War Day 5.5

I wrote earlier today about the young man from our city who was killed in action. I was wrong about his funeral, though: it wasn't last night, it was tonight. When I got to work (I assist a beautiful local older couple when I'm not a visiting nurse at a large yeshiva in Jerusalem [where I'm now doing telemedicine rather than going in-person]), I saw a message asking that everyone on streets X, Y and Z come out as the family left for Har Herzl. Military funerals are always very big (hundreds if not thousands of people) but given the current situation, outside events including funerals are extremely limited in attendance. The couple I work with lives half a block from the soldier who died. He was only 22 and leaves a young wife....

At the appointed time "my lovely lady" (MLL) and I joined her son-in-law and went outside (her husband was teaching a Torah class on Zoom). Her daughter? She was at another military funeral on Har Herzl....There are no words for the emotional resilience of the Israeli people.

The street was lined with people with Israeli flags.....Somber.....Quiet.....Someone with a beautiful voice at the end of the street was singing tehilim (psalms) and people joined in.....

NOTE: Everything scary/stressful that I write after this was not proven in the long run. De-stress alert!!!

And then a military officer walked down the street and announced repeatedly that there had been incursions into the north and if we heard an incoming rocket siren, we all needed to lie flat on the ground with hands over our heads.....I asked MLL if we should go in or stay out, and if she could lie on the ground if necessary, and this amazing Holocaust survivor told me she wanted to stay out (in thinking about it, we still would have 90 seconds to get inside and she could walk that fast, so we were really okay. They were just saying to lie on the ground because of the big crowds there). I didn't see a single person on the street move. This country is amazing. (Although I guess I'm still pretty darn American because my mind was going a mile a minute with "should we go in? Maybe we should just go into the bomb shelter now and hang out there for a couple of days just in case something happens?!").

The minibus with the family drove by and there honestly was not a sound. I whispered the words of consolation we say at a funeral when the mourners pass through two lines of people after the burial. I have no idea what the protocol is, but it felt right, and then MLL and I walked two houses down the street to "accompany" the family. Hundreds of people filled the street, holding Israeli flags, accompanying the family. It was incredibly moving and absolutely heart-breaking.

I was so thankful that my 7 minute drive home was siren-less and it was wonderful to arrive home and find a beautiful dinner my kids had made (not that I was super hungry). 

And then during dinner, the Homefront Command issued an alert--without a siren--that everyone was to "enter a protected room and stay there until further notice". This was a country-wide alert..... 

On the plus side, I was very impressed at my family's togetherness (aside from about 20 seconds of squabbling about "do they really mean it?" and "I'm hungry! I didn't get to eat yet" ["Grab a snack and let's go!"]. I pressed the button to close the metal tris (shutter) to our sliding glass door, grabbed Percy (I'm seeing a trend here....) and his doggie friend Theo (neither of whom made a peep or squirmed even a bit) and went upstairs. Penina triple-locked our front door. Everyone else shut every other tris we had and we got upstairs in about 45 seconds. We had a really "fun" ten minutes in there with some saying tehilim, some cracking jokes and, after a few minutes, some trying to figure out if this was real or not because the WhatsApp messages were FLYING and "some" people were saying it was a mistaken message.

Turns out, thankfully, in this case "some" people were correct and Home Front Command sent a message saying "You can leave the protected room in your area. Following a situation analysis, you can now leave the protected room".

HASHEM YISHMOR

War Day 5

 Thank Gd, we are all still safe and sound. 

The funerals are starting.....No one we know, yet still unspeakably sad. A incoming rocket siren sounded during a lone soldier's funeral at the military cemetery on Har Hertzl. The photos of those mourners flat on the ground are absolutely heartbreaking (enough so that I'm not putting one in here). Another military hero is a  young man from our town, a young-20's married man whose funeral was yesterday. I work a few houses down from where his family is sitting shiva. There are no words....

Trying to get used to the "new normal", such as the fact that I now lock my car.....that we lock the door of our house.....that we ask who is outside before opening the door (do we think they actually say, "Hamas?" Or even knock?!). 

Another part of the "new normal" is becoming accustomed to grocery shortages. According to some reports, there are not actually any food shortages, just breaks in the production and delivery chains. Arab workers are not allowed into Israel at the moment. The grocery store in the mercaz that I do almost all of my shopping at has a staff that's about 60% Arab (I get it if that word sounds weird to you, but that's the word used even by the people themselves). While the cashiers are all Israeli, the unloading of trucks and loading of shelves is mostly done by Arabs (how to know? They speak Arabic to each other ;)). The store has sent out messages that they are interviewing people and hiring them on-the-spot for open positions and that they are accepting volunteers. The yeshiva in our neighborhood sent 40 students over yesterday to help stock shelves and every day that goes by it becomes more normal for teens to head on up and help get food on the shelves. The store will actually accept kids ages 10 and up as long as they have a responsible person with them. Since kids have no school (some places have started up on Zoom again, but a lot haven't), this is not a bad way to spend part of the day.

The hardest thing to find has been milk. Aside from the distribution and shelving problems, there are issues with actually getting the cows milked. A number of dairies are in the south, in the areas that were attacked. I saw an online plea for people with experience milking cows to come to a dairy in the south for minimum three day shifts. The ad promised that there would be a significant army presence to protect the workers. In the meantime, "which supermarket has milk?" is one of the two most asked questions on my local WhatsApp groups (it switches off with "what do the soldiers need now and where can I bring my supplies/baked goods"). I stared at the almost-empty dairy section yesterday, took the last carton of soy milk and tried to decide if we were desperate enough to buy one of the few remaining containers of banana flavored milk (answer: no). Went to another store this morning: zip on the milk front (even banana flavor).

For now, Penina and Menashe have moved in with us. We are thankful that our wonderful new son-in-law is a very mellow guy because, gee, "happy one month anniversary--go move in with your in-laws and your two sisters-in-law" (poor guy). 

I finally went for a run today. First time I've even stretched since this started. After consultation with the runner's group I'm part of, I felt that running on the circular street at the top of the hill/mountain we live on would be safe, as there are apartment buildings the entire way around, none of which are locked (i.e. I could duck into a stairwell [which is an official recommendation of the Homefront Command] if an incoming rocket siren went off) and that other people are pretty much always walking around there so I wouldn't feel alone/exposed/at risk. The last two times I ran last week, I did a 6K loop around our city and it was so much more interesting than just running around that one street, but it involves a half-kilometer stretch of open field and, nope, not doing that.

We're still working on making our little corner of the world a better place. The displaced family of ten from the south was very thankful for our dinner last night, and today we made cookies and muffins for local police officers:

The tags say "thank you very much. Hashem should protect you" (oh, and that they're pareve!)

 And a final thought:

War

I can't quite get my head around the fact that my last post was a link to watch Penina and Menashe's wedding and here we are, exactly a month later on the Jewish calendar, and we've been through the wedding, Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days, Yom Kppur, the beginning of Sukkot and Chol HaMoed and then came back to earth with a giant, horrific siren blare on Shabbat/Simchat Torah announcing incoming rockets. I'm not going to rehash the news, but I will say that I am horrified by the complete inhumanity and barbarism displayed by Hamas in kidnapping women, children, THE ELDERLY (inlcuding a Holocaust surivor taken in her wheelchair). As Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, this "should be something that revolts the entire world". 

I will also share some shocking statistics with you, like this from the American Jewish Congress, shared by my niece Megan:

and this from the World Jewish Congress via cousin Jillian:

To back up to Shabbat/Simchat Torah/Saturday: I had davened at the sunrise minyan from 6:15-8:45 and, athough we could hear a lot of "boom boom" happening, everything was calm (hey, no sirens and not like we were at war [then]). I was out walking Percy around 9 when those background booms turned into an "incoming rocket" siren. Percy stopped in his tracks. I did too. Then picked him up and ran like heck home reminding myself the whole time, "I'm a runner. I can do this. I've got 60 seconds to get in the safe room". Mentally, though, that run of one block and up one flight of stairs felt like one of those nightmares where you're running and get nowhere.... 

We were in the safe room ("mamad") six times that day.....Re. the safe room: it has reinforced windows and a reinforced door. When the siren sounds it's everyone in until the siren stops plus ten minutes. I keep a box with water and cups, a chocolate bar (good to keep away emotional Dementors) and two sifrei tehilim in there. Because it's also the guest room, we have beds, pillows and books too :). No air conditioning (I have heard it's illegal in a safe room so that there are no air ducts). Because Menashe and Penina were staying in there, the fan and Shabbat light were on (our friends who did not have guests sat in their hot, dark room. Sounds much less pleasant.....). Shalom Shachne said he heard that two of the sirens were actually in Gimel, across the valley from our house and we didn't really need to go into the mamad and extra points for great hearing. Since Gimel really isn't all that far (look at the photo at the top of this page. This is the view from our living room and that's Gimel, right across the valley from us). 

Shabbat was a pretty surreal day for me. Living in a religious city, there are usually a few cars passing through on Shabbat or holidays, but no significant number. This day was a big exception. Not just lots of people passing through, but lots of men getting in their cars and leaving (from what we heard, the Army keeps lists of who will answer their phone on Shabbat and who won't. They send someone around to those who don't use their phones and they get a knock on the door and orders to pack up and go). Walking Percy in the afternoon (while staying close to home and wearing sneakers rather than nice shoes [#OnceBurnedTwiceShy] I saw a family on the next street walking two of their fatigue-wearing sons to their car. It was so impressive to see their strength and grace under such incredible pressure. And then this very unusual conversation about where they could gas up the car on Shabbat because nothing is open here on Shabbat..... 

 I'm going to try to focus on the humanity, love and caring of the average citizen here. I'm going to do my best to fill my little section of the world with "ahavat chinam" (baseless love) to counter the "sinat chinam" (baseless hate) of our enemies. Here's what's I see: Although Israel's army is a well-prepared one, no one expected 400,000 reserve troops to be called up at the same time and the Army does not seem like it was prepared to suddenly feed all the reserve troops. So there have been MANY events gathering food for the soldiers (loved this video from Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv). Kids in our neighborhood helped fill a local charity organization's entire ambulance with food, snacks and supportive signs and notes for soldiers. We did our part by purchasing protein bars (small and good energy for the soldiers), cakes and Chana made cookies that we dropped off. Tomorrow night we're making dinner for a family of ten that has moved from the South into a neighbor's house. 

Due to the timing of Hamas's attack, the soldiers were not prepared in many ways: a large number of them were away for the holiday and had literally nothing with them aside from Shabbat clothes and a pair of pajamas. We know many people who have taken it upon themselves to buy underwear and undershirts, phone chargers, flashlights, anything the soldiers need along with food. A young friend of mine raised 1200 nis (about $400) in two hours just by posting on her Whatsapp status that she had a contact who would take the supplies to his Army unit if she was able to quickly buy things before he left. Those not in the Army are working hard to fill in the societal gaps: there are lists going around for volunteers to take down Sukkot for families suddenly without a man at home, and also lists of people who will babysit and help out for these suddenly single-parent families.

The last two nights have been loud with booms throughout the night but no sirens.  I don't think anyone is sleeping particularly well (the windows even shake sometimes). There are weird emotional comparisons to Covid lockdowns (as you may recall, Israel did it first and a lot worse than pretty much anywhere else, such as being forbidden to go anywhere more than 100 meters from the house, which meant that taking the trash out was an illegal activity for us). Ilana's school announced that some classes would be by telephone today. Sigh.

Chana was supposed to leave Sunday but her flight was canceled. She's still working on when and how she'll get back to New York.

I ask you to join me in praying for peace and security in our beautiful country.

Wedding!!!

Family and friends! Our wedding will take place *Monday (11.09)*, Thank you for being a part of our Simcha! *💓You can join our wedding from afar via the livestream💓* The live stream will start at- 05:30 PM (Israel time) Chuppah- 06:00 PM (Israel time) 📹 - Link to livestream 👇🏻 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvLdSfGoj0I 📜Let us feel your energy! Send us a selfie of you watching🤳🏻 and a Bracha as well 👇🏻 https://chat.whatsapp.com/D8HbhYkTUllH0X1FhUya7R

"What's Going on Over There?!"

 Since several people have asked for my take on what's going on in Israel now, I'll say what I firmly believe:

We are all one people

We are all one family

We are one tiny nation surrounded by countries that, at best, would shrug and look the other way if we ceased to exist and, at worst, would be dancing in the streets at Israel's destruction

We have been given a GIANT test that has come to a head during the Nine Days leading up to Tisha b'Av, the saddest day of the year, when we mourn the loss of our Holy Temple. Will we rise to the occasion and show absolute, baseless love, the opposite of the baseless hate that caused our downfall in the past?? 

I KNOW that many other people are also thinking this. The Jerusalem Post this morning, as part of their main editorial  (https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-752146) spoke about a protest yesterday that I doubt many of you read about in your local newspaper: Israelis from all across the religious- and political spectrum forming a human chain from the Kotel to the Knesset with the simple message: UNITY.

Want to see some of the best of Israel during these protests? Watch this video (https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvEBWvvgmy8/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==) of protesters on one side of the debate leaving a train station while those on the other side were entering. As one group goes down the escalators and the other goes up, there are handshakes and shouts of "I love you". If you watch this video, you cannot tell which side is which: each side has plenty of people carrying the Israeli flag and people on both sides of the escalator are reaching out to their fellow Israeli on the other side.

In our city, protesters on each side of the debate have met on opposite sides of a large traffic circle, each holding signs and Israel flags. And they end the night by singing Hatikva, Israel's national anthem, together.

Am Yisrael Chai

Can't Quite Believe It's Been a Year

Please private message me if you would like the Zoom link, or our home address

And That's the End of That (For Now)

On Friday, the US announced the end of passengers needing to have a negative Covid test before flying to the US. This, unfortunately, happened about an hour before Shabbos and almost caused my phone to have a meltdown from the large number of calls and messages from people who had booked antigen tests with me for Saturday night, after the end of Shabbat. It certainly caused the last hour before Shabbat started to be WAY more stressful than I would prefer.....

On Saturday night, we worked out all the details of who definitely needed to test (those flying before 7:01 a.m. Sunday, Israel time [aka midnight US time], those who tested just because they were concerned that someone at the airport might not have read the memo (mostly people flying Sunday morning) and the vast majority who said "Yippee!" and canceled their tests.

I just flew to visit my mother a few weeks ago, when the mask mandate was undergoing big changes: when I flew out, no masks were required in Ben Gurion airport (I wore one), but when we lined up to board, everyone had to wear a mask from then until landing (although they were MUCH less strict about it than any other time I've flown during Covid). When I returned home four days later, I left Boston at 8:30 pm. At midnight, the mask mandate for air travel was expiring in Israel. Would masks be required for the first half of the flight? Nah. El Al took the easy way out and masks were not required on the entirety of the return flight (I wore one [seeing a trend?!]). 

Mandatory covid testing had stopped two weeks before my return home. It was really nice to have "the circle" that one enters at Ben Gurion upon leaving baggage claim once again have people around it waiting for arriving travelers. And, no matter how well-run and quick the covid testing process was (and it was!!), it was great to just exit the airport without doing anything else. 

Had I been asked, though, I would have suggested that the governments involved wait a bit longer to get rid of testing. There have been a LOT of changes in the last month or two, and what have we seen? A very large rise in covid infections (likely vastly under-counted because, hey, relatively few people need to get tested for anything any more).

In the meantime, I'm taking early early retirement ;)