Monday, April 13, 2026

Guess How Many....

 No, not jelly beans in a jar....

Data was just released showing how many pre-alerts and sirens various parts of the country had during the past war with Iran, starting on February 28. So guess how many we had:

20?

35?

47? (that was my approximate guess)

Surprisingly (at least to me, and I was here for every one of them and yet still underestimated by quite a lot) the answer is 65.

Want to guess the number of "throw-your-coffee-in-the-air" pre-alerts we had?

cartoon by Devorah Leibert

After knowing we had 65 sirens, my guess was about 100-120. 

But the real answer is 227 (!!)

(And we had it easy compared to Kiryat Shmonah in the North--where cousins Gil and Nitzan live--because they had 214 actual SIRENS)

Let's hope the next cartoon stays just a cartoon.....




Friday, April 10, 2026

Pesach During a War

 The best thing about Pesach this year was that, against all odds, Chana was able to come in. It took her three tickets to get a flight that didn't cancel, but she made it! Now, daven that she is able to get back on her flight on Sunday.....

We had a lovely Seder with Menashe's mother, stepfather, brother and grandma Mari (who came for a two month visit before the war started and is still here waiting for a flight back), Yuliette (formerly of Colombia and then Boston. A lot of Spanish was spoken! [Too bad I took French in school]) and the brother of Penina's good friend who is a student at the yeshiva in our neighborhood and had gotten "warred in" (it's like "snowed in" but more dangerous) and couldn't go home for Pesach. We fit 11 people to sleep over in our house, which is definitely a record! Too bad that, after finishing our Seder at 1:30 in the morning we got a siren two hours later. Blurg.


The rest of the holiday was extremely low-key as it was almost impossible to go on any Chol HaMoed trips :( due to the need to stay near a safe space and Jerusalem's Old City and Kotel closed (bad Covid flashbacks). 


We went to a nearby moshav for a coffee tasting workshop that was very interesting, even though I'm not a big coffee drinker.  And that was literally it!

We'll see how long the cease fire, announced on the last day of Pesach, lasts. In the meantime, it was nice to open the metal shutter on the mamad, and go for a run and not feel like I had to stay on the exact path I've been running, where I know where all the safe rooms are. I hadn't been to this part of the street since the war started:


Sorry Menashe missed the photo, but happy post-Pesach!