a few months ago when Ezi and I were at Elma hotel in Zichron Yakov, we thought it so elegant and faultless as an escape from the daily problems that we brought the whole family there. The added safety measure was that for families there are these cottages separated from the main house, so the children, who had all been tested, would not really have much contact with the other visitors. And the food was as wonderful as I remembered. And the magical pool remained relatively empty, except for our kids.

The only problem for me was that I couldn’t connect to the wifi, except in public places, where I was happy to choose children over wifi. .and no one wants to hear a grandmother talk about grandchildren anyway, especially in this venue.

One of the things I was really looking forward to was taking the kids of the Aronson house. The history of the Aronson family is truly an amazing one – with many dramatic aspects. There was even an article in recent years with some of the details in Jewish week. And the boys knew so much of the background. But our guide, who we had booked in advance, turned out to be able to make the most fascinating story of the Aronson family into a speed course for remedial high school. It was like she took living people and buried them in rushed, boring sentences.

I guess history was just one other way we escaped this week from facing a world full of troubles. We didn’t confront the innovation, the heroism, the devotion to ideals that we so need to deal with the world of today. It was just another way to escape. I was so confused by the trivialization of the amazing people whose house we were visiting that I didn’t even have words to tell my children. These are people who tried to change their world, and to some degree succeeded. Even the tree that grew from the dates in Avshalom Feinberg pockets as he lay murdered in the desert or the poem he wrote to Rivka Aronson, “A Thousand Kisses,” show that the world can be altered even in failure. Just DO whatever you can.

Me, I’m going to start with this book about Sara Aaronson by George Wallace, The Woman who Fought and Empire.