Settling In

Our first post. We've been here 10 days now, and it's taken me this long to sit down and start up this blog. The usual complications of getting settled in here have taken up most of our time, visiting friends we haven't seen for two years, checking things out. It feels to me as though no time has passed since I was here in 2006. Everyone is older, but that's about it. Chabad has established a little shul on the corner of our street, and Frank thinks that this accounts for the fact that we see many more religious couples and young people than we have in the past. There are a couple of religious families in our building. (Not that we're not religious, mind you! Here, "religious" means Orthodox.)

I'm only now beginning to read the newspapers. The cease-fire with Hamas has been in effect for a couple of days. I'm quite sure that this is a good thing -- the poor folks in Sderot have been living a nightmare now for two years. People I talk to seem very pessimistic about it "lasting," but I've read two or three commentators who believe that as the threat of attack from Israel is lifted from the Gazans life will improve there and people will want to see the cease-fire continue. Lots of people are disturbed that the cease-fire will give Hamas a chance to gather more arms, but Egypt seems determined to prevent further smuggling. I'm sure that smuggling will happen, but they already have more rifles than shooters. It's interesting to watch.

The cease-fire deal was made without demanding the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who has been a POW in Gaza for two years. Shalit's father is making a very public protest about it. There is also talk of the release of the two POWs in Lebanon, Regev and Goldwasser, but no one knows if they are alive or dead. We pray in shul for the safe return of the three of them every week.

We look forward to updating the blog every few days. I'm taking pictures to post. We'd love to hear from you! Write to pzfisch@nc.rr.com or rabfisch@nc.rr.com.

Pat