There was a time when I celebrated Israel’s Independence Day with unalloyed pleasure, rejoicing in the knowledge that we finally had our own country, where all Jews can find sanctuary and make their home. Coming after two thousand years of exile and persecution, this was not to be sneezed at. So, whether I was in Israel (as I have been for the last sixty years) or abroad, I registered the day in my calendar as one of joy.

As we have been doing for many years, Yigal and I celebrated Israel’s Independence Day with a few friends in our garden. This year we were eight people, most of us over seventy, though still fully functioning, and were blessed with clement weather. We sat in our garden and enjoyed chatting to one another as we ate the meat Yigal cooked on our barbecue. I could sum the atmosphere up in the untranslatable German word ‘gemütlich,’ which I........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)