140905 5th September 2014 Shabbat Shalom dear friends. I hope you are well and not too worried about the fate of our world. This week we learned some diabolical truths. We learned that ISIS/Daish/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Hezb-Allah are one and all believe that it is their right to decapitate Westerners. In their blood lust they create videos…

140829 29th August 2014 When we heard of the death of little Daniel Tragerman this week, his photograph everywhere, videos of a happy and funny little boy jumped back from the television screen and I, along with all Israelis, sat and  cried. Such beauty, such potential, wiped out in one moment of hatred his parents and siblings…

140822 22nd August 2014 Shabbat Shalom dear friends The fighting didn’t start again, it never stopped. Except for a few rare days the South of Israel, especially Sderot, has suffered rocket and missile attacks for 14 years. This week brought no surprises. Riots in  an American town after a policeman shot and killed a suspect…

140815 15th August 2014 Shabbat Shalom dear friends I had so many ideas for this weeks Shabbat Shalom. So many items of news, serious,frightening and even amusing, but it all became irrelevant when we received tragic news yesterday. A true light, a flame, the life of a beautiful woman was snuffed out in a moment…

140811 11th August, 2014 Shevua Tov dear friends. Wishing you all a good week. Today’s letter is different. Let me explain. Last week my beautiful friend Arlene asked me for something about myself to put into her speech for Israel Bonds. About me and my connection to Israel. Of course I jumped at the chance…

140808 8th August 2014 Shabbat Shalom dear friends, I hope you are all well and not too exhausted from sleepless nights shouting at your TV screens at the biased reporting on the Gaza Operation.  The cease-fire held precisely as long as demanded. The morning started early for the Eshkol region in the South as Hamas took…

140804 4th August 2014 Dear Friends Almost Tisha b’Av – the 9th of Av which begins tonight. Tisha b’Av which commemorates the fall of both first and second Temples and the day in 132 CE when the Romans slaughtered 100,000 Jews in Betar, near Jerusalem. It is a fast day of great importance and a day…

140801 1st August 2014 Shabbat Shalom – Shabbat Shalom, a prayer more than a greeting. At 09:00 this morning Hadar Goldin, an Officer in the Givati Brigade, stood with his soldiers in Rafiah, Gaza, conducting a search, just minutes into the cease-fire, when a Hamas gang, headed by a  Homicide Bomber came out of a…

140730 30th July 2014 Shalom dear Friends. I am sorry that you didn’t get an update last Friday, that I didn’t wish you Shabbat Shalom, but know you were on our minds. Zvi and I took the difficult decision to go with the choir to Romania. It was both wonderful and terrifying to be away from…

140721 21st July 2014 Dear Friends 13, 13 should be a beautiful number in Judaism but yesterday it became unlucky 13 as 13 beautiful young lives were snuffed out in Gaza. The IDF went in to prevent further and further attacks – this is war – and thirteen soldiers died. In Israel everyone knows everyone and…