25th of February, 2022 Shabbat Shalom to one and all. I hope you had a good week. As the excellent British children’s radio programme “Listen with Mother” would say “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin” Those were innocent times when Mothers sat with their children to hear stories, in fact they used to read…

18th February, 2022 17th Adar, 5782 Shabbat Shalom! To all of you in the UK, especially in Wales where there is a red storm warning, stay home, take care, Eunice is coming. I’m not trying to make light of the storm, far from it, I have too many family members and friends in Eunice’s path…

11th February, 2022 Shabbat Shalom to one and all! Today I should write about all sorts of news items, many of them just about as gloomy as the skies outside our window, but apart from a quick half paragraph ( I promise to try) I am going to tell you about our week! Actually, one…

4th February 2022 Shabbat Shalom! I know I should have written on the 2-2-22 then it would have been fascinating, in fact even better at 22:22 on 2-2-22 but then I couldn’t have wished you Shabbat Shalom!! An acquaintance of Charles Dickens wrote “Charles Dickens, the large-hearted, whose works plead so eloquently and so nobly…

27th January, 2022 Shabbat Shalom to one and all. I have been going over and over in my mind as to what I should write to you today, 27th January, 2022, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Never Again is so banal, in fact it really means nothing since it is happening again, over and over again…

22nd January, 2022 Good Shabbes, Shabbat Shalom, This week saw Epiphany on the 18th and Martin Luther King Day on the 17th and today is a day that we all want to celebrate but are scared to do so – International Hug Day. I have a feeling that with Omicron rampant, changing from a pandemic…

14th January 2022 12th Shvat, 5782 Shabbat Shalom! I hope you are all well and that the current wave of Covid-19 will pass very quickly. My ever vigilant daughter Rachel was very excited to discover that since I was born on the 12th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat in the year 5706 my…

7th January, 2022 5th Shevat, 5782 (the Hebrew date) Shabbat Shalom! The first missive of 2022 and about 22 years since I started writing The View From My Veranda and my world widened and grew along with each and every one of you. Even though we may never meet you are my friends, the owners…

Kalman Thursday  the 29th of April 2004 (10 Iyar 5764)  at six o’clock in the morning, my wonderful, good, kind and gentle father-in-law, a true gentleman, Kalman Raviv (Ribak) died in his sleep. I want to give you his story as my gift to you from him. It reflects a small part of his achievements, but…

31st December, 2021 That’s the last time I write 2021 unless I’m talking about the past – and no, I’m not going the make a list of what happened over the last year, nor a list of “the most effective people” of that year, because the real movers and shakers of this world are the…