Life goes on
Life goes on during the war in Gaza. Last week we went to three concerts. On Tues evening we went to the performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeoman of the Guard" in Ra'anana, that was excellent. Then on Sat night we went to the final (the third "final") performance of Stanley Ross and the "Stompers," a great Dixieland Jazz band. Stanley has been playing in Israel for more than 20 years and is a well known performer. He plays trumpet and started in Glasgow, where he played for the Duke of York, the Earl of Essex and many other pubs. In Israel he plays regularly at the British Embassy parties for the Queen's birthday. Now that he is older, Stanley is not in the best of health and needs to retire, but he keeps coming back for one more time. He has a lineup of excellent musicians, from all over, Scotland, England, America, France and Israel. When they let rip its like facing a musical tsunami. Then on Monday noon we went to our usual Shearim concert where we had a quartet, three strings from the Israel Philharmonic and a flautist, beautiful. Quite an eclectic mix.
On Tuesday we got a call that the husband of one of Naomi's cousins in Jerusalem had died. Moshe was a member of the Ministry of Education in Jerusalem and set curricula and chose text books before he retired. He was very well liked and wrote poetry in his spare time and published two books of poetry. Some of his poems were read at his funeral that was held in a small Kibbutz in the center of the country near Petach Tikva. Our daughter Miriam stayed with Pat and Moshe when she first came to Israel many years ago and was friends with their daughter and so she came to the funeral. At the end Moshe suffered a lot, but he was a fighter and the last time we saw him about a month ago he said that he would never give up without a fight. The funeral was held in a beautiful rustic setting, with many trees and nice weather. There were some eulogies and his poems were read in Hebrew and then a final farewell at the graveside. He was a very nice, charming and intelligent man.
We used the opportunity, since Miriam drove up from Beersheva for the funeral, of transferring our grandchildren and taking them back with us to Netanya. There are several movements in the country, both collecting food parcels for the soldiers and for taking children in from the south of the country in order to give them a break from the rockets and the shelters. So we did our bit, we have our two younger grandkids staying with us, and they are a delight. At the moment they are watching the new movie "Horton" that tells the Dr. Seuss story of "Horton hears a Who." Watching part of it (only for a brief second) I realized that the Who are based on the Jews, a small powerless people beset with great troubles, who have a great and powerful protector, only in this case its a large elephant. Well, you can't always choose.
On Tuesday we got a call that the husband of one of Naomi's cousins in Jerusalem had died. Moshe was a member of the Ministry of Education in Jerusalem and set curricula and chose text books before he retired. He was very well liked and wrote poetry in his spare time and published two books of poetry. Some of his poems were read at his funeral that was held in a small Kibbutz in the center of the country near Petach Tikva. Our daughter Miriam stayed with Pat and Moshe when she first came to Israel many years ago and was friends with their daughter and so she came to the funeral. At the end Moshe suffered a lot, but he was a fighter and the last time we saw him about a month ago he said that he would never give up without a fight. The funeral was held in a beautiful rustic setting, with many trees and nice weather. There were some eulogies and his poems were read in Hebrew and then a final farewell at the graveside. He was a very nice, charming and intelligent man.
We used the opportunity, since Miriam drove up from Beersheva for the funeral, of transferring our grandchildren and taking them back with us to Netanya. There are several movements in the country, both collecting food parcels for the soldiers and for taking children in from the south of the country in order to give them a break from the rockets and the shelters. So we did our bit, we have our two younger grandkids staying with us, and they are a delight. At the moment they are watching the new movie "Horton" that tells the Dr. Seuss story of "Horton hears a Who." Watching part of it (only for a brief second) I realized that the Who are based on the Jews, a small powerless people beset with great troubles, who have a great and powerful protector, only in this case its a large elephant. Well, you can't always choose.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:28 PM
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