This is the Tel Aviv building where we are currently staying on the top floor – the penthouse is set back so you can’t see it from the street, plus it’s rather small. As an architecture aficionado, I thought it would be cool to live in a Bauhaus building, but that also means as an older building it has no bomb shelter. When sirens sound, we huddle in the stairwell with our neighbors, a stairwell that, as you can see, features a column of class windows, which is not exactly explosion-friendly either.

I was going to continue with my Manaus journal, but alas, with air raid sirens howling on a daily basis while I am in Tel Aviv, life has become absorbing in other ways!

In fact, Tablet Magazine has just published my eye witness report: An American Mother Visits Israel on a Mission. Mosey on over there because this Tel Aviv visit is a mighty odd convergence of choice and purpose for me.