A letter from Israel

Any offers for my daughter's genuine clay penguin?  For this blog post we are going back in time to the 1880's.  Israel was still known as Palestine and was part of the Ottoman empire.  The Jewish born Moses Wilhelm Shapira from Kamenets-Podolski, which is today part of the Ukraine, emigrated to this world in 1856. Somewhere along the way he converted to Christianity.

During Hanukka Jews all over the world remember that a tiny light can disperse a great darkness I always enjoyed catching little unexpected snippets of Jews doing good deed: In Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt wrote about their helpful Jewish neighbour. And Sidney Poitier wrote in his biography that a grumpy Jewish waiter in the restaurant where he washed dishes, helped him to learn to read.