ELKAN’S VIEW 25^h March 2015

Last Sunday I went to the all-day conference entitled “We Believe in Israel” which attracted over 1000 delegates including some from Radlett who also presented.

After an opening plenary in which Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Michael Gove MP and Michael Dugher MP took part there were five breakout sessions each of which had 14 or more alternatives. These included such matters as education on defending Israel against lies, countering the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, and telling good news stories about Israel of which there are thousands that go untold. There were sessions considering the attitude of younger Anglo-Jews towards Israel, how to lobby and to deal with the press, anti-Semitism and Christian perspectives towards Israel and various useful sessions on Israeli attitudes to these problems.

I found some of the presentations unsurprising but disturbing. The very close connection and pride that my generation had towards Israel can no longer be automatically assumed. There is still a strong religious connection to Israel, and the number of religious young people who spend a gap year there and make Aliyah holds firm, but the figures for the less committed are falling. This of course may change in the UK if anti-Semitism really gets a grip as it has in France; I know that even people who are fully committed to living and working in the United Kingdom are beginning to think that a holiday home in Israel is not a bad idea.

The conference closed with a rousing plenary addressed by Gideon Sa’ar a former MK, Lorna Fitzsimons the charismatic “atheist Gentile Zionist”, and the wonderful Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub.

He pointed out that Israel is flourishing economically and culturally, with more patents and museums per capita, “more new trees per acre, more milk per cow, than any other country”. It helps people to “rise from their wheelchairs with REWALK, diagnose illnesses with Pillcams, and avoid traffic jams with WAZE”. Israel is “one of the 10 happiest places in the world. This is the Israel that our opponents cannot stand. This is the Israel we believe in. “

ELKAN’S VIEW 11^th March 2015

“See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, and the cooing of doves is heard in our land.” Song of Songs 2:11&12, read on Pesach.

One of the delights of living in Israel is the way that familiar verses from the Bible suddenly come to have a new and powerful meaning, and particularly at the moment the famous verses from the Song of Songs. Winter in Israel is often unpredictable but usually miserable. Israeli buildings are not made for the cold – who wants insulation to keep the heat in during the summer? – and the result is that they are difficult to warm and even more difficult to keep warm. The usual way of heating Israeli houses is by hot air pumped through the air-conditioning system, and at the best this is not terribly efficient, and usually sliding windows don’t fit properly. In the spring summer and autumn, none of this matters but in the winter you know about it.

Some of the winter this year was horrendous, although I was delighted to have missed it. For several days a heavy dust storm lay over Tel Aviv and obscured the sun and its heat; then wind and gales of unusual ferocity, and less than three weeks ago the Judaean hills were subject to an unusually heavy blizzard and snowstorm. When I went to Jerusalem and Efrat recently the snow still lay on the ground, although the temperature had lifted somewhat. Three days later Tel Aviv, Netanya and the coastal plain suddenly had two days when the temperatures reached 26°!

All of this has had the unusual effect of Israelis talking about the weather as if they were British! But things do seem to have changed, weather-wise and the Bible’s view of springtime seems to have unusual force.

And at least it makes a change from talking about the elections!

ELKAN’S VIEW 4^th March 2015

It’s Purim this week, and the chaos that descends on communities outside Israel is written large on the whole country.

You expect to see people in the oddest clothes at the oddest times. All the schools are closed for three days this week, but that itself does not mean that the celebration of Purim hasn’t already invaded everything. All the schools with which my grandchildren are associated have at least one day when everybody, teachers and pupils alike, turns up in pyjamas. My granddaughter was on traffic duty outside her school, and controlled the cars in Tel Aviv clad in winceyette!

Fancy dress is very much the fashion this week, and at least one school day will be devoted to the pupils coming appropriately clad. Sometimes themes get mixed up; one little boy appeared yesterday half as Superman, and half as a Red Indian. Star Wars is very popular and much of the youthful population seems to be walking around as either Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The centres of the big cities are closed on Purim day The main streets in Tel Aviv are totally given over to pedestrians, and people of all ages wear fancy dress, including the police. The mood generally is happy and good humoured.

This year however there are clear political overtones. The whole Purim story took place in the area that these days we call Iran, and the plot to destroy the Jews in those days resonates with worries about the Ayatollahs’ nuclear ambitions. Ahasuerus’ reluctance to clearly understand Haman’s motives suggests the behaviour of the American administration. Does that therefore cast Bibi Netanyahu’s speech in Washington as Mordechai’s warning to the King? Only time will tell!