FOLLOWING the committee’s decision to switch our once-a-month lecture mornings to evenings, we launched the season on Monday October 15 at Beit Ariella with guest speaker, the noted Freda Keet.

ESRA members and friends arrived to find several thousand striking teachers and their families in front of Beit Ariella, but were able to enter the building through the police barriers.  Keet captivated the overflow audience and left us wishing for more, speaking about the face of Israel in the world, of attitudes towards Israel, our PR and some of the reasons for its successes and failures. Newspaper woman, PR spokesperson and excellent speaker, she is a lifelong Zionist who intelligently, elegantly paints the Israeli side of the picture as opposed to the very anti-Israel world media.

Despite our problems, from the immigrants of many years to a very newly arrived immigrant of only one month, Freda Keet made us all feel proud to have chosen Israel.