This Would Never Happen in America

One of the things we love about Ma'ale Adumim is the range of services available here in the city.  We have four grocery stores, a gas station, an indoor mall and an outdoor mall, a community center with an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, countless makolets (corner groceries), six (maybe more) pizza shops, a really lovely dairy restaurant, a place to change currency, extensive health fund services, a nearby industrial section with laundry service, excellent bus transportation to Jerusalem and much more.

We also have our local library, which has a small English section.

Photo Credit: Jacob Richman - www.jr.co.il

While we're grateful to have something, in truth, the English book selection is pretty random and a large part of the collection includes books that are either quite old or pretty obscure.  Honestly, it was a bit disappointing. I am a major reader.  As a lifetime loyal public library patron. I am still in search of an alternate source to feed my book addiction.

We understand and appreciate that the municipality's budgetary priority is probably not English language books. Nevertheless, on our last visit, we were grateful able to find a handful of books, mostly classics, to borrow.

Tonight, I dipped into my husband's stack of borrowed library books to find something to read and pulled out this classic:

The Power of Positive Thinking  by Norman Vincent Peale

I didn't get very far before I saw this note, taped into the book on the Table of Contents page.  It was clearly handwritten by another library patron some time ago.  The tape that holds it to the page has yellowed with time and the handwriting has an old-fashioned quality to it.

The note reads:

NOTICE -

To the Reader - 

There are many interesting suggestions in this book but be forewarned ----

Jesus Christ is on every page.  It is a book based on Christianity & belief in Christ.

If 210 pages of Christian ethics & belief doesn't faze you - O.K.

If it does - find another book.

I had to laugh.  Where else but in a library in Israel would you find such a thing??