15th February, 2024 October the 132nd Shabbat Shalom! This week was Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten period. My childhood memories of Shrove Tuesday was of ladies dressed in frilly aprons racing each other down the streets of the city while tossing pancakes! Not thick fluffy pancakes but something more reminiscent…

9th of February, 2024 October 126th Shabbat Shalom dear friends. Did you know that ”email message” in Yiddish is Der Blitsbriv? It’s amazing how Yiddish, an old European Jewish language, is still morphing, changing with the times. Most of the Jews of Eastern Europe communicated with each other in Yiddish, yet that language did not…

The 2nd of the 2nd 2024 Shvat 23rd 5784 October the 118th Shabbat Shalom dear friends, Shabbat Shalom from a very wet, windy and rainy Jerusalem. Shabbat Shalom from a very busy week in Israel’s life. As usual I will try to give you a balanced look at our lives, what it means to be…

26th January, 2024 Shabbat Shalom dear friends Perhaps Charles Dickens was a prophet when he wrote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the…

23rd January 2024 Midweek update Israel is in mourning today after losing 24 soldiers yesterday. 3 officers were lost in fighting and 21 soldiers in a horrific incident while clearing a safe zone on the Gaza side of the border just 600 metres from Kibbutz Kissufim. They were so close to home, flattening buildings which…

19th January, 2024 Shabbat Shalom. Happy birthday to little Kfir Bibas who was one year old yesterday. There was a big birthday party in Tel Aviv but sadly Kfir wasn’t there. He spent his very first birthday in Gaza, a hostage to the barbarity that is called Hamas. Kfir, Ariel, Shiri and Yarden Bibas were…

12th January, 2024 Shabbat Shalom dear friends, Shabbat shalom and Chodesh Shvat Tov – the new month in the Jewish calendar is the month of Shvat which is supposed to be the month of good news, of b’sorot tovot. Even the initials in Hebrew suggest good news is on the way; I wish it would…

Friday, 5th January 2024 May this be a Shabbat Shalom “We are not defined by those who hate us but rather by those who love us” In my New Year resolutions I promised to begin by writing something, anything positive, and I want you to know that many wonderful things happened this week alongside the…

1st of January 2024 I want to wish everyone a wonderful New Year, a peaceful 2024, but I received a poster this morning which simply said “I hardly noticed New Year’s Eve this year, for us in Israel it is October the 87th” Each year since 1999 I write about the year that was and…

29th December 2023 Shabbat Shalom. I can’t help thinking about the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1992 when she described the year as “Annus Horribilis” I think it is safe to say that this has been annus horribilis for Israel and for the Jewish people throughout the world. Right became wrong and cruel became acceptable,…