All Saints Franciscan

Tel Aviv at 5.30am

It's All Saints Day for the Franciscan Order today ... we commemorate all the saints of our 1st, 2nd and 3rd Orders collectively on this date. It's a nice practice as we have so many holy men and women who are not officially canonised. I was at our Jaffa house for the Mass this morning ... I had left Jerusalem at 4.30am and reached Jaffa at 5.30am. Being so early ... as I usually am on Thursdays when I gave to go to Tel Aviv for my medical checkup ... I hoped prepare the altar for Mass and lauds. This morning the chapel was crowded. The community made up of 3 Oriental Rite priests and 2 Latin Rite priests were all present with another guest priest and myself. Then the laity included 2 indians, a spanish couple, an american, a nigerian and another of unknown origin. But it was nice to have a crowd ... it felt like a feast day.

Sufganiot on sale

Checkup took an hour in Tel Aviv then I decided to rush back home. The taxi driver that would have taken me to the Central Bus Station suggested that he drove me to Jerusalem instead for a reasonable price. I was by then sleepy and exhausted so I said yes. Reached Jerusalem City Centre within 50 minutes. I decided to buy some sufganiot for my library workers. Hanukkah falls on Sunday evening and the traditional sufganiot (polish ponschski) is sold everywhere .... some very bizarre versions too. I bought 10 and was given 2 more for free. I shared them with our library workers and secretaries at our Curia office. Eating sufganiot today made our All Franciscan Saints feast much more fun and festive.

A storm stirring in the teacup regarding the measles outbreak in Jerusalem. The ultra-orthodox rabbi serving as deputy Minister of Health has blamed arabs for spreading the measles. An uproar was stirred even among jewish circles ... because the arab population is the highest in vaccination and the ultra-orthodox jewish community has the lowest and now they are hit hard by this outbreak. But typically of them, they would blame non-jews for their own shortcomings. If it were the other way round, it would be called anti-semitism. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-deputy-health-minister-makes-baseless-claim-on-arabs-spreading-measles-1.6695408?fbclid=IwAR1OO0lmcswnc5XK-IETVK8nDii83rw_zdgIT_Ztz8tI2Q45_1saWUt2BpA

Meantime the Israeli military had occupied several dunams of private land along the Jordan River owned by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. One dunam equals one thousand sq. meters. Well we're not sure of the circumstances but it certainly is worrying that the govt. is now confiscating church property without warning or compensation.  https://www.lpj.org/il-patriarcato-latino-si-oppone-allappropriazione-delle-sue-terre-nella-valle-del-giordano-settentrionale-parte-autorita-militari-israeliane/?lang=it&fbclid=IwAR2FGL6hN48fVKEACu9dPB0AJjEdQaUSPsbiqQOfuROjz0I6h17GDX9V48M