Signs of War (literally)

I've taken some photos lately of....signs to share:

Going shopping is a new experience: do you know where the protected area is where you're shopping (if there even is one)?

                                    

And once I was done grocery shopping (the protected area in by the eggs; you should never need to know), I crossed the street and saw this outside my favorite clothing store:

Sign announcing that "this store has a protected area" (and then the store's name, in case people thought it was the bakery next door. I was glad to see the sign because I had no idea that store had a safe room and, in my opinion, that's a pretty good selling point these days)

The fish store and the sandwich restaurant: "Together We Will Be Victorious




Kids are spending a lot of time making signs to hang all around. So great to see. This one says, "One people. One heart. We will win"

I called for info about possibly joining a new ulpan language program (I have registered with the government to be a volunteer nurse at a Jerusalem-area hospital if it should so be needed. Now I just need to get my language skills vastly, hugely improved in case I get called.....). With the registration materials, they helpfully included a list of handy words people need to know these days, including "Rocket", "Safe Room" and

And cousin Jillian got these beauties on her Duolingo.....

Two Weeks of War

Its hard for me to believe that its been two weeks since our beautiful-and-tough-as-nails country lost even more of its innocence. And I cannot fathom that there are still over 200 BABIES, children, elderly, women- and men who are being held hostage by Hamas.  The Tel Aviv Museum of Art put together an outside exhibit in their honor: one long table (because we're all one) set for Shabbat with 203 empty seats, including baby bottles and sippy cups for the smallest hostages. For those people (I'm sure none of whom are on this list) who are going around the United States tearing down flyers with photos of the hostages on them: are you even human?

From my little corner of the holy land: Feels like we're in "wait-and-see"-ville. Even more refugees are streaming in, now from the North of the country as well as the South. Shabbat was super noisy (I couldn't sleep part of Friday night due to the endless "booms", although I try to always think of the noise as the Iron Dome defending us, rather than of the incoming missiles we need to be protected from), but things were quieter during the day and, thankfully, no sirens. 

There's a special television station and a radio station that cater to the Shabbat-observant public during high-tension times. They have regular programming up until Shabbat candle lighting time, and then go silent except in the case of a siren or security alert. We decided not to tune in, though, because the stations broadcast sirens for the whole country, and the stress of hearing every siren in the entire country was not desired (to say the least). We hear the local siren from our house (although I much prefer the pre-Shabbat music it plays late Friday afternoon and the siren that announces candle lighting at the start of Shabbat) and we also have the app from the Home Front Command on each of our phones, which gives location-based warnings as well (although it doesn't always agree with the local siren. On Friday there was a BOOM that literally shook our house and caused a flurry of texts on neighborhood groups asking why something seemed to have exploded over our very heads yet there wasn't a siren. Turns out that it was a missile that was heading to a neighboring moshav and it was, indeed, intercepted over our city. Home Front Command sent a message when it happened, telling us to head for the shelter, but they didn't make the alarm on the app go off so we all missed it [makes me assume there are different alert levels that they can send out].

I'm hard at work trying to fill my little bit of the world with more kindness (today there is a call for an "Global Day of Loving-Kindness": Fabulous! Other folks can keep their "Day of Rage" [preferably far away from me and my country, thank you]).  

May this be my worst fault, but I don't think I have ever made circle-shaped cookies (drop cookies? Is that what they're called?). So Saturday night, in a "chesed challenge" to myself and because a huge part of our family's "LovingKindnessBakingTeam" had gone back to New York, I spent my time after cleaning up from Shabbat learning how to make cookies :) (Rachel from Ofakim is my hero. Then again, she's everyone's hero [and, no, ABC News, they are not "militants", they are "TERRORISTS"]. 

I'm on my second batch now and have made 100 cookies (whee--I'm a cookie expert!). The first batch is going to a bat mitzvah a group of Ilana's friends are making for a girl displaced from the South. Some of the second are going to a family from our shul whose father was called up for the reserves. My buddy "Bella", who is eight, told me all about her Dad being away yesterday 😢. I made dinner for them tonight. We'll see what "chesed needs" pop up for the rest: last week we gave cookies to soldiers, first responders from MADA (Magen David Adom) and Hatzala, police officers and displaced families. I don't worry about finding places for these.

Today, Sunday, things had been calm for a few days so I was planning to walk to the mercaz and do a big shopping trip with my "bubby cart" (no shame here in using them--everyone does!). Thankfully I decided to go later than I had planned because I would have been out when a siren went off.....Penina and Menashe had just walked out of their apartment when it went off, so, whew, they went back in. Ilana was at school, where, after the initial craziness of "a lot of girls screaming" on their way to the safe rooms, they said tehillim and sang together until they could come out. Meanwhile, Chana, back in New York, had forgotten to turn off her Home Front Command app, and got woken up at 6 in the morning by the worst kind of alarm.....

War Day 11

Thankfully, a quiet day. So I'll take this opportunity to talk about some of the psychological issues. First off, I want to make clear that we, thankfully, live in a pretty calm part of the country and we're all, b''H, doing fine overall.

Definitely a "loss of innocence" about life here in our beautiful country. Here are some things that have changed for me/lots of people:

--My phone and I have reached a new level of our relationship and I'm not really loving this 24/6 are-you-within-arm's-reach thing. Need to use the bathroom? Better have your phone in there in case you don't hear the siren (we all have apps to alert us in case we don't hear the siren or are in an area that doesn't have a siren [ie driving on the highway]). 

--Going for a shower? Make it QUICK. Have a robe handy in case you need to leap out mid-shampoo. See above for making sure your phone is in the bathroom with you.

--Driving? Think (continuously!!!!) about where you will drive/pull over if a siren sounds

--Driving part 2: Tell your family that, should their Red Alert app go off and they need to pull over while driving and lie on the ground with their arms over their heads, that they should lie on the sun shade that's in the car because, on top of that psychological stress, they really don't need burns from hot asphalt on their faces. 

--Shoes: Gotta be able to run into a safe space if outside. Since being caught by the first siren while walking our dog, I've pretty much only worn sneakers when outside. I upped my game a few days ago and now I double-tie them. Even went to the neighbor's bar mitzvah in sneakers. #WhoIsThis

--Safe Rooms: Keep a mental list of where the mamad is in your local supermarket. And the doctor's office. And the other supermarket. And the community center. And in your kid's school and.....and.....and......

--Read on the neighborhood list about all the women who thought they could take their kids briefly to the park the other day. Then a siren sounded. Get stressed just reading about these women lying on top of their kids under the slide, because that's the most shelter they could find in the time they had. Be glad your kids are too old for the park.

------

Again, thankful that our stresses are small compared to so many others here.....

In positive news, I've decided to try to popularize the concept of a #ChesedHaul. Click to see the kindness my family shared with others today. 

 

War: Day 11

 b''H a quiet day.

President Biden is arriving tomorrow, for which I would like to say, "thank you, Mr. President, for showing up FOR Israel and showing up IN Israel. Now keep it up even as this likely gets more messy....." 

Today's good deeds were Chana baking over 50 cookies and Penina baking more than 50 muffins. 2/3 went to soldiers (along with yesterday's winter hats and today's 8 pairs of winter socks) and 1/3 to the refugees STREAMING into our city. Ilana, thankfully, went back to school for a half day (SO grateful that her school finally moved into their new building last year, as they were in caravanim/trailers [THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the "move the school" fundraiser. There's no way they'd be having school if they were still at the old site).

Menashe and Penina went back to to their apartment tonight after sleeping here since the war started. Hoping that there will be no sirens tonight. 

A number of people have asked about sites to donate to. Here's my take:

Magen David Adom (MADA): the ambulance corps of Israel. Donate and, as they say, "Save a life in Israel from thousands of miles away". They are a 4-star charity on Charity Navigator.

Friends of the IDF: 100% of each contribution goes to helping Israeli soldiers. They are a 4-star charity on Charity Navigator. Cheryl and Haim Saban are matching gifts currently, which makes me say, "go, go Power Rangers" and thank you, Sabans. 

The Koby Mandell Foundation: I have heard that on the 7th of October, the number of Israeli victims of terror DOUBLED. The Koby Mandell Foundation helps support victims of terror and their family members. 3 stars on Charity Navigator (they didn't turn in tax returns. Otherwise, they are 100%); Charity Navigator says that 3 stars means "give with confidence". 

Ezrat Achim: This is THE local organization that is doing incredible things, both for soldiers, families with a member suddenly called into reserve duty, and displaced families from the South that have temporarily settled in our city. Not as fancy a site as the other ones and no "American Friends of" (i.e. no Charity Navigator rating), but they do tremendous things in our city. 

Before I sign off for the night, please take a moment to think of the 200 people still being held hostage in Gaza. Send them strength. 

War: Day 10

 A very odd day.....This morning felt so normal. (Okay, aside from a crazy amount of gunshots heard this morning that turned out to be the nearby police academy doing some intense training. They evidently announced it, but not on any group that I'm on [then again, I'm not on any exclusively-Hebrew groups, so that's what I get for living in my Anglo bubble]). But ASIDE from that, it was a very quiet day and I almost-but-not-quite could forget what's going on in the country at large. 

Today's "good deed for the country" was buying out 9 black watchman caps at a local store. Would have bought more, but there were no more. The weather is changing here and the soldiers up north are asking for winter gear. Which is not super easy to get in our part of the country because it tends to be pretty temperate all winter here. In Northeast US terms, it's chilly and we truly have some cold/rainy days, but we're definitely not the place to stock up on winter gear.  Ilana wrote on the tags, "Thank you for your service". Will be delivered along with cookies to a local person collecting.

All was going swimmingly until.....a siren this afternoon. DOH. We all made it out okay :). Then my phone really heated up when some local lists announced that a rocket had landed in our neighborhood, and several people contacted various family members to say that they had seen posts that a rocket had fallen *on our street• . I was at work then and, thankfully, knew that all my family members were accounted for. but the bomb squad even came and searched the yard of our diagonally across-the-street neighbors for shrapnel. Eek!

10 days ago, on Day 1 of this lunacy, shrapnel really did fall in the yard of friends one block over, getting them a whole-house evacuation while the police bomb squad did its stuff. 

sassy caption by friend, not me

Here's a link if you want to say tehilim for a soldier (sorry, only Hebrew). You get the name of a soldier to pray for and one perek of tehilim. It's a wonderful site--simple and clear. And I once got the name of someone only a block over (and recognized his name! Sent his Mom a screenshot :)):'

And, lastly, to go with my list from yesterday of captives' names, here are some photos.....

War: Day 8 and 9

Thankfully, we had a beautifully quiet Shabbat with no sirens and not a lot of "booms". Our neighbors across the street were celebrating their oldest son's bar mitzvah. Shalom Shachne and I got invited to the "50 person minyan" at the big shul in the neighborhood (there were probably 150 people there, but honestly, I couldn't quite figure out why the Homefront Command was limiting indoor events to 50 people anyway [less casualties in case a rocket didn't get intercepted by the Iron Dome, I suppose], and at the end of Shabbat, Homefront Command upped it to 300 people anyway). The bar mitzvah boy did a lovely job ;) and his family did a beautiful job "going with the flow" and hosting a kiddish for 80 people in their yard, rather than 200 at the shul, as they had planned. It was kind of shocking to me to see so many people from the neighborhood and realize that many more people than I had thought I knew have sons who are serving.....

Chana has a direct ticket back to NY hopefully leaving Thursday afternoon. Having her here an extra week has been a silver lining, but time for her to go back to her real life now. I'm SO GLAD she's going back on a direct flight. The US government has started offering flights for citizens back to the States. The details are....startling, to say the least. Here are the details: 

1) you have to sign an agreement to pay back the government but they'll figure out the price later 

2) you have to show up at the airport here with no guarantee you'll get on a flight 

3) they'll send you to Greece or Germany (which is some crazy kind of karma, IMO), and you can't choose which. From there, you make your own way back to the US. So, basically, the US government will get you out of Israel, but they're not really getting you back to the US 

And, finally, the weirdest term of the agreement: 

4) they can actually decide to send you BY BOAT to Cyprus (which, if Lebanon heats up any more, seems like not a particularly smart thing to do. Here's a map: 

Our city has become a popular destination for people fleeing from the south (I hope that means that we're in a safe zone and please Gd it should stay that way). Many of these families left with nothing or almost-nothing with them, and there are email- and WhatsApp messages all day asking for food, clothing, appliances, games, you name it, for these families. Chana, Penina and Ilana spent part of the afternoon sorting a large shipment of clothes sent from the US that arrived to one of our favorite organization's for their low-cost clothing gemach. Rather than reselling the clothes at very low prices, though, the store is having displaced families come and shop for free. (Did I mention I love that organization?!).

Lastly, here is a list of men, women and children being held hostage by Hamas. If it's too heartbreaking (and it is) to read each name and pray for their safe return, I'd say just hold it to your heart and ask for each of them to come back SOON, and as whole as possible--physically, mentally and spiritually.

War Day 6

 Incoming rocket siren in our city this afternoon.....I was with "my lovely lady" and we hustled into their family's safe room. Rest of my family was at our house. One of my kids was in the shower mid leg-shave (photo posted with approval ;)):

Good we can have some laughs!!!

More cookies were baked for soldiers. Feels a little like "lather, rinse, repeat".....

I got the good news that we made so much food yesterday for the displaced family that they shared it with another family who just arrived in the neighborhood today (double mitzvot?!)

In more somber news, a woman on my shul chat asked how her two teenage sons could volunteer to dig graves......And my friend Sharon, in a separate exchange, showed me a photo of her teen grandsons up until 4 a.m. actually digging graves in Jerusalem. Update: over 1300 Israelis killed.....Over 3300 wounded.....

We're all looking for ways to bring more light into the world now. Women and girls: please join the "Global Prayer for Peace in Israel" and light Shabbat candles (tea light candles are fine) tomorrow evening 18 minutes (or more) before sundown. You can find out the time by clicking here.