It's that time of year again

Next week I shall be away in the Golden Medina. It's that time of year again when Independence day, the Shoah all come round and I shan't be in Israel. Nobody managed to get close to the quiz question so there will be a surprise guest blogger while I'm away.

I'm slowly rebuilding the blogs I read list and anybody who asks and has some connection to this blog, Israel, the UK or looks vaguely interesting will get added.

Happy Birthday Spam

It's roughly thirty years since the first spam email message was sent. As a certified sandal wearing tree hugging left wing pinko Chablis drinking liberal I would be prepared to bring back the death penalty for spammers.

Keep the Bedouin loyal

I would like to thank Major Walid El-Huzeil and the Givati Brigade's Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion for averting what could have been a very serious incident at Kerem Shalom. I would also like to apologise to the entire Bedouin community for the way that the state of Israel treats them. Any visitor driving in the Negev will know what I mean.

Gas masks

We had a visit last night from the people who are trying to sort out the gas masks issues during the runup to Gulf War II. Young people, part of a private initiative (Manpower Inc) paid by Home Defence going around and taking back the old gas masks issued while Blair and Bush decideced to go off on a tanget on the "War on Terror".

You can imagine the scene. Well equipped students with badges and PDAs logging details and trying to make sense of a chaotic past.

"No, this is my Mother's gas mask. She's dead."

"Son number 1 took his down to the Kibbutz where he volunteered to help out. No, I don't know where it is now."

"We took that one back as it's useless for someone with asthma. We never got the replacement. No , I don't know why it doesn't show on the computer."

I lost interest early on and left it to Mrs E. to sort out. I would like to point out that they are collecting the old gas masks and new ones will be issued at the end of 2009. I don't know whether this is an expression of hope or, perhaps they know something we don't.

Now why wasn't anyone bothered with gas masks during the second Israel-Lebanon war?

Kosher for Pesach

It seems that everything has to be Kosher for Pesach these days. My rather jaded jaw dropped this morning when I saw that Uri Lupolianski opened a special pipe for "Kosher for Pesach" water. Excuse me? Kosher water? How can water not be kosher?

As a special concession to the coming holidays, could all non Jews please pee outside the country.

Life , Israel and not being Jewish

It all started with one of those water cooler talks in the company kitchen. We were idling chatting about ex President Katsav and his various legal, moral and other problems. Mrs E. by the way served in the army with his son and says it runs in the family.

As a jocular remark I said "Some of my best friends are lawyers.... oh, sorry , I lied.". There was a moments pause and then , one of the female team members asked me how long I've been married. There was an even longer pause until A, my Russian friend at work said "You might forget your first woman but you never forget your first tractor." A very Russian saying.

Anyway, this led me to remember my first ever visit to a synagogue. It was the Bat Mitzvah of the daughter of a work mate of Mrs's E. I was brushed, dressed and had my hands checked and eventually we arrived. This was a Conservative schul therefore I was downstairs with the family and Mrs E was way above me in the circle. It started and I desperately tried to keep up with it all. A mix of English and Hebrew I was quite glad when the main bit was over and we got to the sermon.

Oh, dear. The Rabbi chose as his topic (this was a Bat Mitzvah) the dreadful evil of marrying outside the faith. How it was worse than the Shoah because that killed bodies but not souls. How dreadful for a Jewish girl to marry a goy (he didn't say Goy). As this was exactly what Mrs E and I planned to do you can imagine how I felt. She was making frantic gestures from upstairs. I was intently studying my shoes.

So, years later, I have two Jewish kids , a Jewish wife and I live in Israel doing my little bit for Zionism so ya boo sucks to the rabbi.

Trees block solar panels, and a feud ends in U.S. court - International Herald Tribune

Do my redwood trees trump your solar panels?

Sirens and socks

I was going to write an incisive post about life in Israel, the tensions, the fear of war, strange politicians, the book I just finished and life in general. I won't now. I'll take Garrison Keillor's advise and write about my sock drawer instead. Or rather I'll write about what will happen at 10 o'clock this morning when the sirens sound for a practise.

First, at work we have a scrumptious new building with all the latest mod cons. WiFi, kitchens , dining area, games room and a large space that will be the gym one day. We also have two shelter rooms. You can tell what they are. Plain walls, large gas proof steel door, ventilation. To any Israeli, this is automatically a waste of space. Our upstairs shelter has been turned into a wet lab with a side function of being the place where any orphaned bit of furniture turns up. The dusty relics of past projects, packing material, 100 kilos of rejected shipments.

The downstairs shelter hosts some of more expensive trials equipment on the grounds that it's a safe place to keep it. It is also locked most of the time with a padlock that wouldn't look out of place in the Bank of England. I know what will happen when the sirens sound. The smokers will duck out for an unlooked for break. Half the people will ignore it. The few paranoids will head for the shelter. The rest will go to the kitchen and make coffee and talk.

Home command

There is going to be a major exercise over the next few days by Israel's Home Command. It was slightly odd to see one of my old posts on this subject coming up one the first page of a Google search. I would like to explain what is going on but there isn't much.

Israel

It's been said before.

"Israel doesn't have a foreign policy. It has a domestic policy that travels a lot."

Listening to the BBC this morning just confirmed this. Now who was it that said that?