In this Instagram video you can not only hear the sound of the pre-warning (in case you're REALLY curious), but you can see someone become friends with the sound! Inspirational!!
I usually bake 8-9 dozen cookies on Thursday, most of which go to soldiers, with some for families experiencing a medical crisis.
This week we had the usual cookies with more for other soldiers along with a tray of chicken lo mein and one of quinoa brown rice pilaf with lentils (Israel has one of the highest number of vegans in the world so it's safe to assume that there will be some vegan soldiers among the group that gets this food)
Over 100,000 Israelis were out of the country when the war started . About half of them are now back in Israel. Ben Gurion airport is "partially reopened" and, according to the "Israel Good News" Whatsapp group, "24,000 Israelis have returned on over 133 repatriation flights--with 44 more incoming flights yesterday, carrying about 8,000. Another 22,8000 Israelis returned through land crossings with Egypt and Jordan".
Cool story: two of our friends' kids (ages 19 and 25) went skiing in Montenegro to celebrate the younger sister's upcoming entrance into the Army. The got "warred" in and finally made it home, a week late. Our friends went to pick them up and had an azaka right when they entered the airport. They followed other people to "one of several" mamadim deep within the airport to find...their kids already in the same mamad :)
Comedian Yohay Sponder did a great bit about "rescuing" people from places with no war and bringing them to a war zone: "So there are rescue flights from countries with no war. We rescued people with zero danger, and rescued them TO the war. That's the rescue. How are you rescued to the risk? You 'risckue!'"
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2097857254307981 if you want to see the whole thing (language warning, which is rare for this comedian)
Leaving Israel is very challenging as few flights are leaving and airlines are only letting on 1/3 of the passengers of a full flight. As in the summer's war with Iran, some people are choosing to leave through Egypt. Here are Chaim v'Chesed's tips for flying through Egypt:
Without offering any recommendation, we can report the following practical realities:
The journey is arduous.
These itineraries are long, complex, and often grueling. Nevertheless, many have completed them successfully, and for now, this remains the most viable mass option
72 hours before the war started, Ilana made a ticket to go to New York to spend her one week break between semesters. She was supposed to leave last Sunday, i.e. one day after the war started.
She's been (mostly) a brick about
a) not going on her vacation
b) not going on her vacation because there's a war
El Al offered her a ticket to leave this week (although it's unclear if she really would have been able to leave as only 100 passengers are allowed on each flight and some people, despite having tickets, were refused boarding).
The main reason she couldn't go, though, is that passengers are required to sign that they won't return to Israel for 30 days and her next semester of college starts Sunday (most colleges here do not start Fall semester until "after the chagim (holidays)", so Fall semester this year didn't start until mid-October. Ilana just finished finals last Friday, the day before the war started....)
Our next adventure in travel will (please Gd) getting Chana here for Pesach in 3 weeks. She was booked on a low-cost carrier to Bucharest and then Israel, and has now changed to flying El Al from Bucharest to Israel. Hopefully by the time her flight comes around, things will be (more) back to normal.
Usually we get pre-warnings of incoming missiles. I have a love/hate relationship with pre-warnings. They used to reliably be about ten minutes before we got a siren. Lately (looking at you, Iran) they have been about 3-4 minutes before, if they come at all (looking at you, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Too close to have advanced warning). We've also had a LOT of pre-warnings without having an actual siren lately. Like over Shabbat we had eight pre-warnings and only 1 siren (not that I'm complaining).
Except am I going to complain a little. The sound the Homefront Command app makes for a pre-alert is LOUD. Like CRAZY LOUD (even if your phone is on silent #MeAllTheTime). And unbelievably startling. One moment you're just on your phone playing Wordle (hi, Anne) and the next your phone is doing an Amber Alert along with a machine gun rattle added in. Imagine that eight times a day.....Some people (umm, maybe even me) have been known (only once. Maybe twice) to even toss their phone in the air because they get so startled at the sound of the hatra'a pre-alert (usually, I just go "AAAAHHH" which, if people around me aren't stressed enough, usually gets them up to speed).
(Ha--ironically, we just got a pre-alert as I'm writing this [can't make this stuff up. Did not turn into a siren for us]) If you'd like to hear what a pre-alert sounds like, watch this BBC clip: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cx2lg4y96kpo and WOW, how calm does that guy stay?! Inspirational!!! (although I don't hear the machine gun rattle at the end of his pre-alert, I'm tired of scrolling and listening to pre-alerts on video to find the "perfect" one to share)
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| as I was writing this post....🙄 |
Thankfully, Shabbat felt pretty normal. We had eight pre-warnings, but only one turned into a siren (Tel Aviv and other areas were not so fortunate). We had friends over for dinner with their friend Janet/Chemda from Boston (who was visiting Israel and got "warred" in. It's like snowed in but more dangerous). My family and Janet's go way back (like she even babysat for me a few times!) and it was nice to hear some stories about my grandparents, who were good friends with her parents.
Woke up this morning to a 5:45 a.m. siren. Heckuva way to wake up. Like the loudest alarm you can imagine, but this one has the subtle undertone of "better get up because if you stay in bed you might die".
Couldn't fall back asleep after the all-clear and eventually got up and did my usual (which hasn't been very "usual" lately) stretching/body weight training session. Just as I was about to leave for a run: pre-alert. Got the all clear and decided to still go. A week off with zero physical activity and endless comfort food is enough! I stayed on a route where there were unlocked buildings the entire way, so I had a place to duck into if necessary.
I had 25 minutes before shul started. Made it 3.5 km and arrived just as services were starting so I could amen Shalom Shachne's kaddish for my mother, a''h, whose Hebrew birthday would have been today.
Thanks for the emails and Whatsapp messages. I apologize if I haven' responded (yet!). I appreciate the good thoughts, wishes and prayers
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| Starting my run. It's always uphill both ways around here. |
On Monday, a missile made a direct hit in our city (blog post here). This missile hit a synagogue and the neighborhood shelter underneath it. 9 people were killed, many related to each other: an adult mother and daughter (the daughter, in her 40s, volunteered as an EMT. I can't imagine what it was like for members of her team to be searching for her/finding her body in the rubble. Three of her children were wounded, but not critically).
Three teenage siblings were killed in their house near the impact site. Their father, a rabbi, said at their funerals, “Our patriarch Abraham bound one son, I bound three,” he said. “I bound my son Yaakov, my daughter Avigail and my daughter Sara. Gd wanted to take these holy souls.” The family is sitting Shiva a hotel in Jerusalem as their house was destroyed....
Another family had an incoming missile siren during the funeral....
This is a good article about the people who were killed: https://www.timesofisrael.com/four-of-the-9-victims-of-iranian-missile-strike-on-beit-shemesh-named-by-authorities/
This is what a friend's living room, about 1/2 mile from the impact looked like after:
A good reminder that, although people died while in the shelter, many people were saved in the same shelter
https://www.lemaanachai.org/en/project/emergency-campaign-beit-shemesh-hit-by-rockets/
