In Israel

My visit to Israel with my father, Jack, has so far taken us to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and tomorrow up north to the Golan heights and onwards. We are 7 days into our travels to meet our relatives, Miriam and Pinchas Spielman (my second cousins) and to learn more about the life and history of Israel. Perhaps its ambitious to do all this in 10 days! However it is also somehow a symbolic gesture of marking the death of my grandmother and to reconnect with a place we both, at different times, only touched the surface of. My father came here 50 years ago and me with my grandma 14 years ago.

Shabat (Friday's Sabbath) at the infamous Western Wall in Jerusalem


There was something very mesmerizing about seeing all these people praying (some in deep rapture) together. The haunting sounds of the muslim call to prayer mixed with Christian church bells and Jewish singing and praying created a scene unparalleled to anywhere I'd experienced before. The Western wall is the most holy of places in the world for Jews yet it is just a wall. It is location that makes it so Holy. Walls are a huge theme in the history of this place. Certain walls are considered holy, some walls divide religions or nations but others have also protected and supported communities.

Some of our time here has been expertly guided by Miriam's son, Daniel. He's given us an overview of Jewish history and Israel's history (no small task!!) which we are still both trying to take in and remember. Miriam's family are orthodox Jews and to our amazement their immediate relations amount to over 80! Daniel has 9 children and has brother has 12. We hope to go to one of Daniel's son's 1st year graduation from the army on wednesday evening.
Today I will meet his mother Miriam, to discuss her memories of her family both in pre war Berlin and her evacuation from there and how this led her moving to Israel Israel.


The sun, med sea and towering hotels of Tel Aviv where we both caught the unseasonably hot sun