Excerpt: This year’s visit started with a bang, the sun was shining and we had been invited to tour the House of Lords by a sitting member who had attended the LSE at the same time as I had, but had gone on to have a stellar career in the law, eventually being made a baroness. She had seen my articles about life in Israel in the AJR Journal and contacted me last year, when we visited her in Oxford. Because parliament had been ‘prorogued,’ i.e., suspended, by the Prime Minister, the place was deserted apart from a few security personnel. Nonetheless, we were taken around the opulent building, parts of which date back to the thirteenth century, while much of it was restored in the nineteenth century after a fire. We felt very privileged to be taken around by our friend, who also treated us to a lovely meal at the Wolesley restaurant. (Please click headline to read full story)