Jerusalem Installment #3: Israeli Marital Disagreements

When Ezra, our tour guide, asked the group: Do you know what the 2 biggest disagreements in Israeli marrages are? he quickly got my attention.

1. Hot versus Cold: The temperature of the home and the car are an ongoing source of conflict. I can certainly identify with this as my wife claims that I have a "broken thermostat". For most of our 31 years of marriage, I have been hot and she has been cold.

2. Chol Hamoed Tiyulim: "Chol Hamoed" days are the in-between days of the holidays of Passover (in the spring) and Sukkot (in the fall). Husbands and wives have this basic disagreement: whether to travel the beautiful land of Israel from top to bottom in day trips....or to just sit home and be couch potatoes.


Postscript on previous blog post re lack of rain: This is the worst January rainfall in recorded Israeli history according to today's Jerusalem Post.

Jerusalem Installment #2: Divorce and the Aguna

The daily newspaper is a good way to get the pulse of a people.
While most of todays's front page articles of the Jerusalem Post pertain to President Obama, peace in the middle east and the truce in Gaza, there was an interesting front page article relating to the "Aguna" (literally a chained woman). In this painful predicament, a husband refuses to give a "get" (hebrew word for divorce document) to his wife and thereby divorce her.
It is an intiguing story that spans the globe titled, "From Jerusalem to Jakarta"
I tried to get the link posted here, but did not suceed. It is an indication that urgent social concerns here in Israel rank up there with peace and politics.

Selfish note: The weather has been magnificent here. It's selfish because there is no commodity as valuable here in the middle east as water. It's the rainy season and Israel needs the water desparately.