# 44 – Normality in Israel

June 21, 2005

Greetings,

There’s an apparent imminent football match in Israel between France and Holland.

Most radio/carphone aerials in Israel are flying either blue/white or orange ribbons.

You guessed: blue/white are FOR the ‘Gaza Disengagement’ and orange are AGAINST.

I’d much prefer having my nephew playing in the football match.

Attended opening session of conference at Tel Aviv University (just down the road) on Egyptian/Israeli economic relations – very interesting – and some big name contributors. In general? Stop seeing the trees for the forest. Look at the overall picture –  do not let the extremists pull you back.

Went to Shavuot celebrations last week. That’s the harvest festival. Where we were, the three moshavs (like co-operatives) combined to give a show of dancing and singing, sack- and egg-an-spoon races, tugs-of-war and more. A happy occasion – they even displayed the 20 or so babies born within the last 12 months –also fruits of a certain type of harvest.

It was followed by a gigantic picnic back at our friend’s home (the same one about which I wrote some months ago – the location of the now-beautiful mural).

My aunt celebrated her 90^th last week – another picnic. This time in the grounds of the beautiful Rothschild gardens in Zichron Yakov, just south of Haifa. She has 2 kids, each has 4, and those 8 have, so far, 14 great-grandkids. Add to that the spouses and a few cousins etc. like us, and you had one big feast.

And last night had dinner with friends at Goocha, one of Tel Aviv ‘s many trendy restaurants. OK, we were twice the average age of clientele, but it was excellent.

Normality fights for prominence here.

Stephen