Israel Ramble letter for Valentine Day,

 I was a bubble boy, I grew up in the bubble of a religious Kibbutz, until age 8 or 9 I thought everyone in the world is an observant Jew, and how surprise was I to find out most of Israelis are secular and then even more surprise to find out around age 11 that there are people in this world that are not even Jewish, well I grew up without having google at my disposal, so what did I know about Valentine day?! nothing, sounds like a good guy I guess. In any case now that you are aware to the degree of my ignorance past and present I would like to wish you a deepening love with yourself and your loved ones.

 Having said that I would like to inform you that we also have a Jewish love day which we are celebrating in Israel on the 15^th day of the month of Ab, which has its roots in biblical times when the Benjamin tribesmen were allowed to snatch young women from the vineyards of Shilo, and now 3000 years later in Kibbutz Ketura in the Aravah it looks like that, things do change over 3000 years.

 So why do I write these letters you may ask, and I have to ask myself too. Often I would think about my young students and what they may get out of it, or I think about one of you and what you may get out of it. I really don’t want people to get the wrong idea about Israel, but that is impossible because whether we like it or not we all perceive Israel (and almost everything else) differently, plus Israel itself keeps changing as we all do.

 I have consulted a dear friend from England few years ago about taking groups to Israel, which I did for a while, and his response was something like that: “The group that you will take to Israel will be million times better than the one you will never do” or in Marshal Rosenfeld words “A job worth doing is worth doing poorly” or in my words: It is better to try and fail than not trying at all, because we can learn from our experiences whether successful or not. So there, now you know why.

 I love reading all your responses. And here are the numbers: I am sending the Israel Ramble letters to about 350 people.  35 people responded at least once which is 10 percent, I enjoyed reading all of them responses (I know it is a bad English..), they give me ideas what to write next and what to improve. Please feel free to ask any question and make comments. I also received 6 “Please remove me from your list” responses, but what do they know.

 Enjoy your day and count your blessings,

Boaz Pnini

Bridges 2 Israel

Girls dancing on tu b’ab, the Israeli Valentine day

(Probably about 60 years ago or so – Boaz)