30^th May 2025

602 days since October 7^th

Shabbat Shalom and almost Shevuot, Pentecost and Eid Al Adha

I find it so hard to believe that this war, which began after a horrific attack, a rampage of killing, slughter, rape and kidnapping, has lasted longer than Israel’s war of Independence. 602 days in which the world, or the Western World, has chosen to side with the perpetrators not with the victims; has chosen to villify the victim for fighting back while internally our society is bleeding.

Yesterday I was asked whether Israelis understood the fears of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora, the the violent results of the vile lies so reminiscent of those told in 1936; whether we recognise the situation in Europe, Britain, Australia, Canada, and the USA. The answer is that we are aware of the atrocious actions of those who do not understand, but frankly, we are so desperately trying to deal with our own grief, grief for those who were slaughtered, grief for the hostages, grief for the families of hostages, those who returned as broken vessels and those who remain, and the deep grief of losing our finest, our soldiers. It is not our war that has created  a reason to hate, it is an utterly unrealistic and terrifying reaction to the heinous crimes of October 7^th, of the massacre of young and old; of the determination to repeat that ghastly day, of the well planned Goerring style lies that have created the ever ready, fertile youth who now threaten the places of learning and streets in so many countries. So my answer is simple – do we care? yes of course we do, but please don’t blame us for being caught up in a war we didn’t want and the deepest grief this nation has known. Just to ease Harry’s concerns, yesterday  66 Members of Knesset signed a letter supporting Jewish diaspora communities

We are torn apart by rotten politics; we are torn apart between those who would continue this war for all the wrong reasons and those who just want to end the war, stop the deaths of our soldiers and bring the  remaining hostages home; those who will never be whole again after 602 days of hell and the families who just want to give their loved ones the honour of being buried in Israeli soil. This is a tiny country, we still haven’t reach 10 million souls of every colour, creed, and faith and we mourn as a family. In our village, on Wednesday, we mourned a child of the village, a brave IDF soldier. Several members of the community chose to yellow fabric and surround the roundabout in the form of the famous yellow ribbon to commemorate 600 days of war. I then found out that it was not only our village but rather towns and villages around Israel. In fact, a quite commemoration of our brave soldiers, the hostages and those who lost their lives to hatred was happening all over Israel.

We chose that day to meet our lovely friends Deidre and Keith Beville who, as I told you last week are not put off by anything, they come to visit Israel and their many friends on a regular basis from far distant, down under Melbourne. Keith is a sprightly 90 years old with whom I have difficulty keeping up! Back to Wednesday, day 600, incredibly a war longer than Israel’s War of Independence, and we met in the relatively new Museum of the Jewish Soldiers in WW2 in Laturn, right next to the tank museum of the Shirion. Before going in, in the searing sun, we went to a small table set up with stones, all painted yellow, where one wrote a message to the remaining hostages. The beautiful people who stood beside the table would take their heavy burden of stones down to the Southern border to create a memorial site. The messages that I saw were written in Spanish, english, Hebrew, Russian all expressing hope and reaching out with love. We all received a yellow T-shirt with hopeful words printed on them before heading off pensively to the museum. A Museum well worth visiting. It isn’t the known stories, it is the stories of Jews on all 5 continents whose contribution to the war was unforgettable. 250,000 Jews took part in that war from 1939 through to 1945. https://yadchaimherzog.org.il/en/the-museum-of-the-jewish-warrior-in-world-war-ii/

After the longest digression yet I must get back to the subject in hand, this dreadful war which we were forced to wage after an indescribable attack. One commentator mentioned the level of loss, the causus belli, of October 7^th. While the absolute number of deaths on 9/11 was higher, the relative impact of the October 7 attack on Israel was over 14 times greater per capita than that of 9/11 on the U.S. As a result of 9/11 the United States and her all ies went to war which lasted (some say still lasts) many years with thousands and thousands of death and starvation of entire populations, yet when we go to war with equal cause, we are villified and the poor Palestinians and calls for our deaths (that’s what from the river to the sea means). By the way, please remember that Israel is conceivably the only country in the whole wide world who is expected to feed its enemy, to provide staple foods and building materials when we know full well that Hamas stole the food and the building materials were used to created a spiders web of tunnels throught Gaza, tunnels used as arsenals, booby traps and diabolical prisons for Israeli hostages who were not only kept in the dark dank tunnels but tortured regularly.

One man “gets it”. For me he is the lone hero of the political/diplomatic situation. He is a quiet man who works day and night to find a solution to the most complex situation and that is Mr. Steve Witkoff, the United States Special Envoy to the region. We went to bed thinking he had finally persuaded both sides of a solution, but as has happened so many times in our history, we woke to a refusal by Hamas.

Some good news!

Rafael is a dynamic and innovative Israeli defence company and their “light beam” laser defence system works! Instead of $100k per iron dome interceptor this costs a few shekels for each interception of missiles and drones. Not only important for our own defence, it will become a best seller. Nobody boycotts an innovative and effective defence system! Yet another instance of Israel’s determination to defend not attack.

Jerusalem Day, the day we celebrate the unification of the city of gold, coincided with Rememberance Day for the estimated 4,000 Ethiopian Jews who died on the long, harsh route to Israel via Sudan (before Operation Solomon airlifted 14,000 Jews to the Holy Land). It was not a simple matter of sending a plane or two and bringing them out, most suffered the horrific trek from Ethiopia through Sudan, on foot, constantly threatened by gangs of locals. Their one wish, their constant prayer since the days of King Solomon was to return to Jerusalem. The story of their “masa” is told in the children’s book, Yuvi’s Candy Tree. Well worth listening as it is read for us https://youtu.be/uVOSo7N6hNg?si=oB5zM9kONCbc7oMR

I try not to brag about Impact-se (www.impact-se.org ) too much but, quite honestly, our CEO Marcus Sheff, is so successful in outreach to so many countries in our region (MENA) that an exceptional event is a weekly happening! This week Marcus flew to the Emirates, to Abu Dhabi, for the most incredible event of all – the official opening of the Impact-se office in Abu Dhabi! Really! Even I, as Chair of the Board, never imagined that it could happen! The Emirates wanted it, they invited us to create an office from which we could reach even more countries in the region, to teach tolerance; to remove hatred from textbooks and teach respect for the other in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a major research institute in Abu Dhabi yesterday, embarking on a partnership that will strengthen our presence and ability to promote tolerance-focused education in the region and beyond. The Director of the office is a wonderful young woman, originally British, obviously Moslem, who studied at one of Britain’s finest universities and is clever, kind and very effective. To see photographs of Marcus with her and with the appropriate Prince at the signing was mind blowing! If it were cricket I would yell “Howzat”!!!

Thanks to the lovely Caryn Adelman for alerting me to a lecture by Marcus on June 5^th. To register https://wexnerfoundation-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/e7oXcaMOTbCP9pAtiwMu9g#/registration

Robert Simons is an exceptional man, a quiet man, a dear friend, who has been a leader in the Sydney, Australian community for many years, especially concerning the Jewish day school Moriah College. At the Annual General Meetings, he was honoured and I quote “Robert Simons OAM – a man whose name is woven into the fabric of Moriah College – for an extraordinary 60 years of dedication and service. Robert’s journey began in 1965 when he joined the College Board, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and uncle. His commitment to Jewish education and his vision for the future of Moriah have shaped the College into what it is today. As President from 1984 to 1989, Robert led the College through transformative years, laying the foundation for key developments” Robert, we know you through thick and thin for many years and you deserve every accolade. I know just how proud Anita and all the family are of your work in so many spheres and your determination to create green energy.

We have, yet again been spending time here in our study cum Safe room (mamad) as the Houthis spend all their money on missilles. Why? Well I have my own theory. With Iranian money and armaments, they send these missile to a) scare us and b) to kill our economy as foreign airlines cancel their flights to Israel and for some reason tourists cancels their holidays here. In strange contrast the numbers of Jews who choose to emigrate from their supposedly safe lives to live here in Israel has risen dramatically! Back to the Houthis. Had this happened in any other country that I can think of their towns and cities would no longer exist with return fire, but since it is Israel at the receiving end………. Oh I’m so tired of tell ing that story so let’s go back to the fun side of life here!! Yes indeed we also have a fun side, it takes more than unquestioned attempts at genocide to force us to stay at home.

This week I went to my creativity meeting, met friends for a delightful brunch, went to the Museum in Latrun with the Beville’s who in return took us for lunch in my favourite restaurant, Naya in Beit Nekufa. Naya holds at least 200 diners and is always full of noisy laughing people and delightful servers who are incredibly helpful. The food is fusion, east meets west, and well worth a visit!

Zvi has been busy, after all when is he not busy? He not only serves on at least four Boards (volunteer) of the David Yellin Teachers Training College, the Jerusalem Music Academy, the Jerusalem Symphony Choir and so many I can’t think and he also goes to at least four parliaments! All this despite having reached his 80^th birthday two months ago! Why am I telling you all this? Because it is high time everyone realised that with all our current troubles (when don’t we have troubles) we have busy social lives. Not just us, restaurants are full almost any time of day and any day of the week, social event, lectures, courses are de rigueur and neighbours popping in is an essential part of survival.

I have to take a minute before ending this particular missive to tell you about my hibiscus bushes! Oh my goodness theya re giving me the most incredible display in apricot yellow double flowers, bright orange single flowers, crimson and purple, they repay me for the care over the winter. Tonight I hope our dinner guests will appreciate them! The Bevilles are coming to celebrate Shabbat with us together with Nancy and Harry Bloomfield (who, by the way insists that I stop call it my verandah because it doesn’t fit the dictionary definition but since it is an adopted word from the time of the Raj, as are the words pyjama, gymkhana, curry,  Jodhpur, shampoo, dungarees, bandana, catamaran I think I won the argument, but then he is a lawyer so I’m sure we will continue the fun tonight) and Sha’ela and Eugene Kandel about who I think I have written before. It promises to be a fascinating and delightful evening, starting of course, with Zvi’s Kiddush then the blessing over the Challah and then the menu. Ceviche and antipasti for hors d’ouevres, baked salmon, roasted veg, cucumber salad, tomato salad, green salad and roasted cauliflower in tehina ending with a dessert Sha’ela is bring and fruit salad that Zvi will create. I wanted to sit outside but apparently it is still very cool in the evenings in Jerusalem

OK, the part you’ve all been waiting for! My favourite songs of the week.

Azi Schwartz is the Cantor of the Park Avenue Synagogue. Here he sings a love song to Jerusalem. https://youtu.be/ZkRq0gWRlIs?si=GJBr6sXPA6SWtoYs

Idan Amedi is a Jerusalemite who became Israel’s favourite singer and a hero of the war. Here he sings about both in Superman https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1RD1Hr3zQ-A

Rachel just sent me the next one, a total celebration of Israel and of Am Yisrael…… Am Yisrael Chai, Od Avinu Chai and so many others. Love it!! https://youtu.be/GwEm2r9sZpE?si=gb1DIcygOgRbAJuF

Shevuot falls on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of sivan. In English it is called Pentecost, or the Five Books. We celebrate the giving of the Torah and eat a lot sof cheese cake and cheese blintzes! We wear white for a sign of purity and our prayers this year will also include our paryers for the hostages their families and the soldiers of this incredible country. I beg of you to fight the disinformation, it is cruel, intentional and exptremely clever targetting the most gullible sectors of our society, the young who will one day be our leaders. Pray for a kinder, better world in which people think beyond headlines and the headlines do not mislead those who read them. A little bit of love would not hurt either.

Shabbat Shalom dear friends. Shabbat Shalom wherever you may be, whoever you may be, I ask only one favour, never accept anything at face value.

I send you love and gratitude for reading today’s long missive, it was written out of a need to talk to you.

With love from Jerusalem

Sheila