Yom Shabbat
Saturday
13 Adar II 5784
March 23 2024
UPDATE 10:00 AM
It may be Shabbat and Purim may begin at sundown tonight, but the battles rage on at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza and artillery keeps pounding targets there–at least judging from the constant roar of planes to the south of us and the constant booms and explosions. Unusually, in the last 30 minutes a missile from Gaza exploded in the water off the coast here–but there were no alarms warning us of incoming missiles.
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken is here in Israel even as the Security Council failed to pass the U.S. sponsored ceasefire resolution before it yesterday. Of course the failure of that ceasefire resolution was a foregone conclusion because everyone knew it would be vetoed by China and Russia because the ceasefire would have been tied to a Hamas release of all the hostages.
The reason Blinken is in Israel is to once again tell Israel that we shouldn’t attack Rafah, and to do all the Biden Administration can to prop up Benny Gantz as the leader of a government that would replace our democratically elected Netanyahu coalition. In the latter regard, take a look at these two photos from yesterday:
Note the bro-mance between the two (especially note their handshake).
Now take a look at this one:
Aside from lack of smiles, note the handshake again.
All male political leaders on the Israeli “left” (especially Gantz, Lapid, and President Herzog) always shake hands with their two hands enveloping the one hand of the person whose hand they are shaking. At times this has been very unseemly such as when Lapid shook hands with French leader Macron, but you are free to draw your own conclusions.
As a partial distraction to the war and as aforementioned, Purim arrives tonight and children and adults have been fully involved in its celebration of how Mordechai and Esther defeated the evil Haman in ancient Shushan.
Costumes are everywhere you look:
The holiday cannot distract us from the hostages still being held. This “Queen Esther” is holding a sign which reads that her boyfriend that she was supposed to marry is still being held there. In the background, you see the Shabbat table set for those still being held.
Many other costumes have a distinctly patriotic look:
A Purim ballerina.
And:
A beautiful costume.
Many other costumes as well:
How about a Purim chef making hamentashen?
Or:
And not only kids:
A Purim clown at a local hospital.
On this note, we will wish our soldiers and you a Shabbat Shalom again
and also a Purim Sameach (Happy Purim)!
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.