Tag: Israel Gaza War 2023
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Mirrored.
If you keep watchful enough you’ll see it. The people… have become posters. Glazed, 2d, the way a memory alters the view; an extra height to that building, a wider hall than it was. An embrace that was just a hug. The realness slips away… like what death does… it distorts. Grief is the journey…
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Horse pills
“Together we’ll win” (יחד ננצח) is lovely wartime morale propaganda but we’re so far from together and the fact is getting more true and more painful and I have my own 2-part prescription for the country after we volunteered on a horse farm today for a woman whose been managing on her own since Oct…
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Strawberries
Every week you miss the strawberries; the strawberry guy’s truck is still there by the time you haphazardly show up after two, but there’s only apples, small melons, maybe some citrus left. Oh well next time, you smile at your teen who you’ve once again asked/requested/implored to jump out the car to inquire about longshot…
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100 days into hell
It’s an ugly time. A time of nightmares coming true, a time of mourning and imagining and planning for the worst, constantly. A time when things you couldn’t bring yourself to say out loud a few months ago are now regular topics. I’ve learned a lot about us. I’ve learned that the ugliest things are…
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Uncomfortable
Before the ceasefire, I had a thing that on days I had to leave my town for the merkaz, I’d wear comfortable shoes. You know… just in case. That faded as the explosions quieted, the sirens halted, the Hostage Release Reality Show stole our attention. Today was a day I should have worn comfortable shoes,…
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Drowning in despair
Last week was the lowest. Last week was when one conserved mental energy, as one didn’t have to use their morbid imagination to consider what the 30s were like. Instead, one’s mental energy was called up to battle the despair that has descended to darken the world I grew up in. When the blood dried,…
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How are you?
Floating. Don’t you feel that way too? Just giving in to the atmosphere, letting the butterfly effect nudge you, push you on your lower back. A gentle shove, a passive direction. You didn’t climb something to get there, you stood, passively, you wake, passively, you forgot to eat, passively, you forget the day of the…
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Where is…
Ventured into Tel Aviv today. Kaplan has had quite a year. These days, it’s displaying something far more horrific and tragic… a walking nightmare, experienced by 220, shared by 9,000,000: At least here, in Israel, no one ruthlessly tears down posters of the Kidnapped, the Held, the Captive. Kaplan – the 2023 temporary home for…
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Our prayer.
There’s something about our prayer in Judaism – it’s timeless. That’s out of necessity, out of an evergreen survival mode; but some periods of survival are more… necessity than others. I think that’s what fueled the magnet that drew me, compelled me, to shul this past shabbat. I had to be among those communal words,…
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The privilege to choose where you’re murdered for being a Jew
A reaction from a lot of Americans (including the State Department, apparently): “You can always come here.” I do feel guilt and appreciation around this, rooted in the well-meaningness and love of my friends and family; I understand how irresponsible? selfish? it might seem: “You have American passports. You can always come on a plane…
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Ok, let’s get technical
To my friends and family outside, let’s get technical. It’s Saturday morning, and your plan was to sleep till, oh, 9am. Take it easy, get everyone dressed for shul, go get your Simchat Torah aliya. But instead, you wake up to an absolutely awful 80s video game sound, obnoxiously loud, and wonder if your husband…
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Dispatch after 72 hours into whatever comes next
If there’s a teudat zehut (ID card) in your pocket, it’s like this: whether you were born here or moved here a year ago, your life is intertwined with whatever is happening outside your own mind and body. Whether you asked for it or not, whether you agree with or not, whether you fully comprehend…