Report that you are just going to, or have just been back from, Israel, and the response is invariably the same: “How are things there?” people ask, in the manner in which they might inquire about a relative whom they feel a little guilty for not visiting lately. How are things there? The question is asked by Jew and Gentile alike, by Zionist and sympathizer for the Arab cause.

Here’s how things are there. There’s a new prime minister and all, but more important, at the McDonald’s in Jerusalem, next door to the Tower Records and down the block from the Ben and Jerry’s, my niece Avital and my nephew Boaz, six-year-old twins, tore into their Hunchback of Notre Dame Happy Meals. “Yesh li Frollo?” Boaz announced proudly, as he pulled out a little figure of the villain from the brand-new Disney movie whose arms popped out at its sides when Boaz pressed its head down. “I got Frollo,” he was saying. He and his sister had already seen the movie, dubbed into Hebrew; it premiered in America on June 21, only six days before it arrived in Israel. They could have seen it in English, too; they understand English with ease, but don’t speak it well, and they like to be able to go home singing the songs. And they love to sing — Avital spent much of the trip serenading me with “Macarena,” a peppy little dance number from Spain that became a sensation in Israel a few weeks before it hit here.