Lifegate in Novem­ber 2021

An unusual­ly warm and sunny month of Novem­ber lies behind us, with only a few days of rain in most parts of the coun­try. The parched land craves water and the large areas of forest burnt around Jeru­sa­lem cannot reco­ver without abun­dant rain.

After a few quiet weeks and the first tourists retur­ning to Jeru­sa­lem as well as to Beth­le­hem, terror has again shown its ugly face in the Old City of Jeru­sa­lem and also in the West Bank and peop­le have died and others are serious­ly inju­red. It is sad that peop­le on both sides conti­nue to use terri­ble violence and in the end ever­yo­ne will be the loser.

Pales­ti­ni­an poli­ce units and the Israe­li mili­ta­ry are now step­ping up their crack­down on these armed groups throug­hout the West Bank and East Jeru­sa­lem to prevent further attacks.

The rising Coro­na infec­tions in many Euro­pean count­ries and the new virus vari­ant have led to Isra­el once again closing its borders to foreig­ners and the hoped-for Christ­mas tourism will thus fail to mate­ria­li­se. The numbers of Coro­na infec­ted peop­le in Isra­el and the Pales­ti­ni­an terri­to­ries are also rising, but cannot be compared to what is happe­ning in some Euro­pean count­ries. Peop­le hope that no further rest­ric­tions will be deci­ded by the govern­ment on the just star­ted Jewish Hanuk­kah festi­val and Christ­mas. The year 2021 is approa­ching its end with great stri­des and we did not lack for things to do in Novem­ber either. We would like to report on some of the ‘high­lights’.

‘Inclu­si­on: A Lifegate concern’

As part of our inclu­si­on program­mes, 16 child­ren from our kinder­gar­tenvisi­ted a regu­lar kinder­gar­ten in our district with their teachers and some thera­pists. The program­me had been prepared by both staff teams and all child­ren had a lot of fun and joy while singing, play­ing and telling stories toge­ther. Through these program­mes we want to redu­ce fear of cont­act and encou­ra­ge regu­lar kinder­gar­tens to also accept child­ren with disabilities.