Tel Aviv Rooftop

Another Pessah, the theme of which is "me-avdut le-herut" (from slavery to freedom), a motto with rich potential. Of course the traditional discussion around the seder night table on this mighty theme is supposed to revolve on the story of Exodus from Egypt but the theme is too big to be contained by just one story, however epic. On one radio programme, a lot of people were using the Pessah motto to express the hope that they would find their way out of job slavery or possibly into a better paid version of it. Another association this Pessah is of course what is happening in modern day Egypt. Shimon Peres wished the Egyptians well in their Exodus out of the repression of the Mubarak regime but also expressed the hope that this wouldn't lead "in the wrong direction". Meanwhile a group of distinguished recipients of the Israel Prize demonstrated outside the site of Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, where Israel's Declaration of Independence was made, to expr...

A big, airless balloon lying on a field near Kibbutz Ruhama In honour of our "120th birthday" kind and generous friends bought us a special present - a trip in a hot air balloon, including an overnight stay in a 'tzimmer' (guest house), a champagne breakfast and a massage. This weekend we finally got round to using the voucher. Since what our friends had bought us was what's called chavila (parcel of services), this first involved coordinating with every contact person  in the chain: Hadar for the balloon trip, Gil for the tzimmer, Guy (who turned out to be a lady) for the evening meal, and Hanita for the massage. To cut a long story short, yesterday we took the massage (deeply satisfying), ate Hanita's supper and drank wine (excellent), stayed at Gil's tzimmmer (delightful in its stylish simplicity) and at 5.45 this morning were racing along the deserted, misty roads of the northern Negev towards Kibbutz Ruchama. The "ground crew" there had a...