A few things
I told you Our Sis and Mister Our Sis visited the US, mainly New England, their first big trip without the kids, who are now nearly all grown-up. They spent Rosh Hashanna in a place called West Woodstock, Vermont, where they stumbled on Rosh Hashanna services in a beautiful reform shul in a converted barn (‘Not what you’d think. This was a lovely converted barn’). Used to Orthodox shuls, they said the service was strange but moving, and they enjoyed it. They were mainly excited about the very warm welcome they received from the congregation.

They said people were very warm to them, as Israelis, not only when they were among fellow Jews, but everywhere they went in America. Nice.

On the other hand, Our Sis told us that friends of theirs visited Europe. They weren’t received very nicely at all. At the border between, I think it was Italy and Germany, the German border police seriously hassled them, and Our Sis’s friend, the son of German immigrants, heard the policemen talking between themselves about giving these Jews a hard time. Jews not Israelis, note. The kids were apparently terrified by the unpleasant event and the family cut short their visit to Germany.

On another front, the situation in Sderot has been going from bad to worse. Increasing numbers of Kassam rockets, launched daily from Gaza on this southern development town in pre-1967 Israel, do not bode well for life after the disengagement, when the Palestinians in Gaza will be free to do as they like. Yesterday two little children were killed in Sderot by Kassam rockets.