SHALOM SUMMER

The final week of David's teaching schedule was packed and a great finale to an intense summer. David delivered the last of his 'Prophets' talk on Sunday, August 31st - to another generous audience and was inundated with enthusiasm by those attending…including two Perth faces, Leon and Zev Levi, who were in Jerusalem for their sister’s wedding.

Two days later we were back in Jerusalem, but on this occasion we went early to Jerusalem to meet Marcus and Linda who were in Israel for a visit...and then later to see the children who were all also in Israel…looking sweet and more grown up. We went from the Solomon reunion to David’s last talk for the summer, his final installment of the Jewish History in Six Chapters, The Whole of Tanach in One Hour. The talk was a fabulous way to end the series and we were delighted that around 80 people attended - including Eli (Solomon)…who very kindly helped me set up.











From this event we then jumped into a taxi and made our way to the wedding of Oritt Levi and Daniel Sinclair. It is wonderful to attend another of the ‘Perth’ weddings, to be reunited with familiar Perth faces and it was particularly beautiful to be part of this lovely simcha…and to be sitting with family (Marcus and Linda, Daniel and Rachel, Ruth and Anthony, and Joe and Jeanette Berinson).

Liberation from the pounding pace of summer courses allowed David and I to collapse in a post-adrenalin ball for a couple of days; but David was not allowed to rest for long. Soon he was recording an interview with Tovia Singer. The interview, which was broadcast on Israel National Radio on Wednesday, where David was interviewed on the subject of the First Temple period as well as touching on King David. The show is broadcast across the world via the internet to a huge audience and within hours the number of hits on our website increased massively – for the following week we were averaging between 400 and 500 hits a day on the site.

Meanwhile, preparation had begun for the UK-US trip for the following week. Reality suddenly bumped into us and we were beginning to realise that miracles were not going to happen and David was going on this trip alone. Neither of us was pleased about this, especially as we had just ordered a new print run of 200 copies of the book (The Whole of Jewish History in One Hour) and there was no way that David would be able to sell even a quarter of the books traveling by himself, but our finances would simply not be able to stretch to this far. Then, at one in the morning on Sunday morning, we received a phone call from a friend who changed all this…suddenly, my ticket was being paid for and the trip had a totally new complexion. A miracle did happen (thanks Josh!)! Preparations then began in earnest and within days we were on the plane together to London.