FOR LO, THE WINTER IS GONE.

We have just celebrated Purim, recently explained to us in the following succinct terms:  “They tried to destroy us, we survived, now let’s eat!”  Not the only Jewish festival that can be explained in similar vein.  Purim is a festival celebrating a miracle and this year, we experienced a miracle ourselves!  For the first time in the 27 years we have lived in Jerusalem, we enjoyed dry and sunny weather for the festival, in fact, it was warm enough for the  Purim Seudah  that we attended to be held outside, in our friends’ garden.  

PURIM COSTUMES

During the days running up to Purim many schoolchildren wear their costumes to school but they are not as much fun as they used to be when families devised and made their own.  Now cheap and, often nasty, ones and hideous masks are available in the shops and the children, it seems, much prefer them to the more creative, home-made variety.  It was nevertheless,  fun to travel on the bus with a bevy of little Queen Esthers, penguins, rabbits, angels (even if one was wearing thick black tights) playing cards and even Minnie Mouse.  Nice too, that for once, the children were not shivering with cold and carrying umbrellas.  A not so enjoyable sight at Purim is that of youngsters from ultra-orthodox families dressed as soldiers.  This is real make-believe as they will not be doing their bit by serving in the army and makes us and all other families whose children and grandchildren give part of their youth to serving their country, furious.

PESACH IS APPROACHING

Now Purim is over everyone is going into over-drive with their Pesach preparations, the women all boring their friends with details of how many cupboards, drawers etc. they have or have not already cleaned and Kosher L’Pesach foods are already appearing in the super- markets along with shelves loaded with cleaning materials.  Of course, the day after all our windows  have been cleaned, there will be a sharav, accompanied by a sandstorm but that is a yearly occurrence and par for the course if one lives in Jerusalem.

ROCKET ATTACKS

The pleasure of Purim has been greatly overshadowed by the barrage of rocket attacks suffered by residents of the southern part of the country where over 200  rockets have fallen in the space of 4 days.  There have been a number of injuries and a great deal of damage to property.  As we write this, those under bombardment  are enjoying a respite but no one knows how long it will last  and ‘enjoying’ is probably the wrong word to use as so many of the children and many adults too, are suffering the effects of post traumatic-stress  disorder.  The, fortunately, frequent announcement following a rocket attack, “No one was injured and no damage caused,” does not take into account the enormous emotional damage sustained  as the result of days and nights spent in cramped shelters and the stress of having to dash to them immediately on hearing the “Red Alert” warning siren.  In some areas residents have only thirteen seconds between the sounding of the alert and the shell landing.  Fortunately, the Iron Dome defence system has proved successful in this recent wave of attacks in destroying 90 percent of the missiles that were aimed at city centres.  We pray that Israelis in all parts of the country will be allowed to celebrate Pesach peacefully, undisturbed by Red Alerts and explosions.