The human perspective

If I had the ability to choose where to grow up as a kid in the 1970s, it would have been pretty difficult to choose any place better than Sydney, Australia. We pretty much had it all: a nice home, food on the table, family outings and holidays (er, vacations), and a great family-oriented Jewish school. So when the UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child, it really couldn’t get any better – it really was all about us. I can still hear the song they used to play on TV , during the commercial breaks. I even remember my friend’s mother quip, “When are they going to make it the year of the adult?” Whether the initiative bore any real fruit for the children of the world I don’t know, but the idea lives on in the form of World Children’s Day, which was established way back in 1954. According to the UN website , it is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare. And while it’s a...

My grandmother of blessed memory lived to 103. I’d like to think we had a special relationship. For years, since my grandfather died, I phoned her every day. Sometimes we’d speak for a while, sometimes for just a few minutes, but we always spoke. And although as the years went by, the conversations became increasingly one-sided, overall she knew what was going on. So you can imagine the shock I had after visiting her in a nursing home during one visit to Sydney. I had just left a few minutes earlier when I remembered I’d left something behind. When I returned, for just a moment, she looked at me with a completely blank expression and I realized that she didn’t know who I was. And just like that, her eyes lit up again and she returned to herself. It was a stark reminder of the frailty of age and our memory’s role in maintaining who we are. This past Friday morning, as I was driving around looking for good bakery to buy a yeast cake for Shabbat (cinnamon, if you want to know), I was li...

  “Tomorrow will always be our wedding date on these prayer booklets, but I won't be a bride tomorrow. I will, but not tomorrow.” This post on my Facebook feed was written by a young girl who was supposed to get married today. From what I know, it was planned months in advance. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were to arrive from Australia, South Africa, the UK and the US. Close friends were to attend from high school, pre-army academy and the army. One friend was even flying in from Canada. The post expressed sadness, yet acceptance of the situation. The author of the post was my daughter. Instead, she woke up early as usual and went to her job as an office assistant at an insurance company. And as the father of the bride-to-be, I spent the day in front of my PC contemplating what would have been, had the horrific events of October 7 never happened. As for our overseas guests, nobody came. Flights were cancelled, as the situation was deemed too dangerous. In short, ...

I have a daughter who doesn’t live with me. She lives with her mom, but we make sure to spend quality time together once a week. Most recently, despite being in the middle of a war, we decided to go to one of the shopping malls near Jerusalem. After all, you can’t stay glued to a shelter all day, right? Looking around at fellow shoppers who like us, braved the threat of rockets to do something normal, I saw secular, religious, young and old people. Most were Jewish but there were also quite a few Arabs. And while it’s not quite newsworthy enough for CNN’s top of the hour headlines, we were all getting along just fine – even in a midst of a war. Here’s another anecdote. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with the Arab manager of the special needs hostel where my son lives. On October 7, he was visiting family in Bethlehem, an area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Then the borders closed without warning and he got stuck. Yet, he still phoned me to check how my son was doing. Late...