Ss. Joachim & Anne

Full moon over Damascus Gate

Today is the feast day of the parents of Mary ... and the principal sanctuary for this feast is just 70 m down my road ... at the Church of St. Anne (also the same site as the Bethesda Pool). Byzantine tradition has put this dwelling close to the Temple since Joachim was probably a priest serving there. Anyway there was the usual solemn Mass with the presence of the French Ambassador ... since the Church is French territory. A full moon is shining tonight and it makes the feast a little more significant.

The weather continues to be extremely hot, nearly 40 degrees ... though a cool breeze blew once in a while. Poor Greece was ablaze with wild fires but suddenly today it rained with flash floods, and land burnt with no more shrubbery and plants had earth washed off ... leading to landslides. Absolute disaster.

Malabi with fresh passionfruit

Well one of my summer must-do is to eat malabi with fresh passionfruit. Malabi is a rice milk pudding eaten as a dessert with rose syrup. But it's too sweet for me. I thought I'd try it with some passionfruit ... and luckily for me both were on sale in the market. Believe it's very delicious ... and you should try it in summer ... it really helps cool the heatwave.

During the fast of Tisha B'Av last Sunday, the extreme far right municipality lawmakers forced an arab bread seller at Jaffa Gate to stop his hawking. Well, force is not the right word ... they overturned his cart and threw all his bread unto the ground, making them unsaleable. And the lawmaker had the gall to praise himself on twitter that he protected the jewish character of Jerusalem by doing so. This is the direct result of the Jewish Nation-State Law and the move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem. It has embolden the rightwing to force non-jews to obey jewish law. That is NOT democracy which the PM panders overseas. Today left-wingers came to buy bread from the old hawker ... giving him flowers and words of support.

A missile from Syria was shot into the Sea of Galilee!!! Horrors ... the war has entered into Galilee territory. How will Israel manage to safeguard its borders when internally the rightwing is tearing the country apart? That is the sin of Sinat Hinam (baseless hatred) that destroyed both Temples remembered on Tisha B'Av.

The Druze have become the first minority to challenge the Jewish Nation-State Law. The Druze have been the vanguard of the Israeli army and their anger at being relegated as a 2nd class citizen by this new law will shake the countries security. The PM is worried and is promising to give them special position in Israeli society ... but obviously not full citizenship because they are not jews. I wonder what poor Ss. Joachim and Anne would say to all this.