Blog/December 2007/Dec 28th

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

We are now officially "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, though the real-estate agents are another thing. On signing, the lawyer gave me a dram of 15 year old single-malt, which was a nice way to celebrate. Baruch sheheHeyanu!

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 her integration is as smooth 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 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 her fourteen-hour days, that's not a good idea. But she did go with her class to welcome the last NBN flight of the year - with some 200 new immigrants from the US and Canada (see pictures here)(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. He made it safely back to Buenos Aires, B"H, away from the madness of the Wild West Bank.

Only in Israel! Trying to take Sarah to a meeting, we were impeded by another "hachnasat sefer torah" procession like then one we mentioned around Sukkot. It completely blocked the main street we needed to go on, and police were redirecting traffic. We aren't in Bellevue any more!!

Most of you probably know that the folks in Sederot have been suffering rocket attacks from Gaza for a number of years now, 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 us one of the nukes it's not developing according to our "friends" the Americans.

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. Only 30,000 more to bring over… To counterbalance them, Lev Leviev decided he can't live in Israel any more because of the taxes. Well, what can I say? It must be difficult having more money than all the Jews left in Iran put together.

Higher education leads to more open minds! So open, in fact, that a Masters student at the Hebrew University came to the conclusion that Israelis are racist because they don't rape Palestinian women. Baruch HaShem! Better be careful or your brains might fall out of that open mind…

An interesting story, which I didn't see in any of the newspapers but which was reported on the radio. A diamond merchant came to Israel last week with a bag of diamonds in his pocket. He took a taxi to the "bursa" (diamond exchange) and when he got to the office he was looking for, noted with panic that the bag containing $200,000 worth of diamonds had gone missing. As he was seeing his life flash before his eyes, the taxi driver stopped somewhere to get a snack. He spied a glint on his backseat, and saw the bag of diamonds. So he puts the bag in his pocket and rushes over to the bursa to try to return the diamonds. Finally he meets up with the merchant and hands over the bag. The merchant tells him, "You've saved my life! Please take $7,000 as a reward". The taxi driver refuses, saying he's just doing what's right. The merchant insists but the driver continues to refuse. Finally, the driver accepts a 3,000 NIS reward (about $800), "just to pay off debts". He leaves the merchant with the blessing, "be healthy, friend!". Now that's a mentsch!

Shabbat shalom!

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