There’s been plenty in the news here in Israel over the last week; the rumours of the Palestinians unilaterally declaring Jerusalem as their capital; Netanyahu’s media adviser walking out – the third of his team to up sticks in recent weeks; reports of Iran drastically reducing funding of Hezbollah as international sanctions start to bite; and only yesterday, the untimely passing of Israeli football legend Avi Cohen, the first Israeli to play football in Britain (when he joined Liverpool in 1979), dead at 54 after suffering terrible head injuries in a motorbike crash in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv.

Plenty of downbeat stories to end 2010, but here’s one story that looked for all the world as if it would be disastrous, but ended having the happiest of endings. This blog’s not all about Middle East politics, religion and culture, it’s about everyday life in the little town of Zichron Yaakov where I live with my wife, my two daughters and my dog, and it’s the latter that is the source of this particular tale.

It might seem a strange place to start, but last week I was sent to have my hearing tested. You what?!!!! I WAS SENT TO HAVE MY HEARING TESTED! Funny thing is that I’ve never had a problem with my hearing, indeed I’ve always been of the opinion that it is one of the few things about my person that still functions reasonably well. I was sent to see if there was any connection between a recent health scare I endured for a few months, and the workings of the inner ear. I took the test and was told that not only is there no problem with my hearing, but that I have particularly good hearing, very much in the top 5% of the scale. (So anyone who had planned to whisper and tell tales behind my back should sit up and take note).

Forward to yesterday lunchtime when I returned from a business meeting to find that the usual happy sight that greets my entry through the front door was notably absent. No, not my wife and kids running to shower me with kisses, I'm talking about my dog Mocca, tail wagging and rolling over to be tickled, was nowhere to be seen. Mocca is always there for me, and although he does have a wander down the road now and then to have a sniff here and there, he never strays far and is always home when the kids are around. He’s only an aging mutt, but he is very precious to us all.

Immediately, I sensed something bad had happened and went looking for him, but after 20 minutes driving around there was not a sign of him. I returned to let Paz know and panic set in. He’d been in the garden when she went to collect the girls from school, but hadn’t been there as usual when they returned. They had assumed he had just gone for a stroll.

We set off at four different points of the compass in search of our hound and were joined by a number of concerned neighbours and kids from the street; the kids in particular adore Mocca as he is so friendly and gentle. He was nowhere to be seen. We called the evil dog-catcher’s office, a place about as welcoming to a dog owner as the child catcher’s cage was in ‘Chittty Chitty Bang Bang’! They said they hadn’t been and snatched him. I had my doubts. As the hours went by and the light faded, the kids were starting to cry, (not just ours, the neighbours as well), and after scouring the town we had to assume that he had been stolen or that some disaster had befallen him.

Our row of houses each has a garage with an electrically operated door and a few months ago our neighbours dog Zoe was inadvertently closed inside our garage after wandering in whilst our gaze was averted. I found her an hour later when I went in to get something. For a big Labrador dog who barks when necessary, it was surprising she hadn’t barked at all, clearly terrified at being locked up in absolute darkness.

Yesterday evening I went along like Blind Pew in the opening chapter of ‘Treasure Island’, tapping away on all the garage doors in the street, but couldn’t hear anything. Our next door neighbours all went and checked, but there was no sign of Mocca. I tapped on the door of Natan’s garage two doors away, a futile gesture as he is away on holiday and not due back for a fortnight. I thought I heard a noise, but even with my ‘bionic’ hearing, with the wind howling around it was hard to tell. Anyway, how could our dog possibly be inside a garage that had been locked for a week? (Even the combined mystical talents of David's Blaine and Copperfield would struggle to pull that one off!) I listened again, almost certainly imagining I had heard the faintest of scratching noises, but it was impossible.

By now posters had been printed and pasted up all around the town. We drove around time and again with the kids looking in different directions and calling his name, but Mocca had gone. There were many tears before bedtime and an atmosphere of bereavement hung over the house. To anyone who doesn’t have a dog or a treasured pet, this description must sound highly melodramatic. But whether you are young or old, Israeli or Arab, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, (or believer in anything else), your dog is invariably like one of the family – he just costs less, is always happy to see you, and never answer’s back!

At 0130 this morning I was back out into the street vainly searching for my little friend and returned to tap on the door of my neighbour’s garage. The wind was blowing stronger than ever, but I still thought I could hear the faintest of whining noises. No good though, so to bed and a fitful night of miserable sleep.

This morning nothing; an empty basket, no dog, no hope. Then I asked Paz to find the number for our neighbour’s daughter as she had been charged with popping in occasionally to keep an eye on the house while they are away. We obtained the number and called her. Yes, she had been over to the house yesterday, yes, she had opened the garage, and yes, she did see a black dog close by. Paz raced to collect the key from her and I continued looking around the area but returning to ‘that door’.

Paz arrived with the remote control and the door slowly lifted. Nothing. It was like losng the top prize in 'Deal or No Deal'. Our last hope had surely gone. Then, like a guided missile, a distressed but basically fine little black and brown dog came shooting out and ran to us in the middle of the street. Joy! What absolute joy! You could see the trauma on his face, but he was OK. He must have wandered inside for a moment and the door had closed behind him. He had been over 20 hours in the pitch black without a drop of water, but he was OK.

The phone rang off the hook for the next hour. The head teacher ran to tell the girls that Mocca had been found and the class cheered. And I don’t mind confessing that I cried – quite a lot. In fact, the last time I cried so much was when Jon Voight failed to wake up after being knocked out unconscious in the boxing movie ‘The Champ’, in 1979, and little Ricky Schroeder was begging him to wake up, and he didn’t.

In the context of the problems of the Middle East a mongrel dog is of no consequence whatsoever, but the news of the safe return of our little best friend has brought tremendous happiness and unlimited smiles to many faces around here. It’s nice to have a happy ending now and then, and after looking as if 2010 was going to finish on the most miserable of notes, my family and I, (and Mocca), can now look forward to good times ahead in 2011.

Next week I’ll give you my predictions for the region over the forthcoming 12 months, (you have been warned), but for now, may I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2011.

 

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This is my last blog of 2010, and I thought I’d cast my mind block to how life used to be as British Jew at Christmas in England. 

As Britain and most of Europe freezes and all around the snow is deep and crisp and even, here in Israel, (even if this is where it all started), Christmas is not celebrated by the general population but is celebrated in Nazareth (a predominately Christian town for obvious reasons), in Jerusalem, and Bethlehem in the Palestinian Authority.  (Although I did see a Xmas tree and tinsel stall in Hadera earlier this week doing pretty good business – well, a man‘s gotta make a shekel! 

As a secular Jewish kid going to state primary school in the mid-1970’s (Moor Allerton Hall Primary School, actually), and growing up amongst a predominately white, Christian population, I always found myself liking Christmas a great deal. There were two reasons; one, was that it was beautiful to see all the decorated Xmas trees and lights inside and outside people’s houses, and two, ‘cos we got presents at Christmas as well as Chanukah (just so we didn’t feel left out). Most Jewish kids that I grew up with landed the present double as well. 

My class of 25 kids included at least six Jewish children (as far as I can recall), myself, Wendy Feldman, Michael Manning, Raina Saunders, (she became ‘Reindeer Saunders at Christmas), Simon Lewis, and Rochelle Bloomfield. I remember being about seven years and being asked by the teacher, Mrs Armour, to explain to the rest of the class all about the Jewish ‘Festival of Lights’ – Chanukah. 

‘Well’, I said, ‘we’re celebrating the fact that the Romans destroyed our temple and killed lots of people and there was a jug of oil that lasted for eight days, until someone came along with another jug to keep the light going!’ Silence. 

‘Thank you Paul’ said Mrs Armour, then James Cheseldine said ‘Well what’s so good about that then?’

‘Ah, said I, well we get lots of presents, light candles for eight days and are meant to get a present on each of the days.  

‘WOW!!!!’ said the amazed children. ‘And’ I continued, ‘we also get Xmas presents as well’.

‘Wow, Unbelievable’ gasped the class. Then Anna Kingston-Jones raised her hand and declared, ‘Mrs Armour, what do I have to do to be Jewish?’

 

A lot of Jewish children that went to state schools felt they were missing out on something at Xmas time, even if we did all get to watch the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show, The Wizard of Oz and The Queen’s Speech, the same as everyone else. My family was particularly lucky though, because my mother’s birthday is 25th December, Christmas Day itself, (good day for a Jewish girl), so we always had a party anyway. And our next door neighbours and best friends, the Bosher family were Malaysian Catholics and we always were invited to their sumptuous Malay Christmas buffet - stuffed turkey accompanied by fried rice and stir-fried vegetables, which invariably followed breakfast of smoke salmon and cream cheese bagels provided from our side of the fence. Pluralism at its finest! 

Being Jewish in a very white Christian country wasn’t always a barrel of laughs though. One day in 1975, eight-year-old Paul was walking home from school when two ‘brave’ 15-year-olds came out of a side ‘ginnel’ (do you remember that word), and started pushing me around. 

‘You dirty Jew’. ‘Sheenie’. ‘You killed Christ’, accompanied by punches and kicks to the head and stomach as I curled up on the ground trying to protect myself. The insults and the blows continued until a scream from across the road from Mr Swindells, a neighbour of ours and a teacher at the school, and the lads ‘legged it’ running back up the ginnel as the teacher held me and asked me if I was alright. He took me bruised and battered the last few hundred yards to my home, where Mum did the patching up. 

Up until that day it had never crossed my mind that I was any different from the rest, (even allowing for Chanukah, Pesach, Yom Kippur and Jewish New Year). My friends came from all backgrounds, I sang in the school choir and even had a solo chorus in ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’, had been a pixie in the Christmas play and was a willing recipient of the annual Easter egg from Uncle Laurence and from our neighbours.  

Even now though, so many years later and living in the only Jewish country in the world, (and being proud to do so), I still have a hankering for the happy Christmas times, people being particularly jolly (many doubtless a shade tipsy), present and cards between neighbours, snow falling on Christmas Eve, and the big blockbuster movie on Christmas afternoon.  

In so many ways Jewish people in English-speaking countries are so assimilated that their contribution to the greatest of Christian festivals is sometimes overlooked. I’ve always thought it a shade ironic that one of the most famous Christmas songs and film of the same name, ‘White Christmas’ was the product of Daryl Zanuck’s Jewish-owned 20th Century Fox studios, had a musical score returned by Irving Berlin (a Russian-born Jew originally named Israel Balin, and co-starred Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, (a New York Jew born Daniel Kaminsky). Oh, mustn’t forget the two female leads Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney, George’s aunty! 

Whether it’s Christmas or Chanukah, or any other festival you happen to be celebrating at this time, wherever you are in the world, the wishes remain the same for a fun holiday, and a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead in 2011. 

Thanks a lot for listening/reading during the last 12 months and ‘Shalom from Israel’.

 

 

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Nearly a week has gone by since the flames that tore through the Carmel forest and claimed a total of 43 lives, were brought under control. Such a horrific death toll of mainly young Jewish, Arab and Druze lives; so many tragic tales. I’m sure you’ve read or watched reports on the subject and appreciate what a loss 43 lives are to a country of only seven million people. Of all those that perished, the one that affected me most was the loss of Ahuva Tomer, a formidable woman who was the first of her sex to command a police district, being in the officer in charge of police affairs in Haifa.

Ahuva’s achievement in rising close to the top of the police ladder in Israel was a testament to her determination and abilities, qualities which in the end cost her her life. As news filtered through of the bus trapped on the steep, winding road up to Damon Prison, Ahuva was filmed by Israeli television arriving at the junction at the entrance to the park. She was asked what she knew of the problem and briefly told of a bus that was in trouble with passengers on board. ‘I must go and get up there’ she said, brushing aside reporters’ questions.

That was the last time she was seen alive and well. It appears that she arrived on the road behind the bus just as it became engulfed in flames which also burned her vehicle. She clung to life for four days suffering 90% burns before, mercifully (some might say) she passed away on Monday morning.

Time and again over the last week the image of her leaning out of her car window, full of life and personality has sprung back into mind’s eye. I never met her, but I feel the loss, along with the rest of the Israeli nation who mourn such a totally unnecessary loss of life. 

And yes, it was unnecessary. Government ministers had been warned that the area was ripe for a major fire and that there were few, if any fire-fighters available in the area due to a series of cutbacks over recent years. They were told by an independent committee in 2007 that the lack of any planes to fight the inevitable major forest fires was placing lives in unnecessary jeopardy. Whilst a blind eye was turned time and again to the corruption that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars disappear from government coffers as money was paid to non-existent religious students, money couldn’t be found to update fire engines that were already outdated in the mid-1980’s, and as a result dozens of lives have been lost.

How embarrassing for Israel with all her military might and astonishing hi-tech society, that they had to rely on countries such as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, and even the help of a few Palestinian fire-fighters, (amongst many other nations), to put out a fire on our own land. The Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Public Security Minister Aharonovich and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should all hang their heads in shame and resign.

Israel’s Achilles heel has been exposed. Arab enemies don’t need to create nuclear bombs or sophisticated guided missiles to deal a mortal blow to the Jewish State. They now just need to wait until high summer and send incendiary bombs over the borders and sit back and watch the devastation. And don’t think the point hasn’t been lost on local Arabs and Palestinians who suddenly realise that with a box of matches they can cause utter panic and mayhem in this land. It’s all a terribly sad state of affairs.

 

And now a round-up of other Israeli news from the last week...

They say you should be careful what you wish for as one day it might come true! Well after weeks of waiting and hoping, at last the rain has arrived in Israel ...and with a vengeance. This isn’t the drizzly stuff you get in Britain and Europe; this is serious rain. Stair rods! Hailstones! It’s bucketing down! You name the phrase, we’ve used it in the last 24 hours. Let’s hope that the reservoirs are beginning to fill. They say we’ll have snow in the very north tonight and that Mount Hermon might be ready to receive skiers by the turn of the year. The 35 degree temperatures of last week are already a distant memory, but my garden’s looking very rosy!


Israeli envoys around the world have apparently been told to be extra vigilant after information was received that suggested that Iranian and Hizbollah operatives around the globe have been instructed to avenge the killing of two Iranian nuclear scientists, who the Islamic republic says were killed by Israeli agents. The warning has also been conveyed to Israeli scientists and academics working abroad. President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad gleefully declared “Our enemies are in for a painful fate”. And a Happy Chanukah to you too, Mr President!


Rallies have been held across the world reminding people of the incarceration of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still yet to receive even a single humanitarian visit from the Red Cross. The kidnapping of the young soldier more than four years ago has still to be condemned by the supposed international humanitarian organization and the rallies focused on Red Cross offices around the globe. From Buenos Aires to Vienna and from New York to Thessaloniki, people were reminded of Shalit and were asked to urge the Red Cross to do more to help secure a visit to him in Gaza.


A team of Israeli chefs competing at the Expogast Culinary World Cup finals in Luxemburg walked away with three gold medals, proving what I have always said, that Israeli food is just about as good as it gets. Making the victory even more heart-warming is the revelation that the four chefs represented the four main religious communities in Israel; Jewish chef Charlie Fadida, Muslim chef Imad Shourbagi, Christian chef Johnny Goric and Armenian chef Sarkis Yacoubian, made up Israel’s prize-winning team.

As Shourbagi rightly points out, “If we are getting along, what is the problems of the ones in the leadership?” By the way, the gold medal winner was a dish of Jerusalem quail with olives.  


And finally...in case you didn’t already know it (and I didn’t), a poll conducted by Forbes magazine between 2005 and 2009 across a total of 155 countries has placed the great Israeli public as the eighth happiest on the planet! My first reaction was that the rest must be a bloody miserable bunch (!), but after reading the report that concludes that 62% of Israelis citizens are “happy with their lives” and only 3% described themselves as “suffering”, I suppose that on reflection life here, despite the threat of the odd local difficulty and the breathtaking cost of living, isn’t so bad after all.  

Israelis ranked as easily the happiest in the Middle East and shared eight place with Australia, Canada and Switzerland, a long way ahead of the likes of the US and Great Britain. Denmark, Finland and Sweden topped the list, whilst sadly (literally), the residents of the West African state of Togo were the least happy.

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