IT has been four years. No, not since the last World Cup. Rather, since Gilad ben Aviva, Gilad Shalit, was abducted and captured by Hamas in an unprovoked attack at the Kerem Shalom crossing near Gaza. Two soldiers were also murdered in the same attack.

This was one year after Israel had relinquished Gaza to the Palestinians, no strings attached, in order to help them advance a Palestinian state. This was in territory ruled by the Palesinian Authority, one year before the bloody Hamas coup ever took place.

It has been four years. Four excruciating years.

What roads have you traveled in the past four years? What milestones have you celebrated in the past four years? What changes have you embraced in the past four years? What sadnesses have you grieved in the past four years?

THIS would be unimaginable in an American city — a stark reminder of the difference between this country and the Middle East.

I am sitting with Moshe Abutbul, mayor of Bet Shemesh, the 16th largest city in Israel, located about half way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Population is 72,000.

Abutbul, in his mid-forties, sees himself as a bridge-builder, a peacemaker, between different constituencies in Bet Shemesh: secular, religious nationalist, and fervently Orthodox (haredi) Israelis. I ask for an example.

He outlines a conflict over the rules of one of the two mikvehs in a local neighborhood. Some want to be lenient on the preparations, some want to be stringent. Before I am able to absorb the details, I wonder: mikvehs?