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…

140720 20th July, 2014 Mid-week update. Operation in Gaza As you probably guessed I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton, although I was a fan of her husbands; however…………. in this interview with the self-hating Jew Jon Stewart she really put him in his place by quoting facts on the situation in Gazahttp://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/179536/watch-hillary-clinton-vs-jon-stewart-on-gaza Bill Maher –…

140717 17th July 2014 Gosh, I hadn’t realised how hard it is to be so far away during times of war. I know what is happening, I know what the truth is for Israelis, I am horrified at the half-truths told but don’t know what to do about it! The current situation is very much one…

140710 10th July 2014 Shalom dear friends. Two nights ago was chaotic, distressing and very, very annoying. We sat having a delicious Jerusalem meal at Zion ha Gadol withRebecca and Harold Finger and Irit and Itzik Lev. The meal was up to the usual standards as the cornucopia of Jerusalem “salads” spread before us, each…

140704 Friday, 4th July 2014 Shabbat shalom dear friends and to all America and Americans I wish you a truly amazing Independence Day. I wish the USA the strength to be a light unto nations, a leader among followers and an example of democracy, a caring democracy which looks outside itself to make this world…