Music of prayer

Friday, September 24, 2004
Erev Yom Kippur

The holiday prayer book, though devoid of notes, is like a musical archive, each verse conjuring up the tunes which frame it.

We each have our own, deeply ingrained, "home" versions of the High Holiday prayers - arrangements and melodies we heard as children which will forever be our ideal yom tov davening, no matter how far we later roam.

I find there are so many that I can't remember, fragments of melodies for the Yamim Noraim and Shabbat davening which refuse to be recalled, which nag each time I see the familiar text. How did my grandmother sing that? What was my grandfather's nigun? Melodies that I fear may now be gone forever.

The modest, but moving service at our local synagogue in Israel is a far cry from my childhood's elaborate choral services, the prayers there dramatically framed by the cantor's operatic voice and the choir's harmonies.

Ashkenazi services in Israel tend to prefer functionality over passion or pageantry. Few synagogues of any sort retain a traditional chazan, and few congregants have the patience for the drawn-out cantorial melodies. Professional chazanim are a dwindling breed, their craft today reaching more people in the concert hall than in the synagogue. True, some chazanim do drag the service out too much, but so many more bring out the meaning of our prayers with their beautifully tailored melodies.

Even the recent growth of Carlebach-inspired singalong services remains a fringe phenomenon, and their melodies tend towards the modern rather than the traditional styles. At least they infuse the prayers with a depth of feeling often absent in ordinary synagogues. Still, it seems to me a shame to reject the rich musical tradition of the Ashkenazi synagogue in favour of the new and populist. Increasingly, even on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur only a few of the most classic old melodies continue to be universally sung.

My mother and her mother, a chazan's daughter, were both blessed with inspiring voices. In the build-up to the Days of Awe our home was filled with melodies for the Yamim Noraim: Old tunes, now long forgotten, which my grandmother learned in her youth in London's East End; Sfardi tunes from her schooling at Bevis Marks Jewish day school; Ashkenazi pieces from her home; and the traditional mainstream nusach of British Jewry. The nigunim of Shlomo Carlebach and Modzitz, Yossele Rosenblatt, Malovany, the Malevsky family and Koussevitzky - all were equally at home.

When my grandfather passed away over twenty years ago my family stopped singing the melodies from his shtetl, Sassov. When my grandmother passed away two years ago, my mother found it hard to sing the chazanut pieces she had adored so much. I can understand them. Last year it was hard to see the words and hear in my head my mother's voice, my grandmother's voice.

This year I find it's different. It's a comfort to think of those words in my grandmother's voice. At home I put on a classic chazanut recording of "her" music and listen to some of her favourite prayers. Somehow, instead of the deep voice of renowned Chazan Zawel Kwartin, I hear my grandmother's beautifully high soprano soaring over the notes in a style half-song, half-wail: "Haneshama lakh, vehaguf po'alakh...", the soul is Yours, and the body is Your creation.

I don't even have a recording of my childhood chazan, Moshe Korn, z"l, who formed my concept of what a chazan should sound like. He had a fantastic voice, rich and powerful, but more importantly, he had soul, and that, more than anything, was what made him an inspiring chazan. Each word, each oy, each trill, came from the heart. Sadly professional recordings were against his contract with the synagogue, so that wonderful voice was never properly captured for future generations.

Yom Kippur is a whole night and day of aural reminders of all that is now gone. In the last two decades of her life my grandmother's arthritis prevented her from walking up the hill to shul. She would spend Yom Kippur in prayer at home and we would take it in turns to join her, so that she wouldn't spend the day alone. I was often there for the end of Mussaf, Minha or sometimes Neila and she would go through the prayers aloud, singing in the mournful, plaintive voice she reserved for the Days of Awe. The amount of soul she packed into that prayer must surely have burst open the gates of heaven.

During her final few years she ended up spending a lot of time in hospitals. Gradually losing her sight, unable to read or watch TV, she would sing, and all the nurses would come running to find out where the incredible music in a strange language was coming from. They would stand in shock and awe at the door to the room, stunned at this frail little old lady who in her 90s could still melt hearts with her passionate song.

The week before she passed away, I was visiting her in hospital, more accurately singing at her bedside. My DH had just phoned to say that he'd been accepted to our local chazanut choir. As I told her the news, her withered, wan face lit up, glowing with pride. Finally, another man in the family to continue the tradition.

Once again my DH has been asked to be one of the chazanim for Yom Kippur in our neighbourhood synagogue. This time he will lead the morning prayers, and he has been busy practicing a selection of nigunim, inspired by his own very different synagogue heritage, but also by that of his sojourn with mine.

May we all merit this Yom Kippur to be stirred to a complete and sincere teshuva.

Gmar hatima tova and shana tova,

Horse Route

Sunday, August 29, 2004

The more I see of Israel, the more I discover the surprises hidden away in this tiny country. I had no idea what was in store last Friday when my friend invited us to visit her new place of work.

Driving into the village outside Netanya, the scenery reminded me of a typical Nahum Guttman painting: fields of ruddy terra rossa soil, citrus groves and shady eucalyptus-lined lanes with pastel stucco houses nestling under terracotta tiled roofs. There are hundreds of places like it all over central Israel.

Arriving at our destination the scene was more John Constable than Guttman. Though flanked in typical Israeli fashion by fuchsia bougainvillea, the barred metal gate bore a green English language sign: "Horse Route".

Beyond it a short path led to an immaculate paved farmyard. A small brown Welsh pony leant inquisitively over the half-door of his loosebox. Bales of hay were stacked nearby. A pair of towering majestic horses were being led away from the spacious paddock by efficient stable girls wearing jodhpurs and knee-high riding boots, their hair neatly tied into plaits and buns.

We entered the very English-looking stables, complete with a welcome sign adorned with horseshoes. Three large farm cats lounged in the shade of its eaved roof and a shaggy muppet-like guard dog ambled out to greet us.

Indoors, a neat tack room was well stocked with black velvet riding helmets and English saddles. Spacious stalls housed the sort of impressive horses you see on the professional European show jumping and dressage circuit - evocative breeds such as Westphalian, Holstein, Wurrtemberg and Trakehner.

If you shut your eyes to the adjacent orange orchard, you could have been in England.

Only instead of being called Charlotte or Imogen, the stable girls had names like Anat and Noa, and their language was biblical, not Shakespearean.

A pair of wild mongooses had taken up residence in the straw barn. Good for keeping snakes at bay, as anyone familiar with Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi knows.

In general, the scene reminded me of Kipling. Surely the British imperial India that he knew must have been something like this, incongruous slices of England implanted in an oriental land, native creatures intruding on the semblance of Britishness. The English romantic poet Rupert Brooke came to mind with his visions of English rural idylls. I felt as though I'd happened upon a remnant of the British mandate.

As a child I had devoured books about such places, so exotic to me in their goyish country Englishness. Places where girls named Jill and Kate competed at the village pony club, treating their mounts to Polo mints from the village shop, while their parents went along to the local foxhunt.

I never imagined that my first visit to a prim and proper rural English riding school would be around the corner from Netanya.

My mind spun with a flood of pent-up horsy knowledge, untapped for years - obscure vocabulary, breed details, correct saddle posture - never mind that I've never had a riding lesson in my life.

I chatted in a Hebrew peppered with foreign jargon to the very English-looking - yet Israeli - proprietor. Her mission is to promote the discipline and elegance of English riding, in particular that most refined of equestrian arts, dressage. Akin to ballet on horseback, this dignified sport requires a perfect fusion of horse and rider to achieve the appearance of effortless coordination.

Israel, I learnt, has a small but devoted dressage community, competing in events in Israel and abroad. We even had an entrant in this year's Olympics, though injury to his horse prevented him from competing. While Israel is nowhere near western European standards, we have won tournaments within our regional group, which includes Cyprus, Egypt and Turkey.

I was taken aback to discover that dressage even exists here. Its formal style, with horses with plaited manes and competitors clad in smart tailored jackets, trim breeches and sleek boots, seems utterly at odds with the regional culture.

I knew there was a thriving Western riding scene in Israel, and even rodeos. The small beef cattle industry supports a modest group of professional Israeli cowboys, which has inspired a growing culture of recreational Western horsemanship. This easygoing style, with its macho overtones, gung-ho vocal commands, casual riding attire, and big, comfortable saddles seems to better suit the rough and ready Israeli character.

There is apparently little love lost between advocates of the English and Western schools in Israel. The stable's proprietor bemoaned the pervasiveness of the Western style here, how uncouth it was, how unaesthetic. She ran her stables as an example of how she thought things ought to be.

As Herzl said, "If you will it, it is no dream".

And as Rupert Brooke wrote, "There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."

Shavua tov.

Farewell Naomi Shemer

Motzaei Shabbat, June 26, 2004

Israel is mourning the passing of its most loved songwriter, Naomi Shemer. The author of anthems such as "Jerusalem of Gold", "Tomorrow", "Lu Yehi" and "Al Kol Eleh", she seemed a legendary figure, the unofficial chronicler of a nation's moods, fears and hopes.

Her music, her words have accompanied me my entire life, from the children's songs my mother taught me, to the patriotic and memorial songs I sang in my school choir, to the jaunty hit playing on the radio when my future husband first talked about marriage.

On hearing the news of her death, her songs flooded my mind. Over twenty years ago, "Emtza HaTammuz" foresaw her own death:

It's sad to die in the middle of Tammuz
Just when the peaches are plentiful
When all the fruit is laughing in its basket
And upon your summer and your harvest, hoorays have fallen.

It's sad to die in the middle of Tammuz
But in the middle of Tammuz I shall die
Towards the orphaned fruit-gardens
Hooray after hooray will surely fall
And upon your summer - and your harvest - and upon all -

It's sad to die in the middle of Tammuz.

(excerpted from Naomi Shemer, "Emtza HaTammuz", 1979 - my free translation)

Just as she predicted, Naomi Shemer died this morning, on the seventh day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, just as the orchards and markets are overflowing with the juiciest summer produce - peaches, plums and nectarines smiling invitingly from their baskets.

For me the bittersweet heartbreak in that song typifies Shemer. Throughout her work, her passion for life, her desire to grab it with both hands, is clearly apparent. Yet throughout, she seemed unafraid of death, even her own death, only rueful that she would miss life.

She wrote the most optimistic, uplifting, sad songs I know of. Even her most mournful lyrics usually contain a kernel of hope, of consolation, of continuation, even after the worst tragedy of all.

Looking back it is striking how many of her most well known songs touch on her own mortality. In the early days of her career, back in the 1950s, she had a hit with the semi-autobiographical song "Noa":

Noa was born in a field between stones and grass
Noa washed her face in the dew
And plucked a daisy from the field...

Noa wandered far from the grass, from the stones
The dew wiped away from her curls
A hundred daisies watched after her....

Noa is there in the field between stones and grass
The dew sings her a final song
And the daisies of the field with their beautiful petals
Weep for her...

(excerpted from Naomi Shemer "Noa", 1958 - my rough translation)

To me it seemed that she was simply someone who was comfortable with the natural cycle of the world. Just as she was inspired by the landscape and by nature, so she could accept that each life had its end, part of that simple, eternal way of the world, and this is where her optimism came from.

Perhaps encapsulating her view of life and her understanding of her legacy, is "To sing is like to be the Jordan":

To sing
Is like to be the Jordan:
You start up top in the north
Young, chilled, bubbling and cheeky
You hear birds in the thickets
And each one of them is
A bird of paradise
Because
To sing
Is like to be the Jordan

Your days
Rush like the Jordan
Like it you flow south
On the banks wild grasses grow
But onwards-onwards-onwards
Flow your waters
For your days
Rush like the Jordan

Your end is
To perish like the Jordan
To be gathered slowly into the Dead Sea
In the lowest place on earth
But
At the peaks of the snowy mountains
In a jubilant tumult
After you
Your songs are trickling on
For
To sing is like to be the Jordan

(Naomi Shemer "Lashir Zeh Kmo Lihiyot Yarden", 1972 - my free translation)

Shemer was born and grew up in Kibbutz Kvutzat Kinneret, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. From the kibbutz you look over the lake and see the towering Golan Heights and snow capped Mount Hermon, and nearby the River Jordan flows south from the lake, down through the Jordan Rift Valley. The region features in many of her songs, most famously in 1963's "The Eucalyptus Grove".

It was a landscape she felt at one with, one which shaped her love of the Land of Israel, her closeness to nature, but also her view of the world, her feeling that life was stronger than everything, that just as the seasons constantly renewed, so even after we are gone, our legacy, our mark on the world, will continually renew itself and feed new life.

This closeness to the natural cycles of the Land of Israel, coupled with her deep knowledge of the bible, its text also steeped in natural imagery, is part of what made her work so Israeli, so uniquely part of this country and so closely tied both to ancient Israel and to the modern state.

In part this is why she touched such a chord among Israelis, becoming our unofficial "national songwriter". In her prolific career she wrote just about every type of song: bright nonsense songs for army entertainment troupes and musicals, simple children's songs, patriotic epics, translations of French chansons and Yiddish ballads and acres of whimsical love songs. But the lyrics which most touched the nation were usually these bittersweet, optimistic songs about living in this often unpredictable part of the world.

The refrain of "Emtza Tammuz", "And upon your summer and your harvest, hoorays have fallen", comes from Isaiah 16. Yet it blends seamlessly with the modern Hebrew imagery, just as she herself, a secular Tel Avivian from a kibbutz, was nevertheless equally at home with the bible and the teachings of Rabbi Nahman of Breslav or Reb Menahem-Mendl of Kotsk.

For me her crowning glory was the way in which she used Hebrew language. The most able poetic translator, let alone my poor attempts, cannot do justice in trying to convey her work to the English reader. A member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, she was one of our nation's most capable wordsmiths, her words strong enough, deep enough, to stand as poetry in their own right, even devoid of the beautifully stirring melodies she composed for them.

I saw her live in concert many times. As a child my mother took me to several of her one woman performances. Just Shemer and her piano looked very small on a huge stage, yet filled the entire auditorium with the most vibrant energy.

A few years ago, despite her ill health, she went on tour again, accompanied by three other performers. This time she was clearly weaker, remaining seated, letting her companions sing many of the numbers. Yet still, when she spoke, when she sang, you felt invigorated by her bright enthusiasm, her passion for life, her frank straightforwardness, that humorous twinkle with which she faced illness and death.

I cannot but help thinking of her with joy, of her tremendous joie de vivre, someone who knew how to live. In 1988 the State of Israel celebrated its fortieth anniversary, but the first intifada was at its height. A mood of national depression cast a damper over the festivities. Shemer responded with the following song:

My celebration went out
To perform in the streets
Barefoot
At high-noon

They caught her,
The guards who wander the town.
Why do you dance
And why does your voice rejoice?

Better that you should sing protest songs
That's what goes these days
That's what goes

My celebration replied -
I will dance and sing
Until my soul departs
Because my joy
Is my protest
And that
Is the real
Protest

(Excerpted from Naomi Shemer, "Al Rosh Simhati", 1988, my free translation)

May her memory be blessed.

Have a good week.

Swimming with the fish

Sunday, June 6, 2004

Yes, we still exist! We've had a rather hectic few months, between work and moving to a new apartment, but thank God, things are working out. We may be exhausted but for the most part it's a positive kind of exhaustion.

Good thing my darling husband's company has renewed their annual weekend in Eilat for employees and their families. A whole weekend, all-inclusive, zero responsibilities, all we had to do was enjoy. We didn't even get in one of our usual hikes or drives off the beaten path. For once we just did the seaside holiday thing. Even my birdwatching was done from a beachchair. I can't remember the last time I had three days of total relaxation like this in a row.

The drive down to Eilat is part of the vacation. The highways this time of year are lined with meadows of cheery ripe sunflowers. Every so often we passed labourers harvesting fields of watermelons, or peach and nectarine orchards bursting with fruit.

As we proceeded south the landscape changed, the roads now bordered by grain fields, some still waving golden ears of wheat, others reduced to stubble after reaping.

Only an hour and ten minutes into the drive we were already passing Be'er Sheva, the "capital of the south", a city perched between scattered fields, sparse woods and barren desert.

Once you've hit the desert, you know that you've finally really reached the south.

That desert just stretches on and on and on through grim looking badlands and acacia dotted wadis, red craters and breezy highlands. Eilat is still nearly three desert hours south of Be'er Sheva. The more you plough on through the ever changing desert the more you start to think of Be'er Sheva as "north". For Eilatis, it certainly is.

Arriving in Eilat after driving half the length of the country - a gruelling four hours - we treated ourselves to an elegant dinner out at a beautiful Thai restaurant we've been meaning to try for years. It's down on Eilat's south beach (yes, south again!), away from the gaudy glitz of the north beach where we were staying. The restaurant belongs to a Thai-themed hotel built entirely of exquisitely carved wooden lodges imported from Thailand. We sat on the veranda of an imposing pagoda, overlooking the bay.

The food was delicious, but the full moon stole the show as it rose above the Edom Mountains in neighbouring Jordan, its silvery light reflected in the glittering waters of the Red Sea. Below us the wind ruffled the palm trees and the air was filled with the soothing lapping of the waves on the nearby beach. Who said kosher restaurants can't have it all?

The weather was as cooperative as the moon, warm and windy during the day with cool breezes at night. Pretty good going for June.

It was so cooperative in fact that for the first time in years I actually felt like hanging out at the beach on a summer's day. I can't remember the last time I actually waded in deep enough to practice my butterfly stroke. The water was cool and so crystal clear I could watch schools of small fish swim alongside me. I'm pretty sure I've never swum with the fishes before.

Unlike previous years in Eilat, this time I noticed how quiet everything seemed. Our late Friday night walk along the canal and seafront was almost serene, with barely a trace of the raucous party scene which three or four years ago made Eilat's north beach a rather uncomfortable weekend destination for religious folks like us. Most of the other people out for a stroll were families with kids or young couples. Was it the collapse of foreign tourism, or stricter enforcement of municipal noise regulations? Maybe the more adventurous types were out on party boats on the bay?

Our own little cruise that morning was pretty sedate, just down the coast to view the coral reefs from a glass bottomed boat. We saw some spectacular fire corals, but much of the reef looked as though it had seen better days. Whether it's due to the tourist boats or the fish farming up the coast I don't know, but there it is.

The fish however did not disappoint. I think all the exotic stars of Eilat tourist brochures were there: schools of zebra fish, lion fish needlefish, sea cucumbers, purple fish, green fish, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish (apologies to Dr. Suess). It's kind of like birdwatching, but under water.

All too soon we had to return home, back to the usual routine. Still, my hair smells of salt, and my sandals are full of, well, sand, and there are seawater-soggy clothes drying on my balcony. I'm not usually a seaside person, but somehow I think we'll be planning a few Friday mornings at the beach this summer for a change.

Have a good week.

Final honours

Saturday night, October 25, 2003
Motzaei Shabbat Bereishit

It's hard exiting the sukkah, leaving the womblike dim light filtering through the branches and stepping back out under the wide open blue skies. We had looked forward to spending the festival with my mother this year, but it was not meant to be.

Instead, we stood under such azure skies a few days after the festival as we consecrated her tombstone. She always adored this sky. She said that nowhere in the world are there such clear, bright blue skies as in Israel.

The silence of the tranquil rustic cemetery was broken by skyward sounds: birdsong and the frequent whop-whop of military helicopters. As I was delivering the eulogy, a jet roared overhead. Despite the sombre moment, it was hard not to turn my eyes heavenward to try and identify the tiny dot among the vapour trails: an F-16, or perhaps more of the modified Phantoms which had streaked across the sky during my mother's funeral, a coincidental honour guard. "My eagle-eyed daughter", my mother would say. "How does she know these things?" She would have laughed.

My mother would have loved that blissful hill. A fine place for her final home. Wooded slopes surrounding the graves of Jerusalem stone. The air scented with Jerusalem pine and cypress, the high ground affording refreshing mountain breezes. My mother never liked the heat.

It's unsettling to conclude a tombstone setting. It's not like a funeral where you go home and sit shiva and spend a week in mourning. You stand there and reopen all the memories and then you just go home and get on with things. We decided to go out for a memorial lunch in Mum's honour.

Beit Anna Ticho, a favourite Jerusalem haunt of hers, is a little sanctuary in the centre of noisy, crowded, central Jerusalem. At the top of the road is the bustle and hum of Neviim Street. At the bottom is the traffic and chaos of Jaffa Road. In between is Rav Kook Street, capped at one end by the municipal car pound, at the other by a taxi rank. In the middle is an easily overlooked alley leading to Rabbi Kook's historic home. Facing it, behind towering walls, is an enchanting garden.

In the garden is Beit Anna Ticho, a small art gallery with a cafe / restaurant, an island of flowers and trees amidst the Jerusalem stone buildings. Here we would come after a day about town, plonk ourselves on the terrace and gaze down on the gnarled olive trees and wispy pines. Onion soup and wild mushroom strudel, maybe pasta or salad, and then a hard choice between Mum's favourite desserts: iced coffee with ice cream, or hot brownies and chocolate sauce.

Today we had both, in her honour.

Leaving the restaurant, I remembered my last visit here. Standing at the edge of the flower lined path, in my mind's eye I saw my mother there as she had stood a few months ago, glowing in delight, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling under a white straw hat, dappled sunlight flooding through the tree canopy above.

We must come again soon, she'd said. Indeed we must.

Shavua tov.

Framed by terror

Thursday, September 4, 2003

My mother's passing was framed by terror.

The morning of August 12 two suicide bombers attacked a Rosh Ha'ayin shopping centre and later an Ariel bus stop. I was sitting alone in my teacher's silversmithing studio working on a pendant, listening to radio reports of the morning's terrible news, feeling like the nightmare was starting all over again.

Yet there I was at the workbench making something upbeat and full of optimism, taking a dirty looking, jagged piece of metal and turning it into a beautiful silver necklace, the act of creation as always restoring my spirits and my faith.

Then came that terrible phone call. Stunned, my hammer fell to the workbench, the tiny pomegranate clattering to the floor, my world shattered in the blink of an eye.

When my DH called I knew from the timbre of his voice that something was very wrong. I was sure someone we knew had been hurt or killed in that morning's bombings. I wasn't prepared for what followed: My mother had died suddenly, after a routine outpatient scan to assess the progress of her chemotherapy.

After the initial shock, I was struck by the irony of it all. I was worried about friends who worked in Rosh Ha'ayin. My mother had been nervous of riding the buses in Jerusalem. Sometimes in the mad rush of current events here, you forget that despite the hell of terror, ordinary life kills far more people.

During the shiva, the initial week-long mourning period, I sat with family and friends reminiscing about my mother's life, browsing through stacks of photo albums. My mother aged three at the beach. Aged fourteen on her first visit to Israel. As a young bride. A new mother. On vacation with family friends. At my bat-mitzvah party. At my wedding. Vacationing with my husband and me. And so on and so on. So many wonderful memories, so many beautiful photos. A life cut short, but nevertheless a rich life.

As I sat barefoot on the floor on the eve of the last day of shiva, August 19, I heard the news of the bombing of a Jerusalem bus packed with worshipers returning from the Western Wall.

My shirt was torn as a symbol of my bereaved status, my hair unwashed since the funeral, according to Jewish custom. The thick seven-day memorial candle flickered at the makeshift prayer lectern, and extra prayer books and chairs were stacked by the door for the thrice daily prayer services held in a house of mourning.

I couldn't conceive of deeper grief than what I felt for my mother. Yet my grief must pale against that of the parents mourning their children, taken so suddenly, brutally and deliberately.

How ironic that the bomber was a teacher. My mother was a religious studies teacher, an educator of hundreds, maybe thousands, of students young and old, with so much good work left to do in this world. She had dedicated herself to life, fought her illness tooth and nail. The morning of her death my uncle found her notes and bible spread out on the dining table, preparations for a class she was planning to give later this summer.

And here was this Palestinian religious studies teacher, a healthy, young man, ready not only to throw his life away, but to take a score of innocent souls with him on his demonic quest for paradise via mass murder.

Oddly enough the last time I rode on that bus from the Western Wall was last winter with my mother. Usually we preferred to walk back from visiting the Kotel, savouring the stone streets, the maze of alleys with their sheltered courtyards and market stalls.

It was an invigoratingly cold day and my mother was enjoying our walk through the Old City, but then she started to feel bad, some kind of stomach upset she thought, so we took the bus back to the new city. It was as usual packed to the gills, but a sweet seminary girl gave my mother a seat and she felt better by the time we got off the bus.

Only this May we discovered that the persistent stomach upsets were terminal cancer.

Amidst the terrible heartbreak and sorrow of seeing my mother undergo chemotherapy, of losing her so suddenly, there is some consolation, however poorly I can grasp it, in knowing that this is the way of the world, the way of all life. Despite the war, most people here die of illness and accident, as in other Western countries.

Cancer strikes so many, destroying lives, destroying families, but it is an insentient disease, an indiscriminate killer performing its function in the world. It is sadly the natural order, in every nation on earth, that children bury their parents.

My mother died peacefully, of natural causes. In some ways that itself is a blessing.

May we all be inscribed in the book of life for the coming year.

Ktiva vehatima tova.

Afula Express

Monday, May 19, 2003
Lag Ba'Omer

The fires tonight should be the joyous bonfires of the Lag Ba'Omer holiday, not the melancholy flickering of memorial candles at the scene of yet another terrorist outrage.

That was my thought this morning as we spent an hour stuck at an army roadblock at the entrance to Jerusalem. A mix of Jewish and Arab motorists frustratedly jockeyed between the slow moving lines of vehicles which snaked back from the checkpoint.

Yesterday morning, only an hour or so after the Jerusalem bus bombing, the lines at that very same roadblock had been short, traffic moving through it at a regular pace, the routine checks just part of the regular rhythm of life. Today the soldiers were more vigilant, paying particular attention to drivers who looked like religious Jews, the disguise used by two of the recent suicide bombers.

The sequence of events is familiar. In an effort to move towards peace, Israel eases travel restrictions on Palestinians and allows more of them to return to work in Israel. Terrorists take advantage of the lifting of the closure to infiltrate Israel, and a new wave of terror strikes Israeli cities.

This time, the restrictions were eased just a week ago during the visit of Secretary of State Powell, as a gesture to the new Palestinian prime minister. The result: over the last 48 hours, six suicide bombers have attacked Israeli targets, killing two in a public square in Hebron, seven on a bus in Jerusalem and three outside a shopping center in Afula.

Afula, in northern Israel, was the site of this evening's murderous attack. Fifty were wounded, thirteen seriously. Were it not for the penchant of Palestinian terrorists to attack this remote small town, few foreigners would probably have heard of it. Visitors to Israel have little reason to stop there, at most passing through on the way to somewhere else.

Its proximity to northern Samaria, just five kilometres from the Palestinian town of Jenin, makes Afula a relatively easy target. It sits right on the main east-west highway from the densely populated coast through the rural Jezreel Valley towards the Jordan River.

Most of my visits to Afula have involved getting lost there while driving through. Through these unintended detours, I've actually seen quite a lot of the town. It's a typical provincial Israeli town, with low-rise concrete apartment buildings and new suburbs with pretty little cottages. Its shops, mall and hospital make it a regional service centre.

Before terrorism brought it to the headlines, most Israelis associated the town with two of our national snacks. It's the roasted sunflower seed capital of Israel and home to a legendary falafel joint where they toss the falafel balls in the air while making up your pita bread sandwich. Oh, they catch them too. Afula's other claim to fame is its starring role in an award-winning Israeli movie, Afula Express, about a pair of ordinary Israelis trying to make the big time.

Viewing Afula from above, it takes on surprising charm. Drive up nearby Mount Gilboa and you'll see the whole Jezreel Valley spread out before you in the mountain's shadow. In the middle of the valley sits Afula, picturesque and serene in the golden late afternoon light, nestled amongst the fields, glittering fish ponds and, of course, its famous sunflowers.

Open the bible and you'll find that Afula rests in the middle of one of the most momentous regions of the country. The fertile earth of the Jezreel Valley made it the country's breadbasket in ancient times. Today, after centuries of neglect, it is once again an important agricultural centre. It was part of the heartland of the biblical kingdom of northern Israel; for a period the nearby city of Jezreel served as the Israelite capital and was later destroyed by the Assyrians.

It was the setting of many historic battles, a natural route for invading armies. Up on the Gilboa, King Saul fell upon his sword rather than face mutilation and death at the hands of the Philistine army.

In ancient Jezreel, the daughters of the Philistines rejoiced in the slaughter of Israelis. Today, Palestinians revel in the killing of modern Israelis in the very same lush valley. If they love this land as much as they claim to, how can they destroy it so eagerly?