# 433 – Shabbath

Shabbath

This is the best title I could think of in the spur of the moment. For, it IS Shabbath here – exactly 2 weeks since…

I was not going to write today. In any case, this will be short. England/South Africa begins soon.

Yes, I shall watch. We also welcomed some of the kids over today – nothing arranged. Eliana and Eli’s 2 kids were with friends. So they drove the 1/2 hour here to be with us. Rachel, Aviva’s sister who lives close, is often with us – and will stay the night. Shira and her kids popped in for..whatever they could grab from the fridge.

We try to act normally.

But we were interrupted by –

– A couple of sirens – we ignored them.

–  Stories on the TV – some could not be ignored (such as the bizarre and wonderful release of the 2 hostages. Arranged through ‘negotiations between Israel & Qatar’. Qatar, Hamas’s sponsor and also likely the sponsor of your hourly weather forecast. ‘Humanitarian gesture’ according to Hamas.

And now the tour of Nir Oz, one of the tragic kibbutzes, by a group of 200 journalists….

– talks with overseas family and friends

– and desperate discussions on how we got here. Do we deserve the screams of the masses? How did terrorists succeed to take over social media? One sad comment: the residents of the kibbutzes, no matter how peaceful, beautiful, normal, knew they had chosen to live in dangerous territory. But those who attended the Supernova music festival, and now I know some of them 2nd-hand, were peaceniks – our version of the flower-power kids of the 60s. They were totally non-political.

I met midday with a semi-retired leading statesman. Suffice to hint that he was always ‘Left of Centre’, but has watched much of the World skip past him and, like me, make him appear ‘Right of Centre’.

It’s 9.50pm. I have to watch the match….

To be sadly continued. I’ll start tomorrow with my ‘important friend’, and comment on the tragic words of David Grossman.

Stephen