We caught up with Orna in the first few days after we returned...how long ago that seems. Let's get the rest in order...
June 11: David started teaching Jewish History in Six Chapters in Tel Aviv (in English) - the first course we have run in our home city. It took me more than a year to reach an arrangement with Minyan Ichud Olam, but in the end it has paid off. Theirs is a central Tel Aviv community which acts as a bit of a nucleus for English-speaking olim (migrants) and so a perfect catchment for us. Excitingly we have been getting each week average audiences of around 40 people. David has been giving fantastic talks (people have been so enthusiastic) each Wednesday and is finishing the course tomorrow night with what I expect will be a bigger crowd. June 11 was also the evening we caught up with Shep Rosenman, who was visiting Israel. It is always great to see Shep and we went for a drink with him and Sharron to the Gordon Beach cafe (a great cafe literally on the beach - you can sink your toes into the sand) after the talk.
In the very early hours of Sunday morning, June 15, we were then off to meet Nick Andronis at the airport, to welcome him on his first visit to Israel. Nick stayed with us for a week - managing to squeeze into that time a whirlwind tour of Jerusalem with David, a trip to Yafo with me and lot of time at our local cafes! And it was great to have him here. On June 17th David began his second course for the month, but one which was much more demanding - being a totally new course - Jewish Philosophy in Four Chapters. On Tuesdays he would give this course in English at the OU Israel Center and on the following Sundays in Hebrews at the Fuchsberg Center.
Because David sets such high standards for himself, he spent most of the next month (until the last Hebrew talk on July 13) preparing these talks...a very stressful and demanding process. But the course has been amazing. All of the talks were fantastic, but the last one (on July 8) was particularly impressive - even by David's standards - and I think the 30-odd people who were privelleged enough to be there (including me) walked away from that talk in some sort of intellectual revelry. 
On June 19 we met up with Evonne Marzouk who was in Israel for a young Jewish leaders conference and we dragged Nick out with us to meet her. The last couple of days of Nick's trip were overlapped by the arrival of Simon Ross (here for the first time also) on Sunday 22, so we now found ourselves with three former Mt Lawley High School students from the same year in our home...oh, and me. The next evening we had dinner with Karen Radkowsky as well as with Nick, Simon and Sharron who was in town. Meanwhile, David was still having to find the time and the space to develop his talks...and remember, we don't have a very big flat...he had, in fact, turned the kitchen into his office...
On June 29 we caught up with Michael Dorf and his family in Jerusalem after David's Hebrew talk and then on June 30 we took Simon to the wedding of Dalya Buchbinder and Aviad Diamont - a beautiful wedding and wonderful to be able to catch up with so many Perth people.
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