August 18 2008

Forty years ago today, Ros and I arrived on a ship into Haifa port. David picked us and our trunks up and drove us to the ulpan in Givataim, where we lived for the next five months studying Hebrew. The ulpan was situated not that far from where Faybia and David were living at the time, but if we wanted to get in touch with them we had to walk there, because in those days people waited up to four years to get a phone installed, and they didn't have one. We started ulpan at the beginning of that September, with my parents arriving in Israel in December, I seem to remember. Had it not been for our going to Israel, I'd not have subsequently come to the U.S. and the whole of our own family history would have taken a totally different path. So it was worth going through nearly 4 1/2 years in Israel to be here now for nearly 36 years and counting.