Anna Aleksandrowicz in Ramat-Gan, Israel:
"Well, the fact that I'm sending this e-mail means that the worst concerns here in Israel regarding the Y2K bug did not manifest themselves. The lights stayed on, the water supply did not get cut-off, and even telephones and cell phones continued to ring--incessantly. And those people who spent the new year at work so they could handle potential Y2K problems (such as my brother-in-law) were able go home to sleep at 2 am-- knowing that at least for today, their thousands of debugging hours had been well-spent.

At midnight, despite that fact that there were very few official public celebrations, thousands of people cheered in the new year. The local television station, Channel 1, brought a live display of the countdown, which appeared on side of the new Azrieli Center in Tel Aviv. Because the millennium was not considered an "official" holiday, there were no fireworks displays (at least not any legal ones). My daughter, father, and I attended a birthday party for a good friend who turned 40 that very night -- talk about a really big birthday celebration!