One stone, a whole flock of birds

Katherine has singlehandedly saved, if not my life, then at least my next week or so. She found this book for me, L'oeil de Tel-Aviv by Steve Eytan, which is great for the following reasons:

1) In French, but not super-difficult French, and so can be read with ease by my subway-sleepy self.

2) About Israeli history, thus completing the Francophilic Zionism requirement.

3) Because of 1) and 2), is in fact so interesting that it made a long, long line at the post office seem almost reasonable. I'm not that far into it (the book; the post office line is thankfully over and done with) yet, but apparently (assuming this is primarily non-fiction; I'll ask Oprah) there was some Israeli boy named "Yossele" (Yossi, presumably, but not of "and Jagger" fame) who was abducted by his ultra-orthodox grandmother and who made a whole tour of such charming places as France, Switzerland, and (pre-hipster) Williamsburg, Brooklyn, before being returned to Israel. Sounds like my morning. Except not really, but it does sound like a kind of great vacation, at least compared with what Elian Gonzalez went through.