A nice place to visit (Article# 75) 2/29/2008

It seems as if the people at Hasbro heard from a lot of people in just a few days. The day after I (among others) wrote them an email objecting to their decision, they made another change to the Monopoly website, removing the country designation from every city listed.

They issued a release claiming that the original decision to remove Israel as the country of Jerusalem was made and enacted by a mid level staffer, without consulting upper management. They added that they had never intended to list the country of each city on the actual game in any case, so this change was basically immaterial.

A few days later they took all the cities names off the voting board, announcing that they would keep the results of the voting secret until the conclusion of the vote. Since Jerusalem was in position number 4 when the voting was made secret (having risen 3 or 4 places in a couple of weeks time), I cannot help but wonder if this change was made with a concern for us finishing in a very high voting position. We’ll see.

Although I get feedback on a regular basis, I have never before responded in the paper to a reader. This week I got an email from a reader who lives in Jerusalem. His comment was (I am paraphrasing) that if I was truly concerned about the fate of Jerusalem, I should live there. His inference was that as a resident of Jerusalem his concern and opinion was somehow more valid than mine.

Well, since I deleted your email I don’t know your name, but whoever you are – I object! When the bombs fell in Haifa and Tzfat, it wasn’t only the residents of those cities who were legitimately concerned. As the bombs fall in Sderot, we all must stand united side by side to protect our brethren, regardless of where we live.

Unfortunately, not enough of us care this way. If our government would care about Sderot the way they care about Tel Aviv or Herzliya, they would not let bombs fall there every day without furious response from our side. I stand with Sderot as much as I stand with Jerusalem and as much as I stand with Bet Shemesh and I don’t have to live in those cities to care about them. As should you.

We got some good news from Chaim this week. We had been preparing his college application for next year and planning for him to be in YU next year. Even though he would normally have been in twelfth grade next year, having achieved his High School equivalency diploma and completed a year of study in Israel, we had agreed to allow him to go to YU the following year.

He has been having an exceptional year of learning in Yeshiva. Every report has been positive and glowing and we have been very happy that his adjustment has been going well so far. So it was terrific for us to have him tell us that he had decided that it would better for him to come back for a second year in Yeshiva, before heading off to college.

He’ll still have a head start on his peers, having earned a year and a half of credits for the time he is in Yeshiva here, but will also have the opportunity to mature some more before heading off to college on his own.

It snowed again in Jerusalem last week. We have actually had a much better rainfall the past few months. Even though the water levels are still very low and it will take a couple of good rainy seasons to correct them, we have finally had a couple of months to smile about and we will probably not hit drought conditions this year. Even though this is the year of Shmitta, we still need the rain.