs and Israeli folk songs that our children’s missed out on in their own (English-language) first years. This is, for Bernice and myself, a doubly evocative book. First, it is illustrated by Dosh, who was, for the first decades of Israel’s existence, the national daily caricaturist, capturing the national spirit very accurately over the years.

For anyone who came of age in a Zionist movement in the 60s, Srulik (Dosh’s Israeli version of Uncle Sam or John Bull) is a very familiar figure.

Equally familiar are many of the songs in the book, because a lot of them are ones we sang and danced to in Hanoar Hatzioni in the 60s. In those halcyon days – now 60 years ago – we sang with considerably more enthusiasm than accuracy. It was in these years that I first developed the technique of fudging the words of songs I did not know the words of. This was a technique that I perfected when I was required, as a resident of Wales and a teacher in a comprehensive school, to join in the singing of the Welsh national anthem. I was fairly confident about the first three words, but from there on I was more or less completely at sea. If I show you the first two lines, you will understand that I was in a scarcely better position on those rare occasions when I had the words in front of me.

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri.

Fortunately, in Wales, the national anthem is always sung with tremendous gusto, and so the gibberish of my tuneful rendition always went unnoticed.

The other day, while he was thumbing through the songbook, Olly stopped at Zemer, Zemer Lach: a very familiar song from the movement days. As I sang it to him,. I was amazed to discover that the remembered gibberish of 60 years ago was actually a coherent and fully comprehensible verse. In an instant, the mystery was solved. It is fair to say that this mystery had not kept me awake many nights in the intervening years, but nevertheless I felt a very satisfying sense of closure.

The same experience happened later with Al Sfat Yam Kinneret. I plan to flick through the entire book before we leave. Who knows what other secrets my own personal Rosetta Stone will reveal?

Incidentally, if the early 1970s British cultural reference in this week’s title escapes you, you can listen here. I won’t pretend it’s up there with Schubert lieder; indeed, part of me regards it now (and regarded it then, to be honest) as a waste of Georgie Fame and Alan Price’s not inconsiderable talents, but it does, for some of us, evoke a moment in time.

Back to 2024 and Portugal. On Sunday this week, Bernice and I took the boys out for the day. We went to Castelo Branco, to a gymboree. Tslil had kindly phoned ahead, to ensure that they would be open on Sunday, and established that they were open from 10:00 till 12:30, at which time they had a private block booking. Thanks to Bernice’s magnificent powers of organisation and shepherding, we drove off at 9:17, only two minutes behind schedule, having negotiated the morning preparations with no voice raised (by child or adult), no tear shed (by child or adult), everyone having visited the bathroom and performed successfully (you get the picture). Bernice, I need hardly explain, has no idea where the humour lies in Michael McIntyre’s Leaving the House routine.

It was an uneventful journey, punctuated only by a couple of small savoury treats to keep the boys going, and by Tao’s repeated: “Are we nearly there yet?” It is a mystery to me how this exact wording is passed down from one cohort of children to the next, through the generations. Who teaches them these things?

When we arrived at the industrial estate where the gymboree was located in a huge warehouse, we took a little time to find the place, since it was singularly under-signed, but, once we did, we were very impressed. More accurately, I was very impressed, largely because I had very deliberately tempered my expectations in advance. To achieve that, I had simply imagined what the experience would be like if we were going to a gymboree in Israel.

How did the reality outshine my expectations? Let me count the ways. First, rather than 437 children fighting over the equipment, there were about 15 children, all well behaved and quietly spoken. Then, the equipment looked not only very sturdily built and thoroughly cushioned, but also almost brand new. In addition, three young and very alert staff constantly patrolled the play area, anticipating problems and ensuring safety and order. There was also a complete absence of vending machines offering junk food and drinks for sale. Instead, there was a constantly refilled jug of water and beakers on offer, with the staff suggesting to children that they stop for a drink. Finally, and most welcome of all, the inevitable background music was played at a volume that still allowed conversation in a normal speaking voice.

As for the equipment, it was aimed ideally at children a year or two older than Tao, but he managed to handle almost everything, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time for all of two hours. He repeatedly came down the vertiginous tube-slide that caused Nana almost to pass out when she first saw it; He mastered the climbing walls. He repeatedly ‘swam’ around the foam cube pit and bounced on the trampolines.

After a little while, Olly ventured in and, although he could not be tempted onto any of the equipment, unsurprisingly, he enjoyed running around on the squelchy foam mattresses and having his feel tickled on the artificial grass floor. After expending prodigious amounts of energy, the boys retired together to the playhouse where they cooked up a magnificent meal in the play kitchen.

One more pleasant surprise awaited us. Tslil had been quoted a price of EUR7.50 per child per hour, which we thought was a little expensive. In the event, we were charged nothing for Olly, and for Tao we paid EUR10.00 in total, for just under two hours of unmitigated fun.

Our plan was to drive from there to a vegan café we have eaten in before, that offers simple fare that the boys would enjoy. However, when I checked online I found they were closed on Sunday. Fortunately, belt and braces Bernice had brought enough food for a modest picnic, and so we decided to go to the City Park, which we know well. It offers shade under trees, an excellent adventure playground, and, we also knew, a café, that might offer something for the boys.

In the event, despite considerable language challenges, we were able to procure cheese toasties and strawberry juice for the boys, and a couple of excellent chilled beers for Bernice and myself, and to spend a little time playing in the playground.

On the drive home, both boys, unsurprisingly, fell asleep very quickly, while I, very surprisingly, didn’t. This was as well since I was driving. 45 minutes later, we arrived home, after an action-packed day, throughout which both children and adults behaved impeccably, and a thoroughly good time was had by all.

By the time you read this, we will have, at most, seven more days to enjoy with the family here. Highlights to come include Olly’s birthday celebrations and – if Micha’el, Tslil and Tao can be persuaded to strut their stuff – a home-made pizza evening. I can hardly wait.

To be honest, not much has happened since we last spoke. This week’s post is going to consist of nothing more portentous than a few random observations about our life here.

We’ve been to the ‘big’ super a couple of times. On each occasion, we have been lucky enough to be checked out by the same cashier: a speedy and efficient young woman whose English is excellent. I have actually more or less mastered ‘check-out Portuguese’. I don’t speak it very well, but I can understand such hardy perennials as: ‘Do you require a tax invoice?’, “Will you be needing any bags?’ and ‘Do you want the receipt sent to your mobile number?’ Fortunately, all these questions require of me by way of response is ‘Nao’, ‘Sim. Dois, por favor.’ And ‘Nao’, respectively, all of which I can just about manage, provided I have had enough sleep the night before.

However, since there is always the risk that a cashier may think of a new question to ask, it is much less nerve-wracking to conduct any negotiations in English. This is especially true since we typically have two shopping trolleys that together contain about ten times more items than anyone else in the shop is buying. So the last thing we want to do is hold up the queue any longer than is absolutely necessary.

I’m not sure what it is about rural Portuguese. They seem to prefer a daily shop to a weekly shop. It takes Bernice back over 65 years, to going down Ridley Road market in Hackney every day with her grandmother, to buy fresh bread, fruit and veg, fish and meat.

Every time we arrive, it takes us a little while to adjust to shopping, cooking and baking for a family of six, rather than for two retirees, one of whom has virtually given up on sweet things, and the other of whom perplexingly finds himself, as he gets older, ever more able to exercise self-control where food is concerned.

At home, for example, I make a batch of granola, and it lasts me over three weeks. In Penamacor, I have to prepare it every six days or so. As for my spelt sourdough crackers, I barely have time to let them cool and pack them away in the Tupperware before it is time to bake another batch. With both the granola and the crackers, Olly is now a fully fledged member of the family, and he is definitely a boy who enjoys his food.

Since each batch of crackers take a cup-and-a-half of sourdough starter, I find myself feeding my starter twice a day, rather than once a week, as at home, and keeping it out all the time, rather than keeping it in the fridge and ‘waking it up’ a day before I need it.

This week has also marked a milestone in the slow decline of Bernice and myself. As I know I have mentioned before, probably more than once, the main street of Penamacor runs along a valley, with streets running up the steep incline each side. Our house is situated two-thirds of the way up a street that climbs straight up one of these inclines. Strolling down to the centre is a little vertiginous, but an easy walk. Climbing back up, on the other hand, is a challenge.

The other day, we were planning to take Olly in his buggy for a walk to the centre, to do a little shopping in the China shop for various household items. Olly’s buggy (which was, of course, originally Tao’s) was one of the first purchases we made after the kids bought land in Portugal. It is an all-terrain buggy, with independent suspension and two modes: urban and country. While it was not cheap, it has proven a very good buy, not only able to handle rough terrain, but also coping well with the cobbled streets of Penamacor.

However, it is a very heavy piece of equipment. Pushing it uphill is a real challenge, one which I surrendered to Bernice some time ago. This last week, when we were planning to go to the centre, Bernice suggested I drive down to the centre (about half a kilometre), park in the central car park and start shopping. Meanwhile, she would walk down with Ollie in the buggy and meet me. When we had finished our shopping, we would all drive home. She was prepared to admit that we were (how kind she is: actually, ‘she was’ rather than ‘we were’) getting too old to push the buggy up the hill.

It wasn’t until we had reached the last stage of executing this plan that I realised how neatly Bernice had stitched me up. It was true that she was now spared pushing the buggy up the hill. I, on the other hand, had to perform three challenging actions. First, I had to fold up the buggy. This is, of course, a simple two-step operation. At least in the instruction booklet and the online video it is simple. You pick up the buggy by the plastic handle and it neatly folds in half as you pick it up. If it is at all recalcitrant, a simple flick of the wrist is all that is needed. I find that, once I have picked up the buggy, I am concentrating so hard on avoiding toppling over under its weight that I cannot focus on flicking my wrist.

Once I had finally managed to close the buggy, I then had to manoeuvre it into the hatch of our car. Fortunately, the Opel Astra has quite a deep boot, so it was theoretically possible to fit the buggy in. However, this required what I believe weightlifters refer to as a deadlift, followed by extending my arms out in front. The sense of achievement when I finally closed the boot on the buggy almost compensated for the humiliation of it taking me two attempts.

When we left Israel, I was reflecting how fortuitous our timing was, in sporting terms. We were moving two hours closer to the match times of the T20 World Cup. (If you need to ask, there’s no point in telling you. However, Americans should be warned that they may need to start boning up on their cricket, which will be played in the 2028 Olympics on the West Coast; I suspect the USA may feature quite prominently.)

We were also moving into the time zone of Wimbledon, which actually started today (Monday). I’m hoping I will at least be able to catch some evening highlights.

I also fondly imagined I was being wise in escaping Israel’s obsession with the Euros. (If you need to ask, there’s no point in telling you.) However, on reflection, if you are planning to escape the Euros, Portugal is probably not the smartest destination. Ten days ago, on Shabbat, our neighbour was having the outside of his house painted. The painters had their truck radio on full blast as they worked, and I was therefore left in no doubt that Portugal had gone 2-0 up, although I did not, at the time, realise that it was as the result of an own goal from Turkey’s Samet Akaydin. You will, perhaps, be interested, if not surprised, to learn that the Portuguese radio commentator was as excessive in his repeated screaming of ‘Go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-lo!’ for that fiasco as he would have been had Ronaldo scissor-kicked the ball into the goal from the halfway line.

In addition to the celebrations late into the night after every Portuguese victory, we have had two days of celebration marking St Peter’s Day. From the side of the house that our bedroom is on, we heard hardly anything of the popular concert in the town square, but Micha’el, Tslil and the boys sleep on the other side, and Tslil says it went on into the small hours on Saturday night.

And this is the everyday substance of our every day here. We find, as always to our shock, that we are already halfway through our four weeks here. If Ollie’s speech continues to develop at the rate it has since we arrived (nothing to do with us), he’ll be conversing normally by the time we leave. If Tao continues to grow at the rate he seems to have grown since we arrived (again, not our doing), then I won’t have to bend down to kiss him goodbye. And if life continues for the next two weeks in just as exciting a way as it has progressed for the first two weeks, then this will have been another great trip.

Let me start by thanking my many readers who expressed, either in public comments or directly to me privately, how gripping they found last week’s account of my efforts to get my biopsy results before we flew, so that I would be able to get travel insurance. I know that many of you could not believe that we would be stupid enough to contemplate travelling without insurance. What those people are failing to take into account is that in certain situations we are capable of being that stupid, and also that, however fearful I was of travelling with no cover, it was a less daunting prospect than being the one who prevented Bernice from spending a month with the family, and the almost equally daunting prospect of having to break the news to the kids, and the grandkids, that we weren’t going to be coming after all.

However gripping you found the account, I assure you that living through it was much more intense. In fact, when I passed last week’s post to Bernice for her to critique, I warned her that I thought it was a little boring to read. It appears that I was mistaken.

Let me give you one more indication of just how challenging the few days before we flew were, and just what a state I was left in. Bernice and I decided before this trip that the time had come for us to make another concession to our age. The flight that we usually take out to Portugal lands at 21:15. By the time we get through customs, collect our luggage, wait for the shuttle to the car rental office, complete the paperwork, load the car, and attempt and fail to connect my phone to the car’s screen, it is about midnight when we start our almost-three-hour drive to Penamacor.

So, we decided that this time we would find somewhere to stay overnight that was no more than an hour’s drive from Lisbon. I found a hotel that looked fine, and was both reasonably priced (particularly if you are used to hotel prices in Israel) and conveniently situated, just off the motorway we travel on. It was, unfortunately, off the westbound carriageway, but I checked and saw that there was an adjacent exit from the eastbound carriageway leading to a flyover that enabled access to the hotel.

On the evening before our flight, I went upstairs to check in online, print out our boarding cards (Yes, we really are that old!) and car rental voucher and also print out directions from google maps for the drive to the hotel on Monday night and then to Penamacor on Tuesday. (Despite the fact that we take out a data roaming package on our phones, I am enough of a belt and braces man to fear that something will go wrong, and so I always print out directions.) (Yes, we really are that old!!)

When I looked at the route on google maps, I found that the flyover had disappeared, and, although there was an exit from the motorway at a convenient location, there was no way to cross over. We would need to drive an extra ten kilometres on Monday evening, cross the motorway, and then drive ten kilometres back. Worse still, the following morning we would have to drive twenty kilometres back in the direction of Lisbon, then cross the motorway and drive twenty kilometres back.

As you can imagine, this was not exactly good news, and I was not in the best place psychologically to discover it. However, fifteen minutes’ research online made me realise that I had somehow confused two similarly-named hotels, and had booked us into the Flag Hotel Santarém, which is not in Santarém, rather than the Santarém Hotel, which is. It was easy to book a room online at the correct hotel, but, when I cancelled the other booking, I discovered that free cancellation only applied up to 24 hours before the stay begins. Even though I knew that we would not have been arriving until 25 hours later, our booking, of course, was for a room that would be available from 3PM, in another 19 hours.

Bernice and I discussed it briefly, and agreed that we would rather forfeit the cost of the room than add 60 kilometres to our journey. To my surprise, after I cancelled our reservation, I was redirected to a screen that first explained that booking.com would do their best to persuade the hotel to ignore their no refund policy, and then invited me to explain the reason for our cancellation. This I dutifully did, far more in hope than expectation. Fifteen minutes later, I received an email from booking.com informing me that they had succeeded, and our money would be refunded. This was, at that point, so far and away the best news I had heard in some time, that I almost wept tears of gratitude.

When, the following night, we arrived at the hotel just after 1AM, checked in with the minimum of fuss, and almost immediately collapsed onto a very comfortable bed, we were doubly convinced that this arrangement made sense. The next morning, when we enjoyed fruit and coffee in the hotel dining room, and set out well rested around 9AM, we were trebly convinced.

However, we were soon to be reminded that the opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings. As we walked across the hotel car park, we heard and saw a massive explosion about a kilometre away. As a huge plume of black smoke rose, I quickly calculated that the site of the explosion was in the general direction that we needed to travel in. Fortunately, Waze was working perfectly, and, by the time we reached the roundabout half a kilometre from the hotel, and saw that the traffic was already backed up from the site of the explosion almost to the roundabout, Waze had already rerouted us. As we wove our way through minor Santarem streets and then along a country road, we speculated aloud that, without Waze, we would have had no choice but to sit in the traffic jam. Instead of that, we joined another motorway in a few kilometres, and only about five minutes was added to our journey time.

When we arrived at the kids’ home, around 11:15, Micha’el told us that, had we travelled through the night, we would have hit a dreadful fierce thunderstorm. As it was, our journey was through intermittent cloud and sunshine, with some threatening skies but only a little light rain. This, of course, only make us more pleased that we had chosen to break our journey. I suspect that, as long as we take the same flight, Santarém Hotel will be a regular stopover for us.

That same afternoon, a brief storm served to give us a taste of what we had missed. For the benefit of my readers in Israel, this is a short video taken in the kids’ garden. Jealous?

Since then, our weather has improved, and the last couple of days have been hot to very hot (reaching the mid-30s today).

Other than that, I have very little to report. Thanks to the wonders of WhatsApp video chats, even Ollie is very aware of us, and it took no more than a couple of minutes for him to open up to us. He is just at an exciting stage where he understands everything anyone says, but he has a limited vocabulary: limited, but growing every day, and he certainly has no difficulty in making it clear what he wants to convey.

As for Tao, his imaginative play is, if that’s possible, even more sophisticated than when we were last here. He is still as passionate and skilled a builder with magnetiles as ever, and on the mornings when he accompanies Lua and I on our morning walk into the forest, he is always interested in looking closely at the plants and trees, at least when he isn’t forcing me to walk the plank of his pirate ship (which most passers-by mistake for the grassy knoll outside the municipal sports hall).

Bernice, as ever, has switched to an 18-hour day without drawing breath. If you’re looking for an au pair, I can highly recommend her. Sadly, I can’t compete, but I do what I can. Among my less appreciated skills is the ability to accurately predict how many extra large reusable shopping bags we need to buy to pack all of our huge initial supermarket shop. It may be a niche market, but you would not believe how much satisfaction it gives me to guess right.

And so, our first week is over, without our having done anything very much. Not, of course, that doing very much is the object of the exercise. Just spending time with the family is all we really come out for, and the week has been full of that, for which we are both truly grateful.

Blogger’s Note: Before we begin –  a spoiler alert: This story has a happy ending. However, to get the full effect as experienced by those who lived this story, try to forget this fact as you read it.

Routine blood tests a month and a half ago returned a sharply increased PSA. (For those few of my readers who are neither men above a certain age, nor women married to men above a certain age, a high PSA is an indicator of prostate cancer. In one of those quirks of nature that make internal medicine so fascinating for practitioners and so nerve-wracking for those they practise on, a high PSA is neither a necessary nor a sufficient indicator of cancer, but it is, as these things go, pretty reliable.) Certainly, as these things go, my level was about four times as high as it needed to be to raise a reddish flag.

A visit to my urologist followed fairly quickly, with all of the usual attendant indignities. (For those few of my readers who are neither men above a certain age, nor women married to men above a certain age, let me just say that a family blog is not the place to elaborate on those indignities.) When the urologist referred me for a prostate biopsy, things didn’t sound good. When he learnt that the hospital was demanding an MRI as a pre-requisite for the biopsy, despite my having undergone an MRI less than two years ago, he was, frankly, annoyed at what he saw as a completely unnecessary delay. His annoyance, to be honest, didn’t make Bernice and I feel any happier.

However, we were able to arrange the MRI fairly quickly. The scan was analysed in reasonable time as well, and we were then, and only then, able to schedule the biopsy, which I had a month ago. We were told to expect the results in four-to-six weeks, which, of course, meant that we would receive them only once we were in Portugal. This didn’t really worry us, since we knew that we could schedule appointments as easily from Portugal as from Israel, and our ever-increasing familiarity with scheduling medical appointments strongly suggested that we would be back home before any earliest appointment we would be able to schedule.

Our family doctor then advised calling the lab after three weeks.. This was good news! A shorter waiting time for the results was obviously better, and to receive the results when we were at home, and to have a chance to digest them before going to Portugal, seemed better than receiving them there.

A couple of weeks ago, I contacted our delightful insurance agent, to arrange travel insurance for the trip. He set up a three-way call with the company we have used in all of our recent trips, and I went through the depressing list of my pre-existing conditions and medications. Our agent had previously confirmed that, as I suspected, I needed to mention the suspicion of prostate cancer, even though the biopsy results were not in.

Neither this company, nor the second one we tried, would insure me without either a clear biopsy result or a doctor’s letter, confirming that there was no reason why I should not fly. Of course, no sensible doctor would set himself up in this way to be sued by the insurer for all medical and repatriation costs if, God forbid, anything should go wrong.

Bernice and I then discussed with our agent the possibility of excluding my prostate from the medical cover, and, between ourselves, Bernice and I discussed flying with me uninsured.

Three weeks after the biopsy, and just over a week before our flight, I phoned the path lab, to ask whether the result was in. It wasn’t, but the receptionist was very sympathetic when I explained my position, said she would try to hurry the process, and asked me to phone again immediately after Shavuot. (Because, of course, Shavuot last week stole two days from the lab’s working week.)

When I phoned last Thursday morning, the results were still not in. The receptionist asked me to phone again at 3pm. As it happened, my cousin’s son was visiting Israel from England, and we had arranged to meet him and another cousin in Jerusalem at 3pm. As Bernice parked the car, I phoned the lab, to be told that the result would be ready in an hour or an hour and a half, and I should phone back at 3:40. I didn’t really understand why, if the results would not be ready then, but I didn’t query this.

I was, by this stage, feeling increasingly helpless and frustrated, There seemed to me to be a cosmic coordination of events designed just to thwart my attempt to get my results in time to get travel insurance, and there seemed to be nothing I could do. I had thought I might not be able to function while waiting to phone again. However, we had such a good time with my relatives that I actually lost track of the time, and did not phone the lab back until after 4pm, by which time it was closed and all I got was a recorded message.

The lab, of course, does not work on Friday, so I would only be able to contact them again on Sunday, the day before we flew.

At this point, our agent declared his determination to find a solution somehow. He set up a conference call with the director of the insurance company who signs off on all of the policies. After our agent had told the director what a wonderful person I was, and had told me what a wonderful person the director was, we got on famously.

He first asked me what I would do if my urologist advised me against travelling. I said that I would not travel, and he was rather more impressed than I felt my answer warranted. He assured me that many people were not that sensible. At some point, I asked about excluding the prostate from the cover, and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should never, ever, consider an exclusion cause, because I would not believe the lengths to which an insurance company was capable of going in order to prove that a totally unrelated medical condition that arose was, in fact, a consequence of the prostate trouble.

After further discussion, during which he proved to be a truly delightful man, he said that, whatever the situation, whether I had a result, or did not have a result, and whatever the result was, provided my urologist said I could travel, then they would insure me. When I then asked what the maximum cost of that cover would be, he obviously could not give an exact figure, but the ballpark he gave was more reasonable than I had expected.

He further said that, if there wasn’t enough time for me to produce a letter from the urologist stating that there was no reason I should not fly, and if I told him that the urologist had said I could fly, then he would accept my word.

Reassured by this conversation, I called the path lab on Sunday morning, and learnt that the results were in. Of course, the lab would not share those results with me. I asked them to confirm that they had sent them to my urologist, and was shocked to learn that they had only sent them to the doctor who carried out the biopsy, with whom I had no contact. I immediately phoned my urologist’s clinic, to confirm that they had requested the results. However, that clinic is closed on Sunday, so all I got was a recorded message.

I also immediately WhatsApped my family doctor (as he had requested) to tell him the results were in and to ask him to request the results, which he did. I asked him if he would share the results with me when he received them, but he did not respond to that message.

By the end of Sunday (yesterday), I was a nervous wreck. I had, by that time, packed, with a sinking heart. Part of me was convinced that packing would prove to be a waste of time since my urologist would tell me that I needed to start treatment for cancer immediately. Part of me wanted to pack as much as possible for the kids because who knew if I would ever be able to fly to Portugal again. Part of me was very worried about flying without insurance. All of me was feeling that I was coming apart, and was increasingly frustrated by a medical system that seemed to be not responding to my requests. I felt I was trapped in a Kafka novel.

This morning, I phoned the urology clinic. When I told the receptionist the results were in, she started trying to schedule an appointment with the urologist for this Thursday. When I explained that I was flying today, and really needed to speak to the urologist on the phone before mid-afternoon today, she said that the doctor never gave biopsy results over the phone. When I pleaded with her, she went off to speak to the urologist, and returned to tell me that he would check the results and phone me later in the day.

The insurance agent and I agreed that, if I had heard nothing by 2pm, we would arrange insurance for Bernice. Bernice and I spent a couple of hours this morning doing the last-minute packing and straightening the house, growing increasingly fragile and, on my part at least, fractious. I didn’t know whether pestering some combination of the lab, the urology clinic and my family doctor, would be counter-productive. Eventually I phoned the lab, to learn that they hadn’t received a request from my urologist, and that they had also sent the results to a urology professor in the hospital, with whom I had made an appointment for after our return from Portugal, expecting that I would, by then, be needing some treatment. I have no idea why they thought he was the referring doctor.

In a panic, I then phoned the urology clinic to ask them to request the results. The secretary explained that she could not do that, but put me through to the nurses’ station, since the nurses could make such a request. The nurse I spoke to explained that she could not make a request that overrode or bypassed my urologist, but he very kindly went into the clinic’s computer system and was able to tell me that he could view the results. Of course I asked whether he could share them with me and, quite rightly, he said that he could not.

My mind was at least now put a little more at ease. A little later, our taxi arrived. I hoped I would not have to conduct in the taxi what was, Bernice and were certain, going to be a difficult conversation with the urologist. The urologist didn’t phone. We made our way to the railway platform, just missing one train. With a 30-minute wait, I hoped the call would come while we were in the relative anonymity of the railway platform. It didn’t. The train arrived. Still no call. We reached the airport. As we readied ourselves to go up to the departure lounge, Bernice and I resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not going to get an answer before we flew. Obviously, the urologist would wait until he had seen his last patient and, by the time he phoned, we would be in the air.

Just then, my phone rang. It was the urologist. His opening question to me was, on reflection, bizarre.

“So, what did you want to ask?”

If I hadn’t been on the brink of a nervous breakdown, I might have mustered an answer along the lines of: “I wanted to know what made you go in for urology?” Instead, all I said was: “I wanted to know the results of my biopsy.”

“It’s all clear. There’s no cancer. You’re fit to fly.”

I don’t know exactly what expression was on my face, but I don’t think Bernice had any idea what I had just heard. I quickly thanked the urologist, and told him that, despite having  prepared myself for a whole range of possible answers, that one had been completely unexpected. And then, I had the unadulterated joy of sharing the news with Bernice.

As we queued for the hand luggage security check, our agent called, and we had a conference call with the insurers, whose clerk made me go through my entire medical history, again. He obviously had to contact the director, to receive confirmation that my word about being cleared to fly could be accepted. The director was, of course, not to be found, and on another call, so it was about fifteen minutes before our four-way conference call could close the deal.

By the time we got to the gate for our flight, Bernice and I both felt completely drained, but already about 2000 feet high. Now, a couple of hours later, as I write to you halfway to Portugal, from the discomfort of economy class on a Boeing 737, I am so looking forward to a month with the family in Penamacor. This time more than ever, it is going to feel like a real holiday.

I have remarked previously on the diversity of my readership. This was brought home to me again this morning, just after I sent out my email explaining that delivery of this week’s post would be delayed.

Within half an hour, one dear, kind reader had written expressing the hope that all was well and nothing untoward was causing the delay. I was able to reassure her, along the lines that I will elaborate on below.

Just before her considerate email arrived, another reader WhatsApped me to complain about my messing with her head again, by ensuring that she would not know it was Tuesday.

Let me make it clear that I value both responses….indeed, any response. I think I am the blogging counterpart of a battered husband, craving any attention, however abusive. At the same time, I know which of these two correspondents is more likely to be getting a present from me in her Christmas stocking this year! Caveat lector.

And so, down to business, which, this week, is the problem. On Motzei Shabbat in shul, as we finished davening arvit, a fellow-congregant turned round to tell me that there was ‘good news’: over Shabbat, we had successfully rescued and brought home four hostages. In blog land, everything that happens has to be tested for its quality as grist to the blog mill. Most of that testing takes place, for me, starting with my walk home from Shul on Friday night and continuing until I upload my completed blog post on Sunday, Monday or, as this week, Tuesday. I am constantly mulling over what I am going to write about and how I am going to write about it. At times this mulling is further back in my consciousness; at times it is right up their front and centre; but it is always there.

Once I had heard the news of the rescue, I started thinking of what aspects of it I could write about. I gradually realised, over Saturday evening, that I actually felt less incentive to write about it than I would have expected. I’m not sure why that is, but I think it is in part because I wrote at length and fairly depressingly about ‘the situation’ last week, and I felt you, and I, deserved a week off. I also realised that my joy at the news was very tempered, and I felt that I was a little out of synch with the national mood, which, over Shabbat, was euphoric.

I’m not sure how to explain my reaction. Of course, the news that four hostages are reunited with their families is wonderful. The backstories of some of these hostages would be mocked in a Hollywood blockbuster, but they are heart-wrenchingly true.

Noa Argamani was probably the first human face of hostages after October 7, with the release of the video showing her being driven off on the back of a motorcycle, terrifiedly begging not to be killed. Her rescue came early enough to allow her to be reunited with her mother, suffering from stage-4 brain cancer. Tragically, it seems that Noa’s rescue may have been only just in time.

More tragic is the case Yossi Jan, the father of hostage Almog Meir Jan. Yossi lived alone. According to his sister, he has spent the last eight months at home, glued to the television, riding the rollercoaster of repeatedly raised and dashed hopes. During that time, his weight dropped 20 kilo. When the army were unable to reach Yossi with the news of Almog’s rescue, they contacted Yossi’s sister, who drove to Yossi’s home and found him dead on the settee.

As I contemplate the rescue, two facts refuse to leave my mind. The first is that the direct price, for Israel, of the rescue of these hostages was the equally precious life of Amon Zmora. I need to tall you two things about this man, and I honestly don’t know which to tell you first. In the context of the rescue, and in the context of Israel’s national destiny, he was Chief-Inspector Amon Zmora of the National Counterterrorism Unit (Yamam), a unit of the Border Police. This means he was a superbly trained, highly intelligent, fearless patriot. In the words of the commanding officer of the Border Police: “[He was a] brave and valuable fighter who put the security of state and the citizens of Israel first”.

In the context of his personal life, he was the 36-year-old husband of Michal and father of Noam and Itai. In the words of Michal: “He was a sweet and wonderful man, a fabulous partner and a perfect father. That’s how we’ll remember him, and hope you will, too.”

It is, of course, possible to remember him as both, as both the person he chose to be and the warrior he had no choice but to be. Which is more significant? I’m not sure I know. Perhaps, all I can say is that there are times when we are called upon to put aside our personal life for some time so that we can ensure that all of us can enjoy a personal life in the future. Some, heartbreakingly many since October 7, have been called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in that situation, to pay for the nation’s future with their own personal future. What I am in no doubt about is that the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, and each of us individually owe a debt of gratitude to Amon, and to all of those who have given their lives, and whose lives have been ripped away, since October 7. The Government website today lists the names of 1328 Israeli civilians, and 75 other nationals, 650 individuals serving in the IDF, and 85 other security and first response personnel, killed on or since October 7. We all know that this is by no means the bottom line, but only an interim figure.

Four more hostages rescued. Perhaps the rescue of a handful of others may be possible, some of those also held above ground, in densely-populated civilian centres, prisoners in the homes of complicit Gazan civilians. The rescue alive of any hostages held underground is almost certainly impossible. We are now on Day 241 of October 7. 120 abductees have not yet been returned from incarceration in Gaza. Tzahal has confirmed that 43 of these are no longer alive. That means that no more than 77, at most, are still alive.

And that is the second fact that I cannot shake from my mind. 77, at most, are still alive. Probably, most of those are being held in tunnels, and, therefore, cannot be rescued alive. There is no more incentive, from Hamas’ point of view, to accept an agreement than there ever was. Each day tears Israel apart internally a little more. Each day isolates Israel internationally a little more. I hold out precious little hope of a hostage agreement, and precious little hope of further rescues, and precious little hope of a conclusive end to the war in Gaza. Precious little hope. But what hope I have is so precious!

In other news: next week should see us flying to Portugal on Monday, so I’m not 100% sure when I will be publishing. I will, however, be aiming for 7AM Portugal on Tuesday, which is the normal time. I know there are at least two of you who will feel reassured to hear that.

Between now and then: Chag Sameach (apologies, Andrea, for missing the start of your chag in Australia) and may we all hear good news.

Today’s post comes to you from Chelm, which, from so many points of view, is what Israel has become in these surreal days.

Yesterday, the High Court of Justice began a hearing on the haredi conscription law. You can find a good 3000-word summary of the 75-year history of this issue, up to April 2024, here. Since the temporary stay that the Government gave itself to come up with a new law expired this year on April 1 (not an inappropriate date), there is no longer a legal basis for the exemption of haredim from national service. In the hearing yesterday (Sunday), the Government was not represented by the Attorney General, since he refused to back the Government’s decisions. It seems to me that, if you are not going to take the advice of your legal adviser, you need to replace your legal adviser with someone whose advice you do respect, but what do I know?

Adv. Doron Taubman, representing the government, argued that it did not dispute the fact that it was legally required to draft haredi men and that to refrain from doing so was illegal. However, Taubman argued that the Defence Ministry had the prerogative to decide when and how to enlist these haredi men into the IDF and that the court should not intervene.

On the issue of funding, Taubman agreed that yeshivot should not receive funding for haredi men who ignored draft orders. However, even though the law exempting haredi men expired, they had not actually been summoned yet and therefore were not violating any draft orders. The government could thus continue issuing the funding. In other words, he argued that the deadline has no significance and the lack of resolution can continue indefinitely.

During his address to the court yesterday, the chair of The Movement for Quality Government in Israel’s chairman, Adv. Eliad Shraga, cited his six children who are all currently serving in the war. Petitioners also included a group of 240 women who are mothers of soldiers. I mention this to underline how raw emotions are on the side of the petitioners. For none of them is this a legalistic debate.

Everyone knows (or should realise) that, regardless of what decision the court comes to, the situation on the ground is not going to change overnight. The primary, if unspoken, objective of this hearing is to find a way to prevent the civil war that threatens to erupt between the haredi world and the non-haredi world.

It does seem to me that, in the immediate wake of October 7, and in the months since, there have been not insignificant stirrings in some parts of the haredi sector. Small groups of haredim have enlisted, and others have gone to the front to offer food and emotional and spiritual support to the soldiers. There is the beginnings of a movement to form yeshivot hesder within the haredi community, a channel popular in the national religious sector, combining religious study with military service over an extended period.

However, any attempt to go head-to-head with the haredi community, and any attempt to impose a blanket solution from above on the entire haredi community, will never succeed. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, who are declaring that they will die rather than enlist. This looks to me remarkably like saying that either you let me study Torah in my every waking moment, or I will give up my life and not study Torah on earth at all.

This presumably makes sense within their haredi world, and is interpreted as a death that is a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of God’s name, but it is a sickening rejection and scorning of the life that tens of thousands who live, serving in the army to preserve the Jewish state, and dedicating their every spare moment to Torah study. If our victory depends on our military endeavours and God’s intervention, then we do not need to divide the people into soldiers and learners, we can strive to make each person a soldier and a learner.

Yesterday, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, one of the evacuated Northern towns, met with senior army officers to ask some tough questions about the conduct of the ‘war’ on the Northern border. (The quotation marks around ‘war’ in that sentence reflect the fact that Hizballah – which is arguably the de facto government of Lebanon – has been, for months, daily targeting Israeli military installations and civilian centres all along the Norther border. The army has responded by bombing launch sites and targeting Hizballah personnel. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from the border area. Is that a war? If not, what is it?

Anyway, the mayor met with senior officers hoping to receive clarification about the prospects for the development of hostilities, projected plans for returning civilians to their homes and places of education and employment, and so forth. These seem to be legitimate questions, and one would expect the officers to approach such a meeting with a measure of sensitivity for the suffering this uncertainty is causing the population, and its elected representative, the mayor. In a family blog, I hesitate to quote from the meeting, but it is reliably reported that, at one point, the Chief of Northern Command told the mayor to ‘stop f***ing with my mind, go back to your hotel, and await orders.’

Elsewhere in Chelm, members of Knesset, meeting last week with representatives of the families of hostages, screamed uncontrolledly at them, and could not be called to order. (I should add that, to my surprise, I was impressed to see that Itamar ben-Gvir appeared to keep calm and attempted to lower the temperature in the room, although the Chair did not actually allow him to speak.)

And now we have, I think, a proposal on the table for the freeing of the hostages, the dead and the alive. Of course, the proposal was revealed to the world by Biden (since Bibi could not be seen to be proposing it without the extreme right leaving the government). Bibi was then able to avoid having to confirm or deny that it was a proposal Israel had made.

The next stage was for Bibi to show the details of the proposal to the war cabinet, but to refuse to show them to the wider cabinet (which would need to endorse the agreement for it to become official), since, apparently, he had no faith that the details would not be leaked. So, we apparently have a Prime Minister that has appointed an Attorney General whose advice he won’t take, and who has appointed to positions such as Minister of Justice, Finance Minister, Minister of the Interior, people whom he cannot trust not to leak details of sensitive documents presented in Cabinet meetings. I’m not sure Chelm does this justice.

Apparently, Bibi met with Smotrich this morning to go over the deal with him. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have both stated that if Israel adopts the plan, they will leave the Government.

This morning, a new item appeared. A Hamas representative stated that they will not consider Biden’s proposal until they know that all of the parties in the Israeli government support it.

Perhaps the Chelmiest part of this whole insane situation is that almost everyone – and principally the US, the rest of the world, the families of the hostages, Bibi – behaves as if there is another side with whom Israel can strike an agreement. It has been clear from October 7 (and earlier, for those not seduced by the ‘conception’) that there is no other side. Hamas cannot be trusted in anything they do or say. On October 7, they carried out a horrific pogrom. Since October 7, they have, every day, gained ground, spreading lies, offering up Gazans as sacrifices, playing the Israeli trauma expertly, sitting quietly and letting this country tear itself apart.

Tangentially, to remind you of the level of brutality of October 7, Israel has held, since the days after October 7, unidentifiable remains of a body of someone from Nir Oz. Just yesterday, eight months after the most sophisticated forensic identification project in the history of the world began, the experts, including archaeologists, were able to identify the remains as those of Dolev Yehud, z”l, previously believed abducted to Gaza. Dolev, a civilian paramedic, went out on October 7 to treat injured fellow-kibbutzniks while the kibbutz was occupied by terrorists, leaving, in his shelter at home, his eight-month pregnant wife and three children aged five to nine. A week and a half later, his wife gave birth.

Next week, I think we’ll talk about the French Open tennis and the cricket T-20 World Cup…but then again, this week I thought we were going to talk about the next stage in the air conditioning saga – so, who knows?