Monday, December 24, 2007

An ordinary day in Israel

Nothing much happened today. Our Hebrew teacher had a grandson born last week and they had the brit today, so we had no Hebrew lessons. We went to a talk this morning at the AACI on "Biofuels" which was very interesting and then walked a bit in the sunshine.
This afternoon we went to visit a friend who had a fall last week. Naomi has a group of friends that meets every Friday morning for coffee at one of the cafes in the square. Ida Plaut is an older lady who is part of this group, and she fell while getting off a bus. She broke her ankle and cut her head. Luckily she is basically alright.
We went to visit her at the Rehabilitation Home (Shikum) that is a Government institution in Netanya. It is spread out in lovely grounds and there are some very large old trees, that are unusual in Israel, because most of them were cut down by the Turks and the Arabs.
Ida was in good spirits, although she must rest her leg that is in a hard cast. She was complaining about her neighbor in the next bed in the two-bed room. She is over 90 and also fell and broke her leg. This woman survived the Kovno Ghetto, fought with the partisans and after the war managed to get to Israel and settled down and raised a family. Unfortunately she speaks loudly in Russian and Yiddish during the night, and Ida was hearing all about the fighting in the forests.
A very nice neighbor of Ida was also visiting, and she was from Libya, and came to Israel with her large family. She has 6 children and many grandchildren. We happened to know someone in common with her, also from Libya.
When the accident occured there was an inspector on the bus and he stayed with her until the ambulance arrived. The company that runs the local buses is a Christian Arab-owned company from Nazareth (the rumor is that they borrowed money from Saudi Arabia). Most of their drivers and personnel are Arabs. They were very nice to Ida and her son went to their offices to thank them.
Ida said that everyone at the Shikum are very kind and considerate and she was very happy about the treatment she received. Now she must rest and recover. We gave her neighbor a lift home and then came home for supper. Just an ordinary day in Israel

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