2 days to Christmas

Lovely gift

I just noticed that there are a lot fewer elderly and poor in the streets this week. The cold has been so harsh most stay indoors. For the poor, heating is too costly so they simply wrap themselves with blankets if they have. I even saw a family collecting wood from the street dumpsters to be used as firewood. Some children were also collecting branches from trees on the Mt. of Olives. This winter cold is making the poor suffer a lot.

And talking about poor, Mother Teresa's sisters are busy visiting these poor to see to their urgent needs. On Christmas Day they will go to the streets looking for street sleepers to assist them. Just an hour ago I was at their convent for Eucharistic Adoration. They surprised me with a lovely gift - handmade ... of an infant Jesus statue inside a plastic cup: the Poorest of the Poor in the poorest chalice. They also cooked a nice warm dinner for me : chapati with boiled potatoes. I like it very much. It's very simple but filling ... what poor people would eat. No frills, no fancy. It's authentic charity in simplicity.

Chapati & potato
dinner

Israel has started moves to bring wounded Aleppo refugees into Israel for treatment. I hope they succeed. Israel is the only country in the region capable of doing this. The other muslim countries, rich like UAE and Saudi, have done nothing to help their own muslims. Other medical teams are lined along the Golan Heights to wait for refugees who enter into Israel.

On the local scene, the rabbis are stepping up their war on Christmas. Hotels are threatened to have their kosher licenses withdrawn if christmas trees are not removed.  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.760490

On the other end of pendulum, the muslim mufti of Malaysia declared that there is nothing wrong for muslims to offer christmas greetings or join in christmas festivities. How opposite can the rabbis and muftis get?  http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/kl-mufti-okay-for-muslims-to-wish-friends-merry-christmas?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&xtor=CS1-10#link_time=1482367298

The ultra-orthodox jews are also tightening their grip in the city of Beth Shemesh. They're blocking buses on the road because they do not like men and women sitting in the same bus. They're demanding segregated bus services for men and women.  http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/in-israel/local/obstruction-and-rocks-religious-war-in-beit-shemesh-25470