Lily 10

Father is so dispassionate in his reading that he'd make the perfect intel officer. He sets aside any hatred, simply winnows information.
In fact, he's probably the only Jew in town to regularly surf onto Hezbollah and Hamas sites, simply to see what is happening.
As I sift Sunday's paper, I feel a tap on my shoulder. He points to the computer; must be good, he rarely interrupts.
It is the official census as published by the Independent Republic of Hezbollahstan. Now over the last two centuries, population has remained stable very near 300,000. A high birth rate is counter balanced by combat losses and many people living and working abroad, mostly in Lebanon.
Every five years, they do the census. This time, an inexplicable drop to 250,000.
At a loss how to explain this, they speculate maybe Israel is secretly kidnapping people, forcing them into slave labor in things like IDF laundries and picking oranges.
Father grins, easy enough to check. If it were true, there would be three effects:
1) all those places are affiliated with the Histadruth labor union umbrella organization. If this were true, there would be a large membership drop.
2) rise in unemployment.
3) it would take 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers to administer. So, have large numbers of IDF soldiers gone missing off the official deployment chart?
He surfs onto Histadruth. Forget a membership loss; they've experienced modest gains.
Unemployment is down, not up.
He refers to his own computerized chart where he tracks IDF deployments. Grin, they could hide say 1,000 soldiers on him and he'd never know. 10,000 to 15,000, not on your life. See all would have to be regulars; there simply are not sufficient reservists to break this into 12 shifts per year.
So, where did the 50,000 people go?
Two possibilities. One, the most likely, the recently signed tax information sharing agreement between Hezbollahstan and Lebanon could have driven them into the underground economy in Beirut.
Two, least likely, the Haredim (plural) are right, the IDF does have a time machine.
He grins, now suppose it's the former, it'd be say 35,000 women and 15,000 men disappearing. If the latter, be almost entirely men who vanish.
We click back onto the Hezbollah site to check census. He groans, it's not broken down by gender. How very like bureaucrats! Endless info, but never the thing you are looking for.
The next Bakehila conspiracy story claims the IDF is kidnapping several unfortunate Haredi youths. This time, they are sold as slaves to the cocoa growers in Ghana, the proceeds being used so the IDF can buy high tech mil toys from the US.
Now that stretches credibilty a tad. Last article I saw, slaves there were worth about $100 US. Then what about transport costs? If the IDF had to pay that, guaranteed money loser.
Ok, be generous, say $100 plus transport.
So, let's vacuum up all the Haredim in Jerusalem and multiply by $100.
Now let's see what that buys.
All Haredim in Jerusalem wouldn't get you even one item, it's that expensive.
It may seem funny, but I get into this stuff, become very like father.
I show him the article, my calculations and the costs of the high tech goodies.
Something in his smile tells me I have arrived, become worthy, equal to his other debating buddies. It's a wonderful feeling!