A little housekeeping, before we start.

After last week’s outpouring, I found, on the pages of last Friday’s Jerusalem Post, a proposal for a possible ‘day after’ scenario that was not as bleak as my conclusion. Amotz Asa-El is a political commentator with an enviable grasp of the sweep of history and his is the first column I read every week in Friday’s paper. Well, not exactly: the chess problem is the first column I read, but his is the first serious column I read. While you may find his suggestion a little Polyannaish, it makes thought-provoking reading. You can find it here.

Incidentally, reading last week’s chess problem, I discovered that Humphrey Bogart was a keen and talented amateur chess-player, who was a regular opponent, in friendly games, of the world blindfold champion George Koltanowski. Lauren Bacall was, I believe, not a chess player, which explains why she said to him: ‘You know how to castle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.’

And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I should explain that this is one of those weeks when I’m not going to be writing a post. I just haven’t had the time. It is now gone 9PM on Monday evening, and I still have not a single idea about what to write.

The problem is that, in the last week, I haven’t had a moment to stop and think. Much like the moon blocking the sun and ploughing a swathe of still, silent blackness across North America, various major bodies in my universe have conspired to align themselves this last week, leaving me scarcely time to load the dishwasher.

First, there is the constant proliferation of medical appointments and tests. My medical year ebbs and flows like the sea’s day, although, in my case, the prime influencer is not the moon’s gravitational pull but, rather, our trips to Portugal. Scheduling of routine medical checkups is regularly deferred to the month after we return from Portugal, so these last few weeks have been very busy, from my teeth to my feet.

My latest appointment was to remove accumulated earwax. This is something I used to schedule whenever I woke up one morning to discover that overnight I had lost all hearing in one or the other ear. A couple of years ago, it occurred to me that if I scheduled to see my little Russian ENT man every six months, I need never wake up deaf again. Fortunately, he does a monthly afternoon gig in Maale Adumim, where I strongly suspect I am his only patient. This means that I can always get an appointment, and, since suctioning wax from the ears if it has not had a good 18 months to build up is a 15-second job per ear, I can, as I did today, leave home at 2:20 and be back home at 2:32, good to go for another 6 months. It gives me a sense of what a Formula One racing car must feel like after a smooth pitstop.

The doctor pointed out after he had waved his magic wand how propitious my timing was. I have taken Pesach cleaning to a new level; even my ear canals are chometz-free.

Which reminds me that, of course, Pesach cleaning is something else that really has to be treated as a priority. Every year, we become more and more efficient in our cleaning. A couple of years ago, I started tackling just one drawer unit a day in the kitchen. This year, I suspect that if I want to follow that plan I need to have started several days before I did, but we know we will get to the finish line.

Then there’s the shul magazine, the editing of which is one of the tasks that gives me a great deal of pleasure and also involves considerable levels of stress which, I read, are what is needed to stave off Alzheimer’s. Crossword and Sudoku don’t cut it, apparently; there needs to be something at stake that gives the challenge an edge.

The gathering, editing and translating of the articles all goes fairly smoothly, although there is always a period when I fear only three people are going to submit articles and then, in the space of two days, twelve people who didn’t mention anything to me send in articles. We are timing this edition to come out for Yom Ha’atzma’ut. Given the looming presence of Pesach, I pushed all the deadlines earlier, and we are in very good shape, with all but one of the articles already received, edited and translated.

Starting with the last edition, we lost the services of our very talented graphic artist, unfortunately, and were unable to find a replacement. I therefore took on that function as well. I freely admit that I have shamelessly copied the existing graphic style of the magazine. Fortunately, my skills as a forger/imitator are fairly well honed. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of laying out the magazine, but it is very time-consuming. So, this last week has seen some long days and late nights.

Lastly, our cupboards, as always before Pesach, contain some items that are chametz gamur, which we cannot sell for the duration of Pesach but must get rid of. So, last night, I made rye bread, rye and spelt crackers, and granola. Whenever I attempt these multiple bakes, I draw up a timetable, which ensures, on paper, that the oven becomes free of Recipe A just as I need it for Recipe B, and that the prepping of Recipe C will neatly fill the baking time of Recipe B. These schedules give me immense satisfaction; on paper, their cogs and springs mesh together as in a mid-20th Century Swiss watch. On paper! Sadly, in the real world, nothing ever seems to work out. B needs to go into the oven when A still has 15 minutes in a much hotter oven. I am only halfway through the prep of C when B needs to be taken out of the oven.

Last night, uncharacteristically and magically, everything aligned in real life just as it had on paper, and I was done, washed up, floor swept wiped over, everything cooled, wrapped, and packed away, in record time. Unfortunately, I still had no idea what I was going to write about, and I was ready only for the intellectual stimulation of The Times Quick Cryptic crossword and bed.

All of which explains why (and not for the first time, as you probably don’t need me to remind you), I have nothing to write about this week. I’d like to promise that next week will be better. However, Pesach will, by then, be casting its shadow over the doorstep. The printer will be asking when the magazine is going to be ready. At least I can be confident that my earwax won’t have built up yet, so that’s 12 minutes saved!

By the time you read this post, we will be in the 180th day that Israeli abductees, civilians and soldiers, men, women and children, pensioners and a baby, are being held in who-knows-what conditions somewhere in Gaza. I have been guilty of ignoring them in the last several weeks’ posts, but I feel that a corner was turned this week that will not allow me to ignore them further.

I wish that I could tell you how many of the abductees are still alive. I wish I could tell you how many of them were already not alive on 7 October. I wish I could tell you with any certainty how many there are in total. The figure that is being publicized is 134; seldom is it pointed out that, of those 134, 11 are reliably believed to have been murdered, 10 are reliably believed to have fallen in battle, 3 have been killed in a tragic misidentification by Israeli troops.

The reason for the uncertainty is, of course, that some were abducted by Hamas, a terrorist organisation recognised as such by the civilised world (or what little remains of it), others were abducted by Islamic Jihad, a smaller terrorist organisation, and others, in all probability, were abducted by some of those Gazan civilians who are, Hamas informs us, caught in a humanitarian crisis that horrifies the civilised world.

Presumably, these are some of the Gazans that were recently polled as supporting Hamas’s pogrom on 7 October. As The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) reported on March 22, 71% of all Palestinians recently polled supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7, up 14 points among Gazans and down 11 points among West Bank Palestinians compared to three months ago. Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians believe Hamas should rule Gaza, and 70 percent are satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the war.

Given that the abductors are either members of one or other terrorist organisation or are unaffiliated ‘freelance’ Gazans, it should not surprise anyone that no details of the hostages have been released by those abductors: no numbers, no list of names, no record of whether they are living or dead. The Red Cross has, I hardly need tell you, not been allowed access to visit the abductees. Does anyone believe that the medication Israel provided for the chronically sick among the abductees has reached those abductees?

The New York Times (a newspaper not remotely supportive of Israel) carried last week a story featuring the testimony of Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old released abductee who is the first such person to speak about the sexual assaults she suffered at the hands of her Hamas captor. Pramilla Patten, the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, visited Israel from January 29 to February 14. She brought an investigative team that included forensic scientists, interviewers specialising in survivor interviews and experts in video technology and ‘fake AI’ detection.

The UN report published after the visit confirmed that “sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualised torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” was perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during the 7 October attack. The report also confirms that there is “clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, has been committed against hostages,” and that the remaining female hostages were being subjected to ongoing “sexualized torture.”

All of those quotes, I reiterate, are from a UN report.

I suspect you didn’t need me to tell you any of the above. I felt, nevertheless, that I needed to, to give context to what I am about to say.

I had a very depressing conversation this past week, with someone who is very well-informed, and who is a lifelong committed Zionist. Let’s call my collocutor Val. In the course of that conversation, Val expressed concern about the right-wing extremists who have central roles in the Government, and who are “expressing racist views”. Val, clearly concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, then went on to ask my opinion about how the war, and the situation, will be resolved.

In my less than polished reply, I found myself making a number of points that led me to a conclusion. Let me attempt to marshal them here in a more organised form.

The entire population of Israel, the leadership of the US and Britain and the rest of the free world, recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation that, by its own charter, seeks the destruction of Israel; that, by its statements since 7 October, intends to perpetrate similar pogroms again and again; that, by its actions in Gaza, has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate that, at best, it does not care about Palestinian civilian casualties and, at worst, it seeks to maximise Palestinian civilian casualties.

Knowing this, we all know that there is absolutely no point in attempting to negotiate a resolution of this conflict with Hamas. This is the reason why all parties are pressuring Israel to bring about an immediate ceasefire, which may then lead to a release of hostages, and nobody is pressuring Hamas to immediately release the hostages, which may then lead to a ceasefire.

It is also the reason why the families of the abductees are continuing to call on the Israeli government to bring home the hostages, and not demanding to meet with the Hamas leaders in Doha or calling on Hamas to release the hostages. In the 1970s, the Jewish world did not demand of the Israeli government: ‘Bring My People Home’. Instead, it demanded of Soviet Russia: ‘Let My People Go’, because it knew that, if the pressure were sufficient, the Soviets would recognise that it was in their realpolitik interests to comply. Hamas, in contrast, is in total thrall to its politico-religious fundamentalist ideology.

(Incidentally, I can think of no good reason why Hamas would ever agree to release even one more hostage. By not releasing hostages it is inflicting incredible pain on the whole country and also ripping Israel apart again.)

And yet, and yet: at the same time, there is an extraordinary dissonance going on. Almost the entire free world, and even, it appears, the Israeli government, is behaving as if Hamas is the rational and moral representative of a country. Israel is being told by the same bodies that recognise Hamas for what it is, that the resolution of the situation must be a two-state solution. Last week, the historian and commentator Gil Troy suggested that we should instead be calling for a ‘two-democracy’ solution. The question then becomes: How do we bring Gaza to the point where it can become a democratic state?

My answer to that, I am mildly surprised to discover, is that I do not believe it can be done. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. The Gazans’ first act, after that withdrawal, was to loot and burn everything Israel left behind: from the houses to the state-of-the-art hydroponic fruit and vegetable greenhouses, in which Gazans had been employed. Their self-interest was sacrificed to their ideology.

In January 2006, elections were held throughout the PA. Gaza was divided into five electoral districts, from North Gaza down to Rafah. The 24 seats contested were split between these districts in accordance with the distribution of the electorate. Hamas received 44.45% of the vote throughout the Palestinian Authority compared to Fatah’s 41.43%. Broadly speaking, Hamas dominated Northern Gaza in the election, and Fatah won in the southernmost district. However, because of the complicated seat-allocation system used, and probably because Hamas analysed the system and worked it more effectively than Fatah, Hamas won 15 of the 24 seats and Fatah won only 8.

I have not been able to find any percentage figures exclusively for Gaza, other than for the Northern Gaza district, whose 6 seats were all won by Hamas, despite their polling only just under 47% of the vote, to Fatah’s just over 36%.

It is also almost certainly true that Hamas approached the elections very cannily, fielding candidates in accordance with careful mathematical calculation and temporarily dropping their Charter call for Israel’s destruction, in hopes of winning over moderate voters tired of Fatah corruption. Nevertheless, there is no disputing that Hamas won the 2006 election decisively and, within the electoral definition, democratically.

In 2007, in violent clashes with Fatah, Hamas effectively seized power, quashed all opposition and has held power since. If all of this reminds you of the rise to power of Hitler, then hold that thought.

So, who is Israel actually fighting at the moment? I would suggest that, in the same way as Britain did not declare war on Nazism in 1939, but rather on Nazi Germany, so, too, Israel is fighting not Hamas but Hamas-governed Gaza. That being the case, and given that Hamas does not distinguish its warriors from civilians by dressing them in uniform, or distinguish between civilian and military establishments, but rather houses its headquarters in hospitals and schools and mosques, Israel would, I feel, be justified in acknowledging Hamas’ decisions and waging war against Gaza.

However, of course, Israel has done no such thing. Let’s assume that the Hamas Health Ministry’s official figures for deaths and injuries are accurate (in itself a huge assumption, since Hamas and its media have been inflating figures consistently). Let’s also assume that the IDF figures for Hamas fighters killed are accurate (a more reasonable assumption, since the IDF is able to provide names of many of those killed). If we then calculate the number of civilians killed in proportion to the number of combatants killed, we arrive at a figure that may be unprecedented in any war, and is certainly unprecedented in any entirely urban war, as this is.

If we, further, understand what the legal definition of ‘proportionality’ is in terms of civilian casualties in wartime, then clearly Israel is, rather than committing genocide, carrying out a just war with full respect for international conventions of war.

Let’s jump to some bottom lines. If ‘winning the war’ means eliminating Hamas completely, then Israel cannot win the war. The best it can hope to achieve militarily is a much more severe than usual mowing of the lawn, which will mean reserving to itself the right to go back in and mow the lawn again periodically in the future. Part of the price of that solution will almost certainly be that the residents of the Gaza envelope will never be able to return home. Another part of the price of that solution is that Gazans will live under the threat of Israeli military operations within heavily populated areas of Gaza to eradicate terrorists.

If the long-term aim is to bring Gaza to the point where it can be a viable democratic state, then I see no way that that can be achieved. The hatred is by now so deeply embedded, the corruption, of Gazans and UN bodies, so complete, the pool of talent and ability in Gaza so depleted, as generation after generation of able Gazans move abroad to pursue a career and a fulfilled life, that the Gazans that are left are simply not equipped to turn Gaza around.

I genuinely do not see any solution that will make it possible for Israelis to live securely within Israel and Gazans to live freely in Gaza. Which leads me to one stark conclusion. If nothing that anyone does can create a situation where the Gazans will accept a Jewish state and live in peace alongside it, then it is inhumane, and insane, to continue as we are, condemning generation after generation of Israelis to a tangible existential threat, and generation after generation of Gazans to living unfulfilled and unstable lives under the nonsensical and cruel label of ‘Palestinian refugees’ in perpetuity that the UN created.

So, what is my plan for the day after? How do I see this situation being resolved? There are, I would suggest, only two options.

We can call an end to the Zionist venture, and condemn Jews to be again defenceless against the world’s hatred and dispersed amongst the nations. On an individual level, many Israelis are considering taking, and some have already taken, that step. I cannot condemn them. It is a moral act of considerable bravery. On past form, as confirmed by what is happening now throughout the free world, this will mean permanent insecurity for the Jews, frequent forced or voluntary emigration from one temporary haven to another, occasional or less occasional mass murder. Nothing in today’s world suggests that the fate of the Jews in the diaspora will be better in the future than it has been in the past.

Or we can encourage the Gazans to leave Gaza, perhaps by offering financial incentives to the Gazans and to potential host countries. ‘Where are they supposed to go?’ you ask. There are no end of Arab countries. Let them spread themselves throughout the Arab world. Just over two million Gazans represent about 0.45% of the population of all Arab states. Their lives will almost certainly be materially better and more secure elsewhere, and their grandchildren will thank them for it.

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

Do you honestly see any practical resolution other than the two options I have presented? If so, I would love you to offer it in the comments below.

Does one solution seem more acceptable to you than the other? Do you give any weight to the fact that, uniquely, the Land of Israel was promised to the People of Israel by the God of Israel? Possibly not. How about the fact that Israel’s right to exist as an independent state was supported by the family of nations in 1947? Not good enough? What about the fact that there has never in history been an independent state of Palestine, whereas Jews twice lived in the Land of Israel as an independent nation in Biblical times? Jews were made a nation by God when he took them out of Egypt. The Palestinians became a nation when their leaders deemed it politically expedient half a century ago. Does the fact of unbroken Jewish residence throughout the Land of Israel from Biblical times to the modern era carry any weight with you?

I reached the end of writing this, and could not really believe that the argument had led me to the devastating conclusion that it’s us or them. (I know that some of my readers will be astonished that it has taken me this long to ‘wake up’ to reality.) So I read the post again, desperately hoping to find where my argument is forced or distorting. I can’t see it, I’m afraid. Believe me that I wish I could. I invite you, I implore you, to point out to me where my argument falls down.

Now that’s a title not all parts of which will resonate with all of you, but I can guarantee that my brother-in-law David will, as soon as he reads it, be unable to shake from his head the sound of Ken Dodd singing. Others of you will be reminded of Charles Schultz, and, more specifically, Snoopy.

Most of you, I hope, will have realised by now that today’s theme is happiness. Three events in the last seven days contrived to align in suggesting this topic to me. The first was Purim (which, depending on who and where you are, you celebrated either on Sunday or on Monday, or not at all). There has been lots of discussion in Israel in recent days about how we can celebrate Purim wholeheartedly this year. However, on the evidence of what I have seen and heard today, while there seems to be less of the not necessarily appropriate craziness that sometimes marks Purim, there has been much joy, as we take heart from the message of the Purim story.

Last week was marked by the UN’s International Day of Happiness, my second event. This day has been celebrated on March 20 every year since 2013, following a resolution initiated by Bhutan, of which more later. The third event I will come to much later in this blog.

So, how did you celebrate the International Day of Happiness (IDH) this year? Me too. Very little attention seems to be paid to the day itself, but rather more is paid to the annual World Happiness Report, which purported, this year, to rank 143 individual countries according to how happy their citizens are. Before we look at some of those ranks, we need to clarify some issues.

First, the score and, therefore, the ranking for the current year for each country actually represent the average of that country’s score for each of the previous three years: so, 2024’s score is an average of 2021–2023. Given what Israel has been through in 2023 and, so far, 2024, you might question how accurate a reflection of the current situation this year’s score and ranking are.

In addition, the UN’s view of national happiness is, some would argue, a controversial one. Their online announcement for IDH states: ‘Happiness is a fundamental human goal. The United Nations General Assembly recognizes this goal and calls for “a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all peoples.”’

It is arguable whether Bhutan would fully endorse this explanation of how to promote national happiness. Indeed, Bhutan’s adoption of happiness as a national value was quite consciously intended as a rejection of an economic definition of happiness. For at least 400 years, Bhutan’s legal code has recognised that, “if the government cannot create happiness for its people, then there is no purpose for government to exist”.

So, when, in the early 1970’s, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fourth King of Bhutan, promulgated the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), questioning whether the prevailing measurement system’s claim that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) alone could deliver happiness and well-being to society, he found a ready audience. When Bhutan became a democracy in 2008, the Constitution including the statement: “The State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness.”

The measurement and screening of GNH in Bhutan considers 9 domains, divided into 38 sub-indexes, as shown in the following diagram. These domains reflect, among other things, the Buddhism that is a significant part of Bhutanese culture.

For the WHP, the criteria are a little different. The World Happiness Report is a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s Editorial Board. Their website gives insight into their methodology:

“Life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll provide the basis for the annual happiness rankings. They are based on answers to the main life evaluation question. The Cantril Ladder asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are from nationally representative samples over three years.

“We use observed data on…six variables and estimates of their associations with life evaluations to explain the variation across countries. [These variables are] GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption. Our happiness rankings are not based on any index of these six factors – the scores are instead based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives, in particular, their answers to the single-item Cantril ladder life-evaluation question, much as epidemiologists estimate the extent to which life expectancy is affected by factors such as smoking, exercise, and diet.”

This highlights the third area that requires clarification. Just what is the WHP measuring? It labels that something ‘happiness’. However, the quotation in the last two paragraphs would suggest that what is being measured is not, as you might initially suspect, ‘joy’, but, rather, something like ‘satisfaction with one’s life’. If I were forced to offer a one-word definition, I might choose ‘fulfilment’.

Clearly, nobody would want to argue that material considerations are irrelevant to human happiness. However, you can certainly argue that these are not the only, nor even, perhaps, the most important, elements in determining fulfilment.

All of which may go some way to explaining some of the more surprising rankings in the 2024 (actually 32021-2023) table. Consider this, for example. Israel is ranked 6^th happiest of the 143 countries. Among young people up to the age of 30, it is ranked 2^nd, bettered only by Lithuania. Among those aged 60 and above, it is ranked 18^th.

Incidentally, the corresponding rankings for US and UK are as follows:

Statistics are, unfortunately, not available for Bhutan, because “Bhutan was excluded from the 2021 report due to a technicality: Each country’s scores are based upon detailed Gallup polls, but Gallup did not conduct polling in Bhutan during the required timeframe.” This should mean that Bhutan will be included in 2025’s report (for the years 2022-2024), although conspiracy theorists may remain sceptical.

At this point, I’m going to stick my neck out, and offer an opinion for which I have no tangible evidence. I believe that Israel’s high rank is attributable to three separate key elements. The first is the important role that family plays in Israeli life. Both the nuclear and the extended family are nurtured and celebrated in Israeli national life.

To give one, perhaps trivial, example (and perhaps not). At the ceremony marking the start of Israel’s Independence Day every year, twelve individuals from various walks of life are honoured by being selected to light twelve beacons, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Each honouree precedes the lighting by declaring in whose honour they are lighting: this might typically be, for example, a sector of public life such as the health service, or youth movements.

Each declaration follows a formula: it ends with the words: “and for the glory of Israel”, and begins along the lines of: “I, Jane Doe, daughter of Shimon, of blessed memory, and Dinah, may she live a long life”. In other words, those who have been singled out because of their life achievements, begin by acknowledging their parentage. This, of course, reflects the Jewish religious convention of naming.  

The second key element is that Israel is a country whose citizens recognise and identify with a national purpose. We share and value a common past and seek to work towards a common future. Of course, this is not always obvious, and, national unity is not something that was much in evidence for the first nine months of 2023. However, as I may have pointed out before, both those demonstrating in support of the government’s plans for judicial reform, and those demonstrating against the government’s plan for judicial revolution marched under the national flag. They were united in their desire to achieve what they perceived as being best for the country.

Third is a strong sense of community. Both those who belong to a religious community, and those who are not religious, are very likely to feel a strong connection to, and responsibility towards, their local community. Neighbourly concern, supporting local charities, volunteering, are all typical throughout Israeli society.

That, at least, is my take. Now to come to the third event this past week that got me thinking about happiness/contentment/fulfilment. After a long hiatus, Micha’el uploaded a video to the family’s youtube channel. You can view it here. I recommend you view it now, and I promise to wait here until you come back.

Not the easiest watch, I’ll agree, although easier to watch than to make, I suspect. But my takeaway is this: because Tslil and Micha’el are committed to their vision, they are able to deal with the setbacks that they have faced. I hope you were able to see beyond the downbeat mood of the video and sense, obviously not joy, but the fulfilment of engagement with something that matters to you, or, for want of a better word, happiness. And if happiness can be not yet succeeding with your water pump, then I think you’re in an enviable place.

I am writing this post from the Economy section of an El Al flight. (Paying subscribers get a post written from Business class.) If the post seems radically different from the last written in mid-air, that may be because I am now facing East, rather than West, as we head back home after four hectic but wonderful weeks in Portugal. Friends are advised not to ask Bernice and myself ‘Did you enjoy your holiday?’, but we did, in fact, have a great, if exhausting, time. As we drove back to Lisbon this morning at 120 kph on cruise control through bright sunlight and an outside temperature of 26^o , we remarked, as we often do, how fortunate we are that our children share their house with us so generously for a month at a time, and that our grandsons regard us as so natural a part of their lives.

Once again, this week I have nothing overly dramatic to report. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Ollie’s advances in speech. In the last couple of days of our visit he seemed to take another dramatic leap forward, and his active vocabulary is now growing every day. He has added ‘Nana’ and ‘Grandpa’ (smart child), as well as ‘bubbles’, ‘down’ (as the natural partner to his favourite ‘up’), ‘bread’ (this is a child who loves his food) and, this morning, ‘please’. He even attempted on one occasion to follow the most difficult instruction in a charming picture book ‘Tickle My Ears’, in which the child being read to is encouraged to adopt a hands-on approach to helping a rabbit get ready for bed. Ollie has long been willing to tickle the rabbit’s ears, pat its back, clap his hands, switch off the light, but he attempted for the first time to say ;’Hoppity-hop’ to encourage the rabbit to get into bed.

Tao, meanwhile, is taking his first major steps in reading. He has, for some time, been able to recognise, and write, his own name. How far-thinking his parents were when they named him! (Pity his cousin Raphael when he first tries to write his name in English.) In our last couple of weeks in Portugal, Bernice spent ten minutes almost every day starting Tao on a reading program. She is not a fan of phonics. Rather, he learnt, as his father and his Auntie Esther did, with ‘Peter and Jane’, and it is fair to say that he took to it very quickly and is thoroughly enjoying the sense of achievement it gives him. It is so exciting when, as one or other of us is reading to him in the evening, he suddenly exclaims: ‘That’s one of my words – ‘and’!’

Our last full day in Penamacor was Sunday, which was Tao’s 5^th birthday. Celebrations actually began on the previous Thursday, when we all went down to the kid’s land for the planting of Tao’s birthday tree. His first birthday was marked by the planting of an almond tree, which was followed by a pomegranate and a plum. For some reason, he missed out last year, but this year, for the first time, he went with Tslil to the plant nursery to choose his own tree. He chose a black cherry (what a great choice, promising, in the fulness of time, delicious fruit and generous shade).

The site that Tslil chose proved to be very clay-heavy soil, which made digging the required hole very hard work. I attempted to help Micha’el with wielding the pick to break up the soil and the spade to drag it out of the hole, but I quickly found that the three years since I helped digging the swale have not been kind to my body, and settled for serving as one of the official photographers. All that remained was for each of us to place a stone by the tree, with, on each stone, a single word representing our birthday wish for Tao.

It proved to be a lovely afternoon on the land. Warmer weather made the last two weeks of our visit even more pleasant, and we could sense that spring is arriving, something I also became aware of on my morning walks in the forest with the kid’s dog, Lua. Over the last week, the forest has come alive with new growth. Purple, white and blue wildflowers are starting to carpet the slopes, and new growth of oak and pine saplings is replacing the mature trees felled in storms last winter. This is all against the backdrop of the still snow-capped foothills of the Sierra da Estrella mountain range on the horizon.

After the Thursday family ceremony, Tao had a birthday celebration in gan the next day, the highlight of which was the chocolate cake Tslil made. He came home with a birthday crown which, in Bernice’s considered professional opinion, was not a patch on what is standard in Israeli gamin, but he seems to have enjoyed himself nevertheless.

Then, on Sunday, Tao had a full day of celebration, starting with opening his presents, from all of which he extracted the maximum enjoyment, as he seems to do from all his toys. Tslil’s parents took out in Tao’s name a subscription to a concept built around a hedgehog’s year-long journey around the world. Every month Tao will receive a personal letter from the hedgehog, whose progress he will follow on the world map included in the first month’s package. In this way, Tao will learn all sorts of fascinating facts about different countries, including their native animals. When I pointed out to him where Portugal and Israel were on the map, and also Britain, he pointed to the tiny clock-tower illustrating Britain and, to everyone’s surprise, announced ‘That’s Big Ben’, a fact he had presumably gleaned from some video or other.

Our present, following Micha’el’s suggestion, was shamelessly much less worthy, being a remote-controlled stunt car. It proved to be a huge hit with all four of us little boys, although the womenfolk seemed less keen to get their hands on the remote control. To my great relief, the rechargeable battery lasted on one charge for as respectable a time as the manufacturer claimed in the product description online. To top it all, we were able to buy it in royal blue, Tao’s favourite colour. Within minutes, he had mastered spins and flips and wheelies and Micha’el constructed a magnetile ramp that allowed Tao to put the car through its paces very effectively.

Sunday afternoon brought a party with a couple of Tao’s friends, involving the usual games, balloons, noise-makers and sugar rushes. It was all a bit too much for Ollie (and, to be honest, me) but for those who fell within the appropriate age range it was a huge success.

And then, before we knew it, it was Monday morning (this morning, though it seems an age ago), and a mad rush of packing, last games, last breakfast, with Ollie, as usual, eating fruit faster than I could cut it for Bernice and myself, last book-reading and then the goodbyes that we try not to linger over too much. Tao, obviously, understands that we are going back to Israel and that he won’t see us until the summer. Ollie, sadly, doesn’t, and we’re sure he won’t find it easy when Nana is suddenly no longer there with her eminently snugglable shoulder, her cuddles and kisses, her songs and stories. Fortunately, the boys have two parents who are completely devoted to them, and we know they are certainly not going to be missing out at all.

As for us, we’re off home to recuperate and make our plans for our summer trip in three months, God willing.

As we move towards our last week in Penamacor, I find myself looking forward, in a way that I never have before, to returning home. Usually, a month out of Israel is a welcome escape from the constant barrage that is the Israeli news cycle. If, as Harold Wilson is often reported as saying, a week is a long time in politics, then in Israel a day is a very long time in the newscycle.

The upside of that, usually, is that if you miss a couple of hourly news bulletins, most of what you have missed may never be mentioned again in the news, so you can feel that you haven’t really missed anything. However, we live in times that are, of course, far from usual, and I feel very cut off from the Israeli pulse.

For the last two months, my staple news supply has been a thrice-daily digest distributed to a quiet WhatsApp group. The organisation that is responsible for this feed is dedicated to presenting news in a non-sensationalist and dry format, and it has certainly made the news easier to digest. Bernice and I are continuing to read that regularly here, but I realise that what I am missing is more the reactions to the news: the radio and TV interviews and background pieces, the exchanges between radio presenters.

Occasionally on my morning walks with Lua, I manage to catch one of those morning programmes live, and even more occasionally I listen to one from the archive. However, I am following events much less closely than I would be if I were in Israel, and I am also failing to read online the range of opinion pieces in the paper that I would read in Israel.

That sense of isolation is, of course, only increased by the fact that I don’t share a language with the kids’ neighbours, and so cannot get involved in discussions with them. I suspect, anyway, that their interest in, and knowledge of, Middle Eastern affairs is pretty limited. Indeed, I am not at all sure that they have any interest in current affairs generally. This Sunday saw Portugal go to the polls in a general election triggered by the resignation of the centre-left prime minister after a long series of corruption scandals. This is against a background of spiralling housing prices in the big cities, salaries well below the EU norm, an ailing health service, and economic stagnation.

The election produced a very narrow lead for the centre right over the centre left, these being the two parties that have, alternately, governed the country since the Carnation Revolution of 50 years ago. However, potentially the most interesting development is that the only recently formed extreme right party almost tripled its share of the vote, winning 48 of the 230 parliamentary seats. To give you a sense of the party’s platform, among its more interesting policies is chemical castration for sex offenders. Meanwhile, the centre-right won 79 and the centre-left 77 seats.

Interestingly, both before and after the election, the centre-right party pledged that it would not seek a coalition with the far-right to form a government. The centre-left announced that, in that event, if the centre-right sought to govern without an absolute majority, the centre-left would not act to bring down the government.

Government corruption? The rise of the far right? Electoral instability? Coalition governments? No wonder I feel homesick.

All of this has, I imagine, made for a spirited election campaign. However, walking around the village over the last two weeks, and even on election day itself, I saw absolutely no signs of an election: no banners, no posters, no loudspeakers. Of course, the entire electoral district of Castelo Branco, in which we find ourselves, returns only 4 of the 230 members of the legislature. Although it is geographically one of the largest districts in Portugal, it is also one of the least densely populated,

I can, however, tell you about one poster. One of the political scandals that led to the government’s downfall involved a police raid on the home of the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, a raid which uncovered a large sum in cash. Apparently, IKEA has launched a poster campaign in the big cities, featuring a bookcase with the following slogan: Good for storing books. Or €75,800.

Earlier today, Bernice and I went with both the boys to the local supermarket, to start our purchases of provisions for Tao’s birthday party next Sunday. As I was returning the trolleys after loading the car, a woman in her 60’s greeted me with a cheery ‘Shalom’. This is, of course, one of the advantages of wearing a kippa. At least, for most of my life, and in almost every country I have been in, it has been an advantage. I have struck up many enjoyable conversations as a result of advertising my Jewishness.

These days, of course, I would hesitate to wear a kippa even walking around one of the big cities of Portugal, let alone anywhere more aggressively antisemitic. However, in Penamacor, everyone knows who Bernice and I are, and what our background is.

Anyway, this lady introduced herself as a Belgian who has lived in a village a few miles away for the last three years. She clearly feels an affinity with Jews, because she mentioned a number of Israelis that we have met. She also expressed sympathy and concern for what we are going through now in Israel.

In the course of our conversation, she mentioned an Israeli whom we have met several times. Retiring early from a successful career in Israel, he moved his family (his wife and, I believe, six children, from kindergarten to high-school age) to Portugal, bought a piece of land, and had a family home built on the land while renting a house in Penamacor. He and the family clearly lead a very traditional Jewish life, and Bernice and I have speculated about how the family would cope, particularly as the children approached marriageable age.

Well, my new-found Belgian friend informed me that his oldest boy insisted that he wanted to accept his call-up to the Israeli army and so the family are letting out their newly-built house and have all returned to Israel. When I asked her whether she thought they would return to Portugal, she was sceptical. I must say I share her scepticism.

Other than that, there is little new to report from here. The weather has swung between fairly heavy rain and bright sunshine, so we have been able to get out with the boys on several occasions. Later this week, if the planets all align, Bernice and I are planning a half-day in Castello by ourselves, including lunch, before we enter the mad turmoil of the last few days with family birthday celebrations, Shabbat, a party for a couple of Tao’s friends, laundry, packing and saying our farewells until our next visit which, we hope, will manage to include both Michael’s and Ollie’s birthdays, which will give us a calendar grand slam.

I updated you last week about Ollie’s great linguistic leap forward, adding ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye-bye’ to his existing vocabulary of ‘ə’. This past week saw another dramatic, though not, ultimately, particularly helpful, development in his speech.

Before his first breakthrough, Ollie had realised that ‘ə’ lacks a certain specificity, and he had almost always accompanied it with hand gestures or other body movement that clarified whether he meant: ‘Don’t you get the feeling that the old minute hand has edged its way round to teatime-ish?’ or ‘Do you fancy a quick game of marble helter-skelter, old chum?’. (Who knows, incidentally, whether ‘realises’ way back at the beginning of that last sentence is really an accurate word? Does a child of 19 months ‘realise’, in any sense that an adult can understand? I must access my second year teacher training notes on Piaget.)

After that breakthrough, Ollie had clearly understood that he, like others, could make sounds that had specific meanings. Unfortunately, he had only mastered two sounds: ‘Hi!’ and ‘Bye-bye!’ Now he quickly developed the considerable skill of working these into almost any conversation. If anyone so much as approached the door to the kitchen, or put on a pair of shoes, Ollie would be there like a shot with his cheerful ‘Bye-bye!’ and his rhythmic hand-wave.

He then added to these two the really useful: “Up’, which initially tended to mean he wanted to be carried but now means that he wants to go upstairs. The problem here is that he is incapable of explaining why he wants to go upstairs, and so, more often than not, one or other of us will go up with him to see what he wants. This morning, I discovered at the top of the stairs that what he wanted was for me to carry him downstairs. I suspect he was actually just trying the “Up’ on for size.

The downside of this newly acquired vocabulary was his fairly swift realisation that ‘ə’ no longer cut it; it belonged to an earlier stage of development, which, from the plateau of his verbal 20^th month, he now spurned. And so he decided to replace all the ‘ə’s with something that more closely resembled adult conversation. He settled on exhaling in a single breath while sounding an ‘a’ sound as in ‘apple’, while simultaneously moving his tongue swiftly back and forwards and up and down in his mouth. If you try this at home (I recommend alone in a room with the door closed), you will soon discover that you produce a sound resembling ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’.

In fairness to Ollie, this seems to me at least as close an approximation to human speech as the ‘Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb’ first used, apparently, by the actor Charles Kean’s company at the Princess Theatre, London 200 years ago, to simulate background conversation on stage that the audience is expected to register but not understand. I learn that the variation favoured by radio producers is: ‘Walla, walla’. ‘Peas and carrots’ is another option sometimes used, but that seems silly.

But I digress. Where Ollie went wrong is that he appears to have convinced himself that, just as his ‘Hi’ and ‘’Bye-bye’ are understood, so should his ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’ be. After all, we all seem to understand adult conversation, which, as we have established, sounds quite a bit like ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’. And so he no longer sees the need for hand signals and body language. Unfortunately, his ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’ is usually incomprehensible to anybody else, and so we’re in a mildly frustrating time. Fortunately, his oral comprehension means that a quick cross-examination can usually establish what he wants to say.

If I tell you that I have now shared the most exciting thing that happened this past week, you will understand that we are buried in deepest rural Portugal in deepest winter. So far a bit less rain than I anticipated, but the weather is, for those of us who usually live on the edge of Judean desert, very cold. The insulation of the house, and the efficiency of the heating, are currently being challenged by the conditions, but, fortunately, we have a fairly decent winter wardrobe out here permanently, and multiple layers and scarves work very well.

I’ve been nursing a cold for the last few days. (I choose the word ‘nursing’ carefully, to win favour with Bernice, who always contends that women soldier on through mild inconveniences such as colds, while men wallow in them. I keep telling her to talk to me again when she’s my age, and not the young girl she is now.) Fortunately, the local honey is excellent, the lemon tree in the garden cannot be seen for fruit, and I have a number of bottles of whisky to work though, so lemon toddies are the order of the day.

Despite the cold, I gamely went with Bernice and the boys to a park in a village 15 minutes’ drive away. In the middle of the day, it is actually considerably warmer outside in the winter sun that huddled inside on a sofa. This park has a slide that is long enough for Tao to welcome the challenge of climbing up the chute, and for Ollie to feel considerably braver climbing up the stairs than standing at the edge of the slide wondering how good an idea this is. However, guided down by Grandpa’s restraining palm on his chest he couldn’t wait to climb, and hesitate, and thrill again.

The park also boasts a few swings, at various heights for various ages, a fair-sized open space for running around and kicking a ball, and, major attraction, a water fountain operated by foot pedal. Bernice and I spent some time remembering how, the last time we were there, Tao was very timid about trying anything. The problem this time was, it is fair to say, the reverse.

As we were racking our brains over ways of disposing of lemons last week (fortunately, Tslil now teaches a few yoga lessons in person, and so can make her students an offer everyone is too polite to refuse), I suddenly remembered the citron pressé that I enjoyed every day of our summer holiday in the South of France 40 years ago.

Retrieving a recipe from Google was the work of minutes, and I had soon reduced a lemon sugar syrup. The next morning. I added a generous dollop to the juice of two freshly squeezed lemons, added cold water (no need for ice in a Penamacor winter) and found that I had managed a passable reproduction of what I had drunk all those years ago. Not quite a madeleine, but very refreshing.

And that’s about it. The days, and, indeed, the weeks, seem to be galloping by. We are already halfway through our trip. It’s just as well that we never come out here with any grandiose plans. Just keeping up with the boys takes all of our energy.

You don’t realise how close you came to not getting a post from me today.

Last night, Bernice and I were eating dinner at 8:15 when I suddenly blurted out: “Good grief! It’s Monday today!” Bernice, having been married to me for 51 years, immediately realised the significance, and offered me encouragement: “Well, you’re not going to bed early tonight then, are you?” I then felt obliged to point out that, since she must always read and approve my post pre-publication, nor was she.

Which explains why this post was written in a mad rush, starting just over 10 hours before publication, and finished in a record time of 40 minutes, which, by my reckoning, is a composition speed of over 35 words a minute.

I left you last week in mid-air – literally, as we winged our way to Portugal. So let me pick up from there. We landed only 15 minutes behind schedule, but then had to wait an inordinate amount of time for our luggage to come through. This was followed by picking up the rental car, which sounds easy, but, as we found out on our last trip, can have unexpected complications. When I checked out prices for this trip, it soon became clear that renting from a company with offices in the airport, while very convenient, is also very much more expensive. After some discussion, we decided that we would use the company we ended up using last time, whose offices are a 12-minute drive from the airport by shuttle bus.

When we reached the pick-up point for the shuttle bus, we found a couple of English businessmen in front of us, who explained that the bus had just left, and that the driver had told them that another bus would be along very soon. We all agreed that there was no other bus, and that the same driver would return in 25 minutes, which he indeed did. By the time he returned, the four of us had been joined by another four couples. Having checked our names, the driver announced that he had room only for the principal driver in each pair. He would take these and he would then return for the partners while the principal drivers started the paperwork.

After some argument, discussion and translation, everyone accepted this plan, and so I left Bernice waiting outside the airport. When we arrived at the office, the driver assigned us numbered tickets from a machine. He was kind enough to promote me to number 4, having asked me how old I was and awarding me priority status. We were then invited to scan a Q-code on the wall and start the paperwork independently. This went well until I reached the section asking for my address, which I completed as follows:
Country of residence: Israel
City: Ma’ale Adumim
County: [Since Israel has no counties, and nothing equivalent, I left this field blank]
District: [Since I was far from sure what this referred to, I left it blank]
Address: 14, Hashminit Street

When I pressed Next, I was of course informed that I had left one or more mandatory fields blank, so I returned to the two problem fields. Under County, I clicked the dropdown, which proved to be empty. I then tried Jerusalem, Central, Ma’ale Adumim (with, then without, an apostrophe, and with one and then two ‘m’s in the middle of Adumim). No success. I then went over to one of the clerks who was processing another customer and explained that I was not able to proceed until I provided information that did not exist. “Well,” he asked me, “what region do you live in? Is it in Haifa, or the Mercaz, or what?” At a subliminal level, something about this last question seemed odd, but I was becoming too enraged to explore it further.

Eventually, the clerk told me to leave the form, and it would be sorted out when I sat with a clerk later. Indeed, a few minutes later, my number was called, and I sat down with the same clerk I had spoken to earlier. Just then Bernice arrived – which was just as well, because the form also wanted to know my identification number, and, although I had filled in my Israeli ID number, I knew that they would almost certainly only accept my passport, which Bernice was holding.

When it came to District, the clerk established from me that we lived near Jerusalem, entered something on the form and then turned his screen to show me. “You see!” he said triumphantly. I read the word Yerushalayim. “So, you’re telling me,” I said, “that I am supposed to guess that your program thinks Ma’ale Adumim is in the non-existent district of Jerusalem, and then I am supposed to guess that I have to enter an English transliteration of the Hebrew name for Jerusalem. Sorry, I know you didn’t write the program, but…” The clerk agreed that he and his colleagues often discussed how the program’s requirements are incompatible with the political geography of many countries around the world, From that point on, we were the best of friends. When he was finishing the registration process, I said to him: “So, tell me: you know the Hebrew name for Jerusalem, and you know that the centre is the mercaz in Hebrew. Is this just something you’ve picked up from your work here, registering Israeli drivers?” “No,” he answered, with a shy smile, “my grandparents are actually Jewish…but” he added apologetically, “I’m afraid I don’t practice anything.”

It transpired that he had spent much of his childhood in New Jersey, and had made many Jewish friends there, which also explained why his English was so good, as I told him. He was kind enough to ask how I had acquired my excellent English, but by that stage I was too tired to take offence.

The upshot of all this was that we drove away from the car rental office about 90 minutes later than we had hoped. Then, an hour into our drive, for the first time ever in Portugal, we took a wrong turning – or, more accurately, missed a right turning – , adding 45 minutes to our drive. The result of all this was that we arrived at 00:15 (Portuguese time), after an 18-hour door-to-door journey. The lovely thing about our arrival (apart from the fact of the arrival itself) was that we were greeted very warmly by Micha’el, who we expected, Lua, the dog, who appeared to remember us and wagged her tail furiously, and, as an unexpected bonus, a not-having-the-best-of-nights Ollie, who made Bernice’s day, nay, her month, by happily going straight into her arms for a cuddle, a position from which he has scarcely strayed in the ensuing week.

The following morning, Tslil and Tao greeted us no less warmly, and it was all systems go from first thing in the morning. This first week has flown by, filled with nothing very special at all, just the usual round of daily routine, starting with our regular big first shopping expedition, In this case, Bernice is sure that the young cashier at the supermarket will be dining out for weeks on the story of the people who bought so much more stuff than he has ever rung up for a single customer, and then produced a second trolley just as full.

Unfortunately, both Tao and Ollie had been ill before we arrived, with colds and viruses and all the usual wintry things. They have both been a bit up and down for the whole week, but we have still had a lot of time for games and songs and stories, bath-time and playing, puppet shows and shared meals.

The one dramatic highlight is that, in the last two days, monosyllabic Ollie, whose single schwa note (like the sound of the ‘e’ in the word ‘taken’) I mentioned several weeks ago, has discovered diversity. He suddenly said “Hi” when one of us came back yesterday, and today, when we went to the supermarket with Tao, leaving Ollie behind, we had a string of both “Bye-bye’s” and then, on our return, “Hi’s”. It is very exciting to be here to witness this watershed moment firsthand, although it’s fair to say that Ollie seems considerably less excited about it than some of the rest of us.

What there doesn’t seem to have been time for this week, inexplicably, is photographs. In addition, it seemed a little unfair to photograph boys with streaming noses and highly-coloured cheeks. I hope that the coming week will bring full recovery, a chance for photos (which I will send privately to those interested, as I explained a few weeks ago) and more of the same.

Until then, and now that Bernice has read and approved the post, I will let her go to sleep and wish you, in Israel, a happy national holiday for municipal elections.

The vast majority of these posts are composed as I gaze, largely unseeing, through the window of the office at home. (Bernice always refers to it as my – i.e. David’s – office, although I am always telling her that she is only too welcome to use it whenever she wants.) This window affords me a view of the patch of scrub that lies at the back of the houses on our almost circular road, and, beyond the houses on the far side, the land rising towards the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem, over the distant ridge, is almost completely hidden from view.

More rarely, I will have slid open the frosted windows that closes in the balcony of our bedroom in Penamacor, and I will be gazing, largely unseeing, at the not unimposing ruins of the tower of the castle, on the far ridge of the saddle of land on which Penamacor rides.

But today, I am gazing, largely unseeing, through the porthole of a Boeing 737, as we cruise smoothly above the Mediterranean. The ice cream castles beneath us are bathed in strong sunlight, and could not be more different from the heavy blankets that rained on us this morning as we carried our cases to the taxi. In the space of five hours, we have indeed looked at clouds from both sides, which makes today a very special day.

I am gazing through the porthole and my heart is already in the West, where Micha’el and family, so he tells us, are all “very excited and waiting to see” us. My heart is also in the East, where Esther and family are holidaying in Sri Lanka. How well it worked out that they and we will both be out of Israel at the same time, so that we won’t miss any opportunities for our weekly visit to Zichron.

My heart is also in the centre, our home, Israel. A few hours ago we walked down the sloping corridor from passport control to the departure lounge at Ben Gurion airport, a corridor now lined on both sides by posters of the 134 abductees still being held hostage, each picture giving the name and age of the abductee. Every picture is heart-wrenching, but some are particularly so. Here is the baby, ???? The original text gave his age as 10 months, but a piece of paper has been stuck over this, updating it to 1 year. There is ????. Someone has pasted on the side of his poster the notice announcing his death in captivity. How fitting it is that everyone leaving Israel should carry those images with them as they go.

Because Micha’el and family came to Israel for December, we skipped a trip to Portugal, and this is our first visit since last July. I had been thinking that perhaps, given that we have both  celebrated a birthday since our last trip, we might travel a little more light this time, and, indeed, when I surveyed our boxes of ‘stuff for Portugal’ a few weeks ago, I was quietly optimistic. Naturally we would have to take two suitcases, but perhaps they would each weigh 15 kilo, rather than 22.8.

I had, of course, forgotten Bernice’s extraordinary power through the final bend and into the home straight. For the last couple of weeks, every day it seemed that she had another errand to run in the mall, and, half of the time, when she returned home, it was with another few outfits for one or other of the boys, outfits that the shop practically paid her to take off their hands. The other half of the time, it was with a toy or a game that Tao had particularly enjoyed when he played it in Israel, or that Ollie will adore – you can’t, after all, expect him to only have Tao’s hand-me-downs to play with.

Not that I disagree with Bernice. She has her late grandmother’s nose for a bargain and eye for the perfect gift, especially when buying for our children or grandchildren.

Last Thursday, I weighed all of the boxes, and added in the estimated weight of the last minute items that we would be packing – cheese, a couple of items for Bernice and myself. I estimated that this would come to 43 kilo. So much for travelling light!

Last Friday morning saw the next stage in our preparations: the grand assemble. This is when I unpack the contents of all the boxes and bags onto the sofas in the salon, dividing them as I do so into two piles, designed to be of roughly equal weight, bulk and nature. So, half of the bumper packs of bags of bamba (a peanut puff snack that is the Israeli child’s staple diet) go into each pile. That way, if one case is lost, everybody gets half of their toys, clothes, treats or whatever.

The bamba occasioned our first discussion of the day:
David: “You don’t honestly think we’re going to take all this bamba, do you?! It will fill a suitcase by itself!”
Bernice: “If we haven’t got room, then leave some of it out.”
D: “It’s not just a question of room. By the time we unpack, it will all just be sawdust.”
B: “Then leave it out.”
D: “No, we’ll see how it goes.”

Once everything was laid out, it was time for the second ritual discussion.
B: “I’m sorry. I had no idea it was going to be so much.”
D: “Don’t worry. It’s not too much.”
B: “We don’t have to take everything.”
D: “Don’t worry!”

The next step was the bringing down of the empty suitcases. As happens every time, somewhere between the wardrobe that I took them out of and the sofa that I lay them down on, the suitcases magically shrank. Lying next to the piles of stuff to be packed, it began to look as though Bernice might be right. However, experience has taught me that however much we have to take, it always ends up fitting into the suitcases leaving no room for any other single thing, and the combined weight of the suitcases is always 46 kilo.

30 minutes later, the sofas were empty, and the cases had weighed in at 24 kilo and 20 kilo respectively. A little juggling between cases brought the heavier case down to 23 kilo. Then on Sunday (yesterday) a few last-minute additions came to mind, with the result that, when I weighed the cases for a final time, they came in at 22.5 and 23 kilo. At those weights, weighing on our bathroom scales is challenging. The full cases are too bulky to rest them on the scales without them touching the floor, so I have to first weigh myself, then pick up a suitcase and endeavour to clamber back onto the scales and retain my balance without wobbling so that a reading is possible. Of course, when I am holding a suitcase I cannot see the reading, so I have to wait until I guess that the reading has frozen and then get off, hoping to get a valid reading.

Last night, it took me several attempts before I managed a valid reading. At the airport this morning, the cases weighed in at 23 kilo and 23.5 kilo, but we all know that the airport scales always weigh heavy. Fortunately, the check-in clerk did not bat an eyelid, or Bernice and I would have had to start eating cheese.

In fact, we are going out with less than usual, because we only have one carry-on trolley this time. This of course made our journey to the airport – taxi to Jerusalem and train to the airport – easier than usual. Coming home we should be able to fit the trolley inside one of the almost-empty suitcases, and board the plane with just our backpacks. As always, we spent some time this morning discussing how much longer we will be able to keep up travelling this heavy, but, meanwhile, we seem to be managing.

The effort is, of course, worthwhile, to see the pleasure the boys get from their gifts, and from the shabbat kiddush grape juice, and the delight Tslil takes in her silan, tehina, botz, and so on. We, similarly, can’t imagine going four weeks without good cheese, and wine from duty free. I also can’t contemplate going the first two or three days without granola, until we can do the shopping and I can make a batch. Micha’el is, fortunately, considerably more ascetic, in dietary matters at least, and hardly contributes to our luggage weight.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some rest in preparation for the three-hour drive this evening. Next week, I hope to be updating you with all the latest exciting news from Penamacor.

Week 19 – Monday

Day 129

I went to bed last night wondering what I should write about this week, and woke up this morning to discover that the question had been answered for me overnight in a totally unexpected way. It seems to me that there are several ways in which the news of the rescue of two hostages is a major new development, and I would like this week to think about some of those ways.

First, a couple of general observations. If one of the hostages was my child or parent or spouse, I would conceivably be prepared to contemplate releasing any number of convicted terrorists to ensure their return. Any discussion of how Israel should act to attempt to secure the release of the abductees has to begin by acknowledging one simple fact. Those of us who are not counting the days until our dearest loved one is returned have no right, and no basis on which, to judge the statements and actions of those who are counting the days until their dearest loved one is returned.

At the same time, this does not mean that the families of the abductees are in the best position to decide how the authorities should proceed. If one of the abductees was the child of the Prime Minister, I think there would be a very strong case to be made for the Prime Minister excluding himself from decision-making about how to proceed. The decision-makers certainly need to hear, and to listen to the families of the abductees, but they then need to reach decisions weighing other considerations as well.

Since very soon after October 7, there has been a well-organised campaign to put pressure on the authorities to bring the abductees home at any price, and to keep their return as Israel’s primary objective. While the majority of the families support this campaign, and many of them have been working tirelessly, in Israel and around the world, to achieve this goal, some of the families do not believe that paying any price is justified, and are less certain that defeating Hamas is less of a primary objective than returning the abductees. Their voice, it is fair to say, has been less audible, and less reported by the mainstream media.

As the days grew into weeks that have grown into months, the majority campaign has become more aggressive, in terms of both its actions and its words. In recent weeks, demonstrations have been less disciplined; there has been some disruption of traffic and blocking of roads by a few demonstrators.

Perhaps more significantly, the initial mood of seeking to persuade the government to prioritise the return of the abductees has soured. Over the weeks, the families increasingly complained that they were being ignored by the authorities, and that nobody was sharing with them what steps were being taken. In recent weeks, the campaign seems to have moved to one of calling for the replacement of the government – in immediate elections – or the replacement of the Prime Minister, who is now cast in some campaign material as the traitor who fed and fostered the Hamas monster over the years and enabled the pogrom of October 7.

Israel is a country where no secret can be kept, and where Cabinet arguments and caucus cabal meetings are reported verbatim in the media, often with audio recordings. My personal feeling is that it is unreasonable, in such a country, to expect the government to share sensitive material – diplomatic or military – with abductee family members who are very understandably emotionally charged. It is inevitable that, if the government did share sensitive material with them, it would be leaked, sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, the manner in which Netanyahu publicly addresses this issue often sounds very patronising, which, understandably, serves to antagonise the families further.

As the days pile up into months, I increasingly feel that at least some of the families’ energies should be directed towards those who are primarily responsible for their family members being held prisoner in Gaza: Hamas. The fact is that there is nothing we can do to “bring them home” overnight. However, Hamas could literally send them home overnight. A partial change of focus from the families might draw more the world’s attention to that fact.

At the same time as the tension over the status of the abductees is building daily within Israel, international tension over the continued waging of the war is also building daily. In the last week, this tension has focussed on Rafiah/Rafah (which are the Hebrew and Arabic names respectively of this southernmost major town in the Gaza Strip). Rafiah is the last stronghold of Hamas, and Israel’s intention is to open a humanitarian corridor to allow the civilian population to move northwards to safe areas and then for its ground forces, supported by the air force, to move through Rafiah, hunting down and eliminating Hamas terrorists, destroying Hamas infrastructure, seizing Hamas assets, as it has done throughout the Strip.

Voices have been raised about the potential humanitarian disaster such an evacuation would, it is claimed, create. (I have written before, in the 4^th paragraph here, about civilian casualties, so I won’t repeat the argument.)

Against all of this background, we woke this morning to discover that, starting at around 1AM last night, a joint operation was conducted by Israel’s General Security Services and counter-terrorism unit, supported by the navy’s commando unit and the armoured brigade, as well as by Air Force planes and rescue helicopters. The operation succeeded in rescuing alive, and in good condition, two male, civilian, abductees, Fernando Marman, 61, and Louis Har, 70. One of the troops suffered minor injuries as a result of a fall from a height. No other injuries were sustained by our troops.

As more details emerge, it seems that these two men were kept together, ‘embedded’ in the home of an ordinary Gazan family, and guarded by at least three Hamas guards. What their relationship was with the family we do not yet know. However, as more details of this action emerge, they may well make it clearer why Israel has to continue its ground assault into Rafiah and just how intertwined Hamas and the civilian Gazan community are.

Already today the news of this brilliantly planned, coordinated and executed operation has raised spirits here in Israel. It will be very interesting to see whether the fact of this rescue will lead the families of the remaining abductees to reassess their opinion of the authorities, and their scepticism about how highly the government ranks the safe return of all the hostages. It is just possible that the events of last night may lead to a softening of positions and be a move towards the healing of a rift that we really do not need now.

Just Numbers…and Unjust Numbers

In the heart-wrenching reality that is this war, these two ‘reclaimed’ lives were tragically balanced by the announcement this morning of the names of two more soldiers who died fighting in Khan Younis: Sgt. First Class Adi Eldor, 21, from Haifa and Sgt. First Class (res.) Alon Kleinman, 21, from Tel Aviv. May their memory be for a blessing.

As we reach 129 days since October 7, five more numbers:

123 – the number of abductees that have returned so far from Gaza;
134 – the number of abductees that have not yet returned from Gaza;
105 – the estimated number of abductees left alive in Gaza, and, consequently:
29 – the estimated number of dead abductees in Gaza, who were either abducted when already dead or who were killed or succumbed to their injuries or neglect in Gaza;
229 – the number of Israeli troops killed in the ground offensive in Gaza.

I don’t know what you do with those numbers, other than to remind yourself, every day, that every one in each of those numbers represents a human being, an entire world.

Week 18: Monday

A Humanitarian Crisis or Humanitarian Relief?

In the last couple of weeks, more than fifteen countries, including United States, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Finland, Japan and the European Union, have announced that they will be suspending their contributions to UNRWA after being made at least partly aware of the extent to which Hamas is embedded in the agency. These contributions represent about 60% of UNRWA’s funding.

The evidence has been hidden in plain sight for years: textbooks used in UNRWA schools (with their arithmetic exercises built on a narrative not of the number of apples Johnny has eaten, but the number of Israelis Mohammed has killed); videos of end-of-year plays staged by pupils in UNRWA schools, depicting terrorists murdering Israeli soldiers. It appears that the evidence Israel presented has compelled these governments to confront the truth: evidence of UNRWA staff in closed WhatsApp groups revelling in the news of the October 7 pogrom; evidence of a handful of UNRWA staff (including teachers in UNRWA schools) actively participating in the massacre.

There are many calls for these countries to reconsider. UNRWA, it is argued, represents the best agency for providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population. The evidence on the ground would suggest, rather, that UNRWA represents the agency by which Hamas ensures that little aid reaches the civilian population, thereby artificially stoking the humanitarian crisis and expropriating the bulk of the aid for its own use.

If UNRWA’s initially dismissive response to Israel’s accusations, and the evidence of arms caches and tunnel entrances located in UNRWA schools, and arms smuggled in UNRWA grain sacks, leads to a decision to cease funding UNRWA, perhaps UNHCR may be able to take over, and, finally, after 76 years and four generations, something may be done to alleviate the Palestinian refugee situation rather than perpetuating and nurturing it.

Iberian Reactions

Sadly, Spain has announced that it will continue to fund UNRWA and send an additional 3.5 million euros. The acting government of Portugal (Spain’s less wealthy neighbour) has similarly announced that it will send an additional one million euros.

Also last week, demonstrations in Porto against the rising housing costs included protestors waving banners and chanting slogans attacking the Jewish community of Porto. One sign read “Not Haifa and not Boavista, no to a Zionist capital”, referencing the Porto neighbourhood that houses a synagogue and a growing number of Jewish residents. Other signs called for “cleansing the world of Jews” and urged people “not to rent a house from Zionist murderers”.

Bernice and I are due to fly to Lisbon in another two weeks, to spend a month with the kids. It is certainly true that Penamacor is a very long way, geographically and geopolitiucally, from Porto, and I am confident that we will not encounter any unpleasantness on the streets. To be honest, outside of retailers, we don’t have much contact with the local population, beyond the occasional ‘Bom Dia’. However, this is yet another reminder of the way much of the world is going. (Or should that be ‘reverting’?)

The Theatre of the Absurd Part I: Pinter

On Saturday night, Bernice and I watched a National Theatre production of No Man’s Land, which is probably Harold Pinter’s lightest and least menacing play. We had never seen it before, although I was well aware that it premiered with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson playing the two lead characters. In the revival we watched, the two leads were Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I can pay them no greater compliment than to say that I didn’t feel the absence of Gielgud and Richardson for a moment. These were spellbinding performances by two men, each of whom can command a stage without speaking.

Having seen Patrick Stewart as Henry IV in the 1970s, I have always felt that he ‘sold out’ when he boldly went where he didn’t oughter go, as Captain Picard in Star Trek. It was therefore a particular joy to see him on stage. I also suspect that his decades principally in front of the camera have made him less ‘theatrical’ in his delivery and stage presence, a characteristic that certainly lent itself here to a filmed performance of the stage play.

McKellen, it is fair to say, was more flamboyant, but this was certainly appropriate to the role he was playing. The balance between the two, and their generosity to each other on stage, was wonderful to watch.

At this point, I should probably make some apposite comments about the ‘meaning’ of the play. I am reluctant to admit that neither Bernice nor I has any clear idea what the play is about. Extraordinarily, the production was so polished, and all of the performances so riveting, that we didn’t actually mind being in the dark.

After we had discussed the play briefly, I googled some reviews, and was, to be honest, relieved to read Michael Billington, reviewing in The Guardian this production. He stressed how enigmatic the play is, and, after offering his own interpretation, concluded that “it is up to every spectator to make up their own mind.” Clearly (or perhaps less than clearly) it is a play about memory, about rivalry, about the threat of oblivion and the various strategies we use in our attempt to avoid it. It is also, let me say, a mesmerising piece of writing, elevated here by two bravura performances.

The Theatre of the Absurd Part II: Richard III and Oedipus

Here I pause, as I wonder just how to do this next extraordinary subject justice. Shakespeare Globe Theatre on London’s South Bank is staging a production of Richard III later this year. Richard is famously known for his deformity. (The recent discovery of what is now agreed beyond reasonable doubt to be his skeleton confirms that he suffered from curvature of the spine.)

Interestingly, the theatre’s artistic director has been cast to play the king, and this has caused an uproar, after a professionally trained actor with a disability, posted on X: “Why is an artistic director of any theatre hiring themselves to play the lead when it’s not their casting or lived experience? Before anyone says it doesn’t matter, every time this happens more harm than good is done to disabled communities through misrepresentation.”

Let me first attempt to put this statement in context. In recent years, at least two English theatre companies, and one Australian, have cast disabled actors as Richard. (Unfortunately, I do not know whether all three actors suffer from scoliosis – Richard’s specific condition – or other disabilities.) At the same time, at least two major productions have starred non-disabled actors.

I feel I should tread carefully here. Not being disabled, I am perhaps not really entitled to talk about this topic. However, it does seem to me that this is a slippery slope. If only disabled actors can play disabled roles, because only they have the requisite ‘lived experience’, then perhaps only blacks can play Othello, or, since Othello is a moor, perhaps only North Africans can play him. Or, given that Othello has risen to a commanding position in the Venetian army, perhaps only Colin Powell can play him. Can only Jews play Shylock? Can only gay actors play gay parts?

And, if this is so, then presumably only straight actors can play straight parts, and only white actors can play white parts. It is usually at this point that the second purpose of this campaign is articulated. The disabled acting community is under-represented onstage. Disabled roles should be reserved for disabled actors as a form of positive discrimination, to redress an unjust imbalance. In the same way, black roles should be reserved for black actors.

Oedipus, of course, poses a particularly tricky challenge, since he blinds himself midway through Sophocles’ tragedy. Perhaps he needs to be played by a sighted actor before the blinding, and a blind actor afterwards.

You may have detected a certain tetchiness in my tone over the last paragraphs. This is brought on by my clearly unfashionable belief that the essence of acting is the ability to imagine an experience that is not one’s own lived experience. This is the magic, the alchemy, of acting. Rock Hudon convinced us that he was sexually attracted to Doris Day just as successfully as Anthony Hopkins convinced us that he enjoyed eating human flesh. John Hurt in Elephant Man, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man…

Oh, this is ridiculous! Almost any actor you have ever seen, playing any part you have ever seen them playing, convinces by imagination and empathy, not by identical experience. Through that remarkable alchemy, a successful performance allows the audience to feel the emotion, and share the lived experience, as well. Somewhere in there is, perhaps, as good a definition as any of art.

The logical consequence of believing that only a disabled actor can portray a disabled character, because only a disabled actor has the lived experience, is that only a disabled theatregoer can identify with a disabled character, because only a disabled theatregoer has the lived experience. Theatre is, in that case, both unnecessary and ineffective. (I happen to believe that isn’t the case.)

Not the least absurd part of this whole argument about the Globe’s casting is that scoliosis is arguably not the only, and possibly not even the most blatant, of the casting director’s perceived inappropriatenesses to play the role. This particular casting director is not, I have it on good authority, a murderer of inconvenient nephews, nor is she, as it happens, a man. However, in modern Britain, nobody argues (at least not aloud) that Michelle Terry does not have the ‘lived experience’ to play a man.

Having watched Tamsin Greig play Malvolio in Twelfth Night, I can say that I find no compelling reason why a woman cannot play a part written for a man. I certainly enjoyed her performance, and the production. In a different way, the casting of black actor Lucian Msamati as Salieri in Amadeus made immediately apparent how isolated and out of place the Italian composer was in the cosy, German-speaking, Viennese court.

Inevitably, casting against the obvious externals of the part sets the audience thinking about any significance. I am not certain how far an audience (let me rephrase that: I am not certain how far I) can be colour-, gender-, height-, physical-attribute-blind. Perhaps, if the current practice continues of casting with no regard to these externals, we will all become blind to these externals. I can only hope to be watching theatre long enough to find out.

Photo Note: As I explained last week, I won’t be posting any more photos of the grandkids on this very public platform. However, a few of you have expressed a desire to continue seeing photos. I thought I might create a quiet WhatsApp group and send out photos every couple of weeks. If you’d like to be included, please WhatsApp me (+972-052-8651-591). Please mention your name, so that I know I’m confining the group to bona fide followers. Please don’t feel awkward if you feel no desire to see more photos of my grandchildren. I have no real desire to see photos of yours, so I quite understand.