October 1998

Hi All,
“We’ve all been on our Summer Holidays” - Part 1 Eilat
In my previous newsletter I reported our plans for summer holidays. Those of you who have forgotten - go back to your records now, and in future, kindly review all previous newsletters more frequently.
Our summer hols were close to ideal. We started with a sinfully indulgent week sunning and tanning ourselves on the beaches in the pious city of Eilat. With Orli (3) delivered to the doting care of her maternal grandmother (thank you Boobie Barbara), it was a boys’ holiday (Judy received a special dispensation to attend). After a 5-hour night-drive one Saturday night down from Elkana, we arrived - with the sun and birdsong - in Eilat at 5am. By 6.30am we were in the water.
As regular readers will know, my boys (Ari 10, Elon 8, Naftali 5) are amphibious. We spent most of the sunlit hours of each day swimming in the pure, transparent waters of the Gulf of Eilat in search of the corals and fish that can be found just below the calm surface of the sea. Both the corals and fish are of incredible colours and varieties, and our fearless band were forever venturing out deeper into the sea in search of yet more wonderful fish and larger, brighter corals.
We also visited the unique Underwater observatory - a journey into the weird underwater world of Jacques Cousteau. If you didn’t see them yourself, you would never believe that fish exist in such shapes and sizes and with such camouflages. Fish that look like stones, corals, sand. Square fish, cucumber fish, tentacled fish, luminous fish and many unbelievable others.
“We’ve all been on our Summer Holidays” - Part 2 Camping on the Kinneret
Our second holiday was the traditional annual camping expedition to the Kinneret. It was preceded this year with a Shabbat in the Rimon Inn in the old city of Zefat (courtesy of my work). The hotel is an astounding amalgamation of old and new. Built into an ancient Turkish building with the characteristic bare stone walls and Ottoman style squarishly-domed ceilings, the hotel is modern, plush, and actually, a bit too posh for a man with roots deep in the Gorbals.
The children, of course, detested the hotel. Beaches are far more to their liking. You see, on the beach shirts don’t have to be tucked in and hair can go uncombed. On the beaches you role out of your sleeping bag into the Kinneret. Then play and swim from sunrise to sunset, barbeque for supper and collapse into the tent at night- without changing your clothes.
After three days on the Kinneret, we moved up-country and up-market to the Hilton Hotel of Israeli camping sites - Hurshat Tal. Hurshat Tal is an ancient recreation park near Kiryat Shmona where the freezing cold water flowing downhill from the Golan has been directed into pools. Hurshat Tal is shaded by oak trees some of which are hundreds of years old. The camping is on lawns of luscious grass. Water flows swiftly round the site in shallow twisty canals. The children play in the canals all day, while the parents laze in the shade and nap to the sound of the burbling stream. The place is pastoral, picturesque. Definitely worth a return visit.
ENZUP, or I’ll Shoot
Back in Elkana “ENZUP” is the rage. ENZUP is a wide game, played end-to-end throughout our neighbourhood, in gardens, parks and shul foyers. How do you play? Two teams of equal numbers (and sizes) of players ( up to 13 years old) apply strategy to a team hide-and-seek, with a twist. The aim: To capture and imprison all the enemy players. The method: A player spying an opposing player whom he considers to be within triple jumping distance can shout “ENZUP”. The opposing player has to freeze. Then the challenger takes three jumps. If he reaches the challenged player’s feet, then the challenged player is his captive and is led off in humiliation to prison. ENZUP keeps my children occupied every Shabbat and chag (and there are plenty of those at this time of year), from 4pm till three stars appear.
One detail for curiosity. When one player challenges another by shouting ENUZP!, the challenged player has to raise his hands. Hence, it would appear, the name of the Game - “ENZUP” - imported by Sabras from the English “Hands Up”.
Puncture-Day
Question? What day comes after Thursday? Answer: In our family, “Puncture-day”. There seems to be something spiky and intrusive about the pavements of Elkana. While the streets of London are paved with gold, the pavements of Elkana are strewn with rubber-penetrating objects of all sorts - thorns, pins, nails, stones. And, in rude ignorance of all rules of nature, these objects are magnetically attracted to the tyres and inner tubes of my children’s bicycles. Elon is capable of landing two punctures a day. Ari and Naftali lag behind only because, unlike Elon, after their first puncture, they get off their bikes and push.
Every day on my return home from work, I count the number of bicycles, balanced upside down on the porch with tyre(s) deflated. By Wednesday, typically all four bikes are out of commission, waiting for the miracle-working medicine man (Daddy) to patch up the torn tubes and return the bikes and their riders to the streets.
As in the real world of medicine, often, diagnoses based purely on external symptoms fail to identify the extent and true nature of the condition. What manifests as a simple single puncture evidenced by the presence of an intrusive foreign body or superficial lacerations, often proves to be complex instances of the two-wheeled equivalent of a multiple pneumothorax. You patch up one hole, two holes, three holes, and still air escapes. The complexities of the cases are such that what starts off as a twenty minute plumbing job, often turns into a full day’s operation. Hence the day after Thursday - Puncture-day.
Some Professional News
I wouldn’t want you to think we spend our whole time playing and holidaying. These vacations are brief respites from the pressures of school and work. Naftali started school this year, Elon is in 3rd grade and Ari is in 5th. Our only pre-schooler is Orli, who is attending a brand new kindergarten three minutes walk away from the house. (That’s this letter’s plug to you all to come and live in a yishuv).
The post-schoolers also have something to report. Judy’s teaching five courses in the Open University - “Programming in C”, and “Computer applications”. For his sins, Michael has received a company car. As far as Judy is concerned, this is a disaster, because it will be even more difficult to convince him to leave “that bl---y job” now.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.
With love as always from Michael, Judy, Ari. Elon, Naftali and Orli Isaacs