69É«ÇéƬ

It has been a very busy couple of weeks for me and although not managing to write my post did lead to various personal guilt issues, I was gratified that several people noticed and asked why I had failed them in this respect. Having thought that my mum and sister were the only people who actually read it, it was pleasing to learn that this is not the case. My recent trip to Me ...

I had occasion to think deeply about security this week, when the School Community Security Group (CSG) forwarded an article on the topic to me. The recent tensions in Israel meant that those who keep us safe at 69É«ÇéƬ were considering and discussing measures to ensure that we continue to enjoy the freedoms we are accustomed to in Perth. Far from being disturbed that thi ...

A debate entirely in Hebrew? Really? That was surely an invitation that I couldn’t resist! I have worked in many excellent schools and enjoyed many, varied activities outside the classroom, but I have never heard students debate in a language other than English. Listening to Thursday night’s Hebrew debating brought home the great strides our students make in learning the langua ...

It was back to earth with a rather large bump for me, last week. The excitement and fabulousness of my study tour of Israel ended somewhat abruptly, with the home journey involving three days stuck in Turkey (flight arrangements seem to be all over the place at the moment), a suitcase which found it a challenge to travel on the same planes as me and a very exciting trip on a sp ...

Our last day in Jerusalem gave us a choice of tours – I took the walking tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Our guide had been brought up in Jerusalem and we walked through various suburbs hearing the stories of his life and who lived where. We ended up at his sister’s house and enjoyed a surprise feast with the family. Later in the day we visited Ammunition Hill and t ...

Sitting in the comfort of an air-conditioned bus is, I have discovered, a fabulous place from which to watch the ever-changing scenery as it passes by. As we drove south, the countryside gradually became drier and more barren; by the time we neared Masada, it was quite a lunar landscape –Southern Israel’s Judean Desert. There are allegedly nine Hebrew words for desert and this ...

Waking up to a spectacular sunrise in Jerusalem isn’t something that everybody is fortunate enough to enjoy and the view from my hotel window was breathtaking. The day centred around our visit to Yad Vashem, the renowned Holocaust Memorial Centre and after our obligatory group photograph, I noticed that, our group was much quieter than normal (we have been a fairly noisy group ...

I would hazard to guess that not many people can say that they started their day with a pleasant swim in the Sea of Galilee, but that is what I did. Having reconciled in my mind the fact that it may be called a Sea but is actually a freshwater lake, it made for a lovely dip and many people in the group took advantage of this cooling start to the day. Driving through the Golan ...

When travelling, I’m always fascinated by people’s different habits. Various trip members chose to start their days in very different ways in Tiberius – unfortunately, the divine-looking swimming pool was out of bounds until the lifeguard arrived at 9am which was far too late for us, but that didn’t stop people finding other things to do before breakfast. Some needed a sleep-in ...

Armed with a large paper map kindly provided by the hotel, I set off into the early morning city of Tel Aviv. The end of term back at school had been frantic, and this was one trip where I had uncharacteristically not done much pre-reading, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I discovered over night that the hot sand on the beach must have been hotter than I had realised and the f ...