Reporters on the Job

• Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner? For the past two months, correspondent Josh Mitnick has been visiting the Israeli family in today's story about settlers moving (page 1). "I came across the Snirs while I was working on another story. They embodied an interesting mix of deep religious conviction and a sense of pragmatism," he says.

About two weeks ago, Josh says that the Snir family invited him and his wife over for a Sabbath dinner. But Josh's wife declined the invitation. "My wife, who is pregnant, was not comfortable going to a place that most Israelis consider a war zone. But the Snirs don't see it that way. They're used to their way of life, even though they have to drive through a tank-lined, Israeli-only highway to get back to Israel and can occasionally hear gunfire from their home in Gaza," he says.

David Clark Scott
World editor