From the Editor - 221

Life is unpredictable. In the midst of preparing the previous magazine, Neville Friedland, my right-hand volunteer administrator and in charge of the adverts, died suddenly. He was a wonderful, warm, caring and humble human being. He is a great loss to me and the magazine. But life goes on. I want to thank Mike Shribman for taking over Neville's jobs at a crucial moment in preparing this current magazine and doing his utmost to cope.

Two other ESRA volunteers passed away and have left a vacuum in ESRA's life, Professor Claire Rabin, who trained and guided our Counseling volunteers and Cynthia Barmor who was pivotal in developing and adding vitality to our Modiin branch.

Enjoy some fascinating memories: R.M. Kiel writes of the two occasions she met Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, statesman who served as the first black president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. Galia Miller Sprung describes the visit in 1978 of TIME magazine to her moshav. According to the Foreign Ministry the visit was the highlight of this prestigious tour to Israel and Mr. Hewitt of John Deere, the US company that manufactures agricultural equipment, loved seeing his 40 tractors on the moshav. Siri Jones-Rosen recalls the effects of a major power failure in Eilat in the early years. Ruby Davis was evacuated from London as a nine-year-old in 1939 when World War Two broke out. She says: "At my school, we were assembled and with identification labels round our necks, we were sent by train to Cornwall." Ilan Hirschowitz, when perchance he meets up with school friend Tony Katz, writes that "time is a gap of 50 years which condenses like a small blip on the radar".

ESRA is all about helping integrate new and veteran olim. Nicky Basuk's description of her decision to make aliyah from Canada shortly after she became widowed, how she did it and what efforts she made to settle down in Israel is very pertinent. Adv. Assaf Hasson advises people who are considering aliyah of the legal and tax insights to support their journey. Nina Zuck, experienced a trip down memory lane at the end-of-year party of the sewing center in Netanya where she started volunteering in ESRA 20+ years ago to help new immigrants from Ethiopia. These sewing ladies are still making clothes for themselves and their grandchildren (once it was for their children). The Israeli Volunteer Association in cooperation with the Neve Midbar Local Council established a Seminar to help integrate Bedouin youth into Israeli society.

"People make the World go Round" is a song written in 1971 by Linda Creed and Tom Bell in Philadelphia. Indeed it is so. Each of us has something to offer to help things happen. In 1910 in Carlow, Ireland, Phillipa Blatt's paternal grandfather, whose family fled the pogroms in Russia, established F. Robinson & Sons, buyers and sellers of new and second-hand high-class furniture. Its success was due to the implementation of a hire-purchase scheme, which enabled people to furnish a house with a small down payment followed by affordable weekly payments. Jane Krivine's great-great-grandfather, Ze'ev Yavetz, was a significant figure in early Zionism. His life and work bridged the gap between religious and secular Jewry, as crucial an issue in the 19th century as it is today. He was a writer, a journalist, a poet, a novelist, an activist, a short story writer and a teacher, one might even say an influencer. Juliet Rostowsky recently retired from the ESRA Counseling Service which she helped establish seventeen years ago and where she trained and supervised the volunteer counselors.

Art is a powerful medium to memorialize history. Our evocative cover, A Soldier's Embrace, by Keren Poleg epitomizes Israel since October 7. An enormous agricultural trailer has become a powerful public canvas for Israeli street artist Benzi Brofman, following the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7. Dalia Sinclair held an exhibition featuring the Holocaust histories of her mother and uncle in Romania.

Bridge aficionados will be intrigued by Alan Caplan's article "Giving unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and some sayings by well-known bridge experts. ESRA's social and cultural events, both actual and online, are endless, so choose what interests you on our website www.esra.org.il.

For avid readers several books are reviewed: Helen Motro's "The Right to Happiness after all they went through"; "Iconic Jewish Women" by Aliza Lavie; "The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic" by Gila Fine; "The Covenant of Water" by Abraham Verghese. There are some fine poems – "If Only the World Could See" by 14-year-old Doron Cohen and "I see you" by Tali Ironi.

Thank you all for being involved in ESRA, and Happy New Year.