Last night we turned back the clock and returned to solar time. Winter is officially in. This is the first time Israel has aligned with Europe to switch daylight saving because all along Israel did this very early ... in autumn just before Yom Kippur sometime between Sept and Oct. The new govt. is not letting the religious Jewish leaders dictate govt. policies anymore and one major move is this switch from daylight saving to solar time. You can't possibily imagine how powerful the rabbis here can be ... and this curb on their influence is hailed by many secular Jews.
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| Remains of the lambchops |
Yesterday the Minister General paid a visit. Nothing major ... just a few words of encouragement and then lunch. It was a great lunch ... mainly because there was lambchops among the barbecue meat. I ate 8 of them ... which was a record for me since I hardly eat anything anymore. Everyone was surprised and had a great laugh. It was very delicious ... and since it was grilled over a charcoal fire, there was very little fat on it so that suited my diet.
Again the newspapers are printing warnings of a possible major earthquake. Everyone is asked to take precautions. But what really worries everyone is not so much the earthquake but the war in Syria. Yesterday rebels and Syrian troops fought it out at the border town of Quneitra which lies 1 km from Israel. Usually tourists in Israel would go up a hillock and catch a view of this town ... it's the traditional site where Saul (later Paul) was blinded by a light while on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians. It's the site of his conversion to christianity. Unfortunately the entire town was destroyed during the 1968 war, and now whatever was left was destroyed by the civil war yesterday. Very sad.
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