Meow

September 7, 2006 - 8:23 PM by Allison

OK, so it’s definitely cat day in the Israeli blogosphere. You can’t fight it. (check out the previous post)

Now Brian Blum is writing about his local cat lady, the one who takes care of the strays in his neighborhood, a woman named Ora. He spontaneously decided to stop and chat with her and heard her life story.

She told him:

“I never wanted to bring children into this world. I am happy with my cats. Just my cats.”

An iconoclast to be sure, but a pioneer, and not the sort of person you meet every day while shopping at the mall.

Having Ora in our lives, with the history of the Holocaust hanging over her; her big heart for cats and crusty contempt for people, is part of what makes being in Israel so full of surprises and that gives it that extra does of meaningfulness that gets us through war-torn days like we’ve had over the last couple of months.

The sun was now burning down on my back and I feared my window for running had closed. We said our goodbyes and I plugged my ears again with my headphones and continued on my way, glad that I had taken the time to chat.

Because you never know who you’ll meet if you stop and stroke the stray cats.

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