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Threats are heavy
Anxiety is thick
And the sky is a perfect bright blue
that reminds me uncomfortably of
that Tuesday morning
Fear permeates the steady, warm breeze
As thick grey plumes of destruction
Ring out
I haven’t told anyone this because, well, first because I know I’ll sound crazy. But second, because I don’t want anyone to spoil it for me.
I went to visit my sister and her family in Israel a couple of months after the Hamas massacre. I wanted to spend time with them, support them, make sure they were okay, and admittedly, ease my guilt about being so far away. It was the first night of Chanukah when I landed – the Festival of Lights—but there was very little light in the country.
I could be you could be me.
Washing my body privately in the shower
feeling safe and protected/violated and
ripped apart.
I could be you could be me, cooing
my baby to sleep in a safe and protective collective settlement/butchered, beheaded bleeding corpses piled up
in sacred living spaces.
“Are you still going?”
Asked by a friend as I pack my bags
For a trip that’s been promised a year and a day
A trip long discussed
And oh so desperately needed
“Are you still going?”
In light of recent current events, and ongoing ones
Because to go is crazy
It’s not safe, it’s not the right time
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt.
But how could we forget?
Weak, starving, insecure, unprotected
Parched, dehydrated, thirsty
For water, yes – and so much more
Traveling across the desert
Barren wasteland filled with nothing
Letters. Black on white. They usually adhere to their two-dimensional habitat. Sedate, well-behaved. But what happens when they leap off the surface and issue blood-curdling screams?
That is the case this grey morning. My head reflexively snaps to the side upon seeing the words on my phone, my gaze turning away, scanning the room desperate to latch on to anything but them. It’s 7am and the notification that’s just appeared at the top of the screen confirms the death of eight soldiers.
My five-year-old son is currently wearing his army uniform costume we bought him for Purim nearly three months ago.
Since then, he has taken every opportunity given to him to wear it. Little religious boys wear their suits on Shabbat.
Not my son.
He wears his chayal (soldier) costume.
They sing.
At the stupid o’clock
when
even Sun
hasn’t
got up yet
but only opened its eyes,
stretched out and yawned
these irksome creatures already
tweet
chirp
peep
sing
their dumb happy songs
and don’t
let me sleep.
We’re fairly new here, so we don’t really know that many people. And we don’t know this family. But it’s as if we do. We caught our breath at the time when we heard that the soldier whose name was cleared for publication was one of our own, a local boy, 21-year-old Staff Sgt. David Sasson. David, who was a fighter in the Israel Defense Forces’s Oketz Special Force Counter Terror K9 Unit, was reportedly killed while on his way to search a building in Southern Gaza where his unit had identified terrorists.
One minute’s silence.
The whole country stops what they’re doing.
Wherever we are – at home, on the highway, walking in the street, sitting in a meeting – we all stop, stand up and become silent for a minute.
Yesterday was Memorial Day in Israel. A day to remember all lives lost. Our soldiers who fought in the wars to secure our Jewish State and civilians who lost their lives in acts of terror – more than 30,000 in total.
This year, the day was particularly heavy because we’re in the midst of war with many soldiers’ and civilians’ lives lost and 132 hostages still held in Gaza.
It’s been more than seven months since the 7th October. With every 7th of the month that passes, we struggle to believe the reality we’re living in, that another month has been added to the count, and the hostages are still there.