Blog/December 2007/Dec 28th

December 28th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

We are now official "settlers", having signed a purchase contract for the house we mentioned in prior weeks. In June we should have possession - we'll keep you abreast of developments as they occur. It's pretty exciting, let me tell you - though the process here is quite different from that we were used to. The lawyers here do earn their keep.

Last week we had a "parent/teacher" night at Sarah's school. This week we had a more private and concentrated conference with the various people who are assigned to make sure she does as well as possible. This is our second such meeting; the first was over a month ago. This time the staff expressed their feeling that Sarah has really made great progress, and they are happy with how she's doing. So we are also happy, and looking forward to more and better.

Daniela, on the other hand, had a rough week. Apparently the cooks at her school were not making food that anyone would want to eat, and she skipped lunch several days running. Given the fourteen-hour days, that's not a good idea. But her class did go to welcome the last NBN flight of the year - with some 200 new immigrants from the US and Canada (were you on that flight? You could be next year ...)

Grandpa Victor went back this week. His flight was at 06:00, so he had to be at the airport at 03:00. Esther was going to drive him, but he didn't want her driving in the middle of the night, so we took him at 22:00. Needless to say, he had a long flight back home. To sweeten the deal, though, the El Al people didn't charge him for his overweight luggage.

Only in Israel! Trying to take Sarah to a meeting, we were impeded by another "hachnasat sefer torah" procession, which completely blocked the main street we needed to go on. Another time, a different street was blocked by an Arab on a mule with his cart of merchandise. You gotta like it!

Most of you probably know that the folks in Sederot have been suffering rocket attacks from Gaza for most of the past decade, while the government has done almost nothing to stop it. Well, now that's changing! Olmert is having a shelter built - not for them, silly, but for himself and the few lucky high officials who manage to get in there before Iran sends one of the nukes it's not developing over here.

Speaking of Iran, this week forty Iranian Jews came home in the culmination of a secret operation which has been brewing for a long while. To balance them, Lev Leviev apparently feels he can't live in Israel any more. Well, what can I say? It must be difficult to have more money than some countries.

• Virgins in Paradise
• racists Israelis
• Lost diamonds - $200K lost, found by taxi driver who was offered $7K reward by owner. Taxi driver refused, finally agreed to 3K NIS (about $780).

Shabbat shalom!

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