19th March, 1951
Tel Aviv

Dearest Darling,

You know how inquisitive people are in this country. Well, everybody wants to know how often I write to you, and my answer: whenever I feel like it, does not seem to be satisfactory. If they knew, however, that I sit down practically every day to write to my love they would think I am a doting old fool.

So here is another letter from your doting old gal. Yours of the 10th arrived today and was most welcome, though now you have confirmed to me what I was afraid of all along – namely that you are a big baby. You should put business before all. After all that is why you left us and it is simply no good eating your heart out there and not doing your best. If you must go to Paris, to Paris you shall go, and if the worst comes to the worst, you can pick up a nice girl there and tell her all about your lovely wife and your adorable children. If your father knew that thinking of me hampers you in your work he would come after you with a big stick and thrash it all out of you! (And he would probably let me have it too.)

I was most interested with your BBC news. I looked up on a map where Bermuda is and found out that besides being a British Naval Base, it also supplies early vegetables and flowers to America. Somehow I can’t fit Manechko into that picture, offsprings and all. I expect she lives very well there and is quite happy. As for the cabaret-manager, it nearly choked me and I feel growing tomatoes is much more his line. Did he put Mangova on the stage in a flimsy gown? Madonna, on the other hand, will be happy in Switzerland with her Swiss husband! Do let me have more news as it is all very interesting to me, and please give my very best regards to Liesel. I am surprised she sticks it out there. Have you come across any Austrians?

I took the children this afternoon to Sonia’s but nobody was at home. I wanted to get the address of a shoe-shop she told me once, where children’s shoes are very good, though a bit more expensive. She hasn’t been round at all and I really don’t know what is happening there.

I read in today’s paper that coupons are getting out of vogue. Traders have bags of coupons which they can’t exchange for goods and so things are being sold at black-market prices. I haven’t had any experience of that but expect it is true in many cases. At present most people are thinking about Purim and queue up like mad for sweets. And the children’s shops are full of masks and the usual do.

Liki is getting quite ingenious building houses and trains and the like and the nurse who gave me the injections was quite thrilled with her, because she showed her three or four ways of building a house with various odds and ends, and little Liki picked it up first go. The baby is beginning to assert himself a bit more and has given her back some of her own medicine. Today they were both playing on the roof and to my horror I found that Liki was pouring sand over him, boxes full, and he didn’t murmur. They were too filthy for words afterwards but had the time of their lives.

I collected some more prints of the new lot of photos and find that the first are always much nicer. I beg you therefore to keep the snaps I sent you, and if anybody wants any of them, I shall post them on. The best ones should be for our Album. I have got a set ready for Matty and shall give them to Kauffmanns when I go to Haifa on Friday to see them off. Your mother is not exactly thrilled at the thought of having the kids on Friday and your father doesn’t like the idea very much either, but I am determined to keep my promise.

Dod Chalav has been very good to me and I can drink plenty of milk. Otherwise the food situation hasn’t changed much. We are due to have new ration books and this time they are giving food and clothes books separately, thank goodness.

I haven’t written yet to Frankfurt and want to do so now. It really is disgusting of me, but I am so bone lazy in the evenings and have been captivated once more by the Claudius books. Are you going to send me anything to read?

You had better earn a few pennies on the side because I shall send you a list soon of all the things I want, and knowing how greedy I am, you must amass a fortune.

Well, old so and so, keep that chin up and don’t worry about me. There is really no need because I am quite honest with you. I have told you when I didn’t feel well, and that was during a terrible hamsin  as you could read in the papers yourself, and now that it is over I feel fine. Tomorrow I shall get the results of the analysis and they we will see how I am doing.

Once again my love to everybody. Loving you,

Yours Bossy.

P.S. What does Ma’am think of the children?