The Sounds of 11 Days of Conflict

What are the sounds we hear? We frequently hear "booms" from either rockets being fired or interceptions from the Iron Dome, including some that shake the windows of our house.  Hard to think that every "boom" we hear means our fellow citizens in the South are running to their shelters, and Israeli soldiers are working even harder.....

We also hear a LOT of planes flying overhead, which is a pretty big change. Our city is reasonably-near a military base with a landing strip, so it's not like we would *never* hear fighter jets above us, but now it's very frequent. It's almost funny because, having spent every summer of my youth in our Winthrop cottage that is literally right under one of the landing patterns for Boston's airport, hearing planes has very pleasant associations for me. But I very quickly snap back to current reality.

In other "noise news": ambulances here have changed the sound of their sirens so no one thinks it is a "get to a shelter" siren. Having heard a few ambulances lately, I will say it's pretty weird hearing the new sound. While it certainly doesn't make me think, "get to a shelter" it also doesn't make me think "get out of the way quickly, there's an ambulance coming through".

Best meme I've seen lately is one describing the average Israeli school child's learning this year as

"Zoom zoom zoom

Boom boom boom

Zoom"

I'm glad that our city ("Sleepy Suburb", as you may recall) has only had one day of remote learning throughout this. Students in hard-hit areas have been on remote learning for the past 11 days....

Hoping that my next update will be about how this is all over.

The Iron Dome

First off, let me give you a chuckle: if you don't know (or remember from one of my previous posts ;)). The Iron Dome in Hebrew is called "kipat barzel". Yep, we're being protected by an "Iron Yarmulke" (which is great, since it includes a nod to Gd, the ultimate protector).

I'm trying not to pay too much attention to the news, especially since so much of the US news is concerning, frustrating or downright maddening. But I have heard enough carping about the Iron Dome being "unfair" that I want to briefly address the topic. Let's all get this straight: the Iron Dome is a DEFENSE system. If anyone has a problem with Israel having the Iron Dome, then take your thinking back a step: the Iron Dome is ONLY used when rockets are being fired at Israel. If you think it's not right for Israel to have the "advantage" of being able to protect its citizens from a terrorist group that's very covenant calls for the "obliteration" of Israel, then you can do your best to convince Hamas to stop firing rockets. Then Israel stops using the Iron Dome. Simple, really. Although too bad the "partner" you're trying to convince to stop sending over rockets feels that "so-called peaceful solutions" and are in contradiction to the principles they hold dear and that "there is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad...." 

Click here to read a great editorial by David Harris, CEO of the AJC (American Jewish Congress) responding to Trevor Noah's recent monologue (definitely read if you're looking for some good talking points).

And, finally, a few words from Golda Meir to finish this post:

Pre-Shavuot Update

 Thankfully, things are still calm where we are. Hearing about a lot of people whose sons are in the Army reserves and have either been called up or they are expecting them to be called up at any time.....Penina told me about her friend whose brother got called up and his wife is expecting their first baby any time (she moved in with her husband's family).  Jillian in Tel Aviv is sleeping with a "go bag" next to her bed, as she's had to run to the shelter a number of times at night.....Hard times.....

We're going into the holiday of Shavuot, to celebrate receiving the Torah. b''eH we will have a holiday that ushers in a new era.

With thanks to everyone for your messages of love and support,

Chag Sameach

Pre-Shabbat Update

The love and concern from family and friends is very heartwarming--thank you all. We are feeling the love as we all pray for this to be over very soon and a new era of peace ushered in.

B''H, we have had no more sirens here since Monday (please Gd it should stay that way). Cousin Jillian in Tel Aviv has not been so fortunate, including spending several parts of her birthday night in her dorm's bomb shelter ;( (Most liked post in quite a while on the "Secret Tel Aviv" Facebook group translates as "In light the current situation, which shelter has the most handsome people in it?").

After working remotely Monday-Wednesday (and after much thought and consultation with others about the advisability of going, including people who also work in the Old City and have also been working remotely for the past few days), I went back to in-person work yesterda. I took a chance and drove to Zion Gate's (pretty small) public parking and prayed for a spot which, hooray, I easily got.  As soon as I got out of the car, I heard a bar mitzvah happening right nearby. Aside from being incredibly uplifting to see, it felt like a little hello from my father-in-law Ed, a''h, who absolutely LOVED seeing the Old City bar mitzvahs, with the bar mitzvah boy being escorted under a chuppah, with drumming and dancing. 

The Old City was pretty quiet (a number of stores and restaurants weren't open, I assume because so few people were around), but it was great to be back in-person with my students. One told me how thankful his mother was that I was there so he didn't need to leave the building for medical care (we had a laugh as I told him that I was glad of that, but that MY mother wasn't so happy about it. And props to all mothers-, grandmothers and others on this list who are being strong about the situation).

Penina is in LA, visiting all the family there on an (almost) high school graduation trip. She gets her wish to stay another week, although it has little/nothing to do with the security situation (she started a full-court press to be allowed to stay extra pretty much the moment she landed, which was days before things heated up here)

We're about to go into Shabbos. Wishing everyone only peace!

1.5 Minutes

 Think of what you can accomplish in 1.5 minutes. You can make your bed. Or check your email. Wash a few dishes. Respond to that text you've been meaning to. And, if you live where we live, you can use that time to get into your nearest safe room or bomb shelter when an "incoming-rocket" siren goes off. I have to say that I find 1.5 minutes a pretty comforting thing; in Sderot (which we visited on a tour on Independence Day just a few weeks ago), you have 10 seconds, which is why their town is peppered with bomb shelters and I'm hard-pressed to say where (if?!) there are any in our city. Then again, our city is pretty new (around 20 years old) and since the 1990's it's been a law that all newly-constructed homes and apartments have a mamad safe room in them. 

Ilana's room is in our mamad. And half of our family was in there on Monday a few seconds after a siren went off. I was driving to pick up Ilana, who volunteers weekly at a thrift store. I was driving up a main street in our town when I heard the first "gearing up" tone of the siren and I could see people on the sidewalk just stopping and I could almost see them thinking exactly what I was thinking: "A siren?! In little sleepy suburb? No way!". I'm pretty sure I went through all of Kubler-Ross's stages of grieving in about 2 seconds, because after the "denial" of the my first thought, I pretty quickly went through anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance; it was a whirlwind, I tell you. I gunned the car to get to the community center where she was (having spent three years in ulpan there, I also knew where the safe rooms are AND knew I could get there in less than a minute and a half. And a big thank you to my ulpan teachers who taught me two things I used on Monday: 1) a siren (azaka) that goes up-and-down in tone is the one that tells you to get inside quickly (tzefira, a sound that stays steady, is used for the country-halting, stand-at-attention minutes on Memorial Day) and 2) that we, indeed, have 1.5 minutes to get to a safe place, a fact that popped into my head effortlessly when the siren went off.

I've been working remotely since Monday, although it wasn't a fear of rockets or violence that kept me from seeing patients in-person on Monday, it was the fear of sitting in multi-hour traffic with the tons of people going into Jerusalem to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (noting the day of the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967). Sadly, that day ended with sirens around the country and there have been over 1000 rockets fired at Israel since then.

Everyone has a story: Cousin Jillian spent the middle of her birthday night in the bomb shelter in her dorm.....Shira and her friend were sitting outside in downtown Jerusalem when the first siren went off. Shira told of an older Israeli woman waving her arms and yelling to them about "hommus" (so they thought). They couldn't understand WHY the lady was getting so worked up about hommus until another brief moment passed and they realized she was yelling "HAMAS" and urging them to get inside. 

The Iron Dome (fun fact: in Hebrew, it's called kipat barzel--the "Iron Kippah", which hopefully gives you a chuckle, as it did for me) works pretty darn well, with a high interception rate but it comes at quite the price: about $80,000 a pop. Given the beating the economy has taken from Covid (and let's not mention the four elections we've had in the past two years that blew through $4 billion [and that's dollars, not shekels]), the frequent boom-boom we've been hearing is disturbing on many fronts.

Schools were on remote-learning nationwide today (sort of the Israeli version of a snow day, I guess), but tomorrow those in safe areas (like us, b''eH) will be back to normal. 

I've been very touched by the number of friends and family contacting us to ask if we're safe (best "blast from the past" was when my babysitter reached out. Not like the babysitter I paid to watch my kids, seriously the one who watched me a gazillion years ago! [We ran in many of the same circles in Boston and catch up every few years, so it's not like we hadn't spoken since I was a kid! PS: Big shout-out to Janet Z!). 

As of now, all is well and please Gd will stay that way. Please daven for peace. 

What's Going on Here

I've been meaning to write this for the past two weeks, since Israel repealed the mandate making outdoor mask-wearing a law exactly a year after it was enacted. "Dropping Masks Outdoors, Jubilant Israelis Adjust to New COVID Normalcy" blared one headline (not incorrectly, I might add: one article I read found that credit card usage soared the first "mask-less" day, as people went back to restaurants. We waited a bit, but last Sunday finally went out for the first time since September. It was great to be back out. And even better that someone else did the dishes).

But I procrastinated and then Lag B'Omer happened on Thursday and, given the number of you kind folks reaching out to make sure we're okay, I figured it was good to finally sit down and write this up. First off, we're all fine. None of us were in Meron when the disaster happened (definitely not my scene: giant crowd, poor air quality due to bonfires, big traffic jams on small roads and the pandemic still around [although numbers here super low. But let's see what happens in two weeks, now that we've had not only Lag B'Omer but also additional mass support gatherings/funerals....]). We know a number of people who were there (sadly, five people from our city were among the people killed, and Saturday night brought a funeral at 10:30 pm and one at 11:30 pm). A large percentage of my students were there, and b''H they all made it home safely, albeit some with more psychological impact than others. I think a lot of the gap year students are really struggling with the fact that one of "their own" died: its not just that someone their age died, they're trying to get their heads around, "he was a kid from New Jersey and came here for a gap year (just like me). He went to Meron to have an "only-in-Israel" experience (just like me). His school took him (just like mine did). And only one of us came back alive...." May the memory of Nachman Daniel ben Aryeh Tzvi be for a blessing, along with those of the 44 others who died.

It is a beautiful thing to see how Israel comes together during tragedy, although definitely sad that this is a place with a whole lot of expertise in that department. The news on Friday showed long lines of (generally secular) Tel Avivians waiting in the midday 96 degree sun to donate blood for their (generally religious) brothers and sisters who were in Meron. A blood drive in our neighborhood today (that had been scheduled long ago) sent out an update almost as soon as they opened telling people not to come, that they quickly filled all available slots for today. The company I work for is offering free EMDR emergency sessions, and in-person sessions are being given by an organization my family volunteers for a lot (private message me if you need either link).  Sigh.

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On a positive note, I would like to share that my nephew Josh and his wife Christine welcomed baby Leah Tian two days ago!

And Erik (Eliyahu Refael ben Tzirel Tova) is being discharged from the rehab hospital any day! Truly a miracle.

Free(ish)!

 Yes, indeed, things feel gloriously, wonderfully free and open here. After last year, when we were all at home (and only at home) during Pesach (and every other holiday, actually, since last Purim), this year felt like a whole new world: while there are still restrictions on the number of people that can be indoors together/at shul, there was no lockdown (as the fear-mongers were spreading panic about online) and few-if-any restrictions otherwise. 90% of people age 50+ are vaccinated or immune (87% and 3% respectively) and of those hospitalized with Covid, almost 75% are unvaccinated (from the Covid-19 Whatsapp group. PM me if you want the link). Here's an interesting article from the NYT about what Easter was like here, in case you'd like the view of a different Quarter of the Old City.  

Our delightful street minyan that met right outside our house (instant women's section: open the office window! It was amazing) met for the last time on Shabbos and although it's great that people can go back to daven at their regular shuls now, I'm still sad that I can't just open the window and join in. Now I'll have to find real shoes and walk up 8 flights of stairs, etc etc

I hope that everyone reading in the US who has not been able to get vaccinated will have the opportunity soon. Here, it's been so long that everyone has had the opportunity to get vaccinated that they have closed the trailer parked outside our health fund office designed solely to give Covid vaccines in, and hung a little sign on the door telling people to make an appointment at the regular nurse's clinic. A friend told me about a friend of hers who went for a vaccine yesterday and the secretary chided her with, "FINALLY! What took you so long?!"

Our Pesach fun included watching Percy's brother overnight and then, just to increase the lunacy, watching another neighborhood Maltese puppy. As first one and then the other left, our small living room suddenly felt much larger (like in the old story: I guess all we had to do was take away the cow, the goat, the sheep and two other dogs and it feels almost-spacious in here!):

The stores are sloooowly being restocked after Passover

horseradish, anyone? Because that's about all that's here: a top shelf full of  chrein!

However, all is forgive when you can go to the bakery next door and find this:

Penina and Ilana went back to school two days ago after Pesach break ended and so far so good. Given the numbers of infections, I kind of can't imagine that schools will be closed again, but I'm an optimist and Ilana and her classmates are still too young to get vaccinated, so I guess we'll see.....

In other family news, Percy the Puppy turned 1, Ilana is turning 15 tomorrow and my nephew Benjamin and his wife Natalie welcomed a baby boy yesterday!