“Shakked was really scared,” my
son said, when asked how he and his young family had managed during the rocket
attacks on Shabbos and Saturday night.
That was more than it would be
usual for my quiet son to volunteer. Which is how I knew that what he’d written
on the family Whatsapp group was an understatement. But since I am a writer and
my mind runs wild, I could picture how it was that night, in a small room in Southern
Israel. Two young parents, a sleepy three-year-old, and an exhausted one-year-old,
with sirens and explosions going off all night long, one siren interrupting the
next, explosions upon explosions, some farther away, some much too close,
making the people in the room, jump. I imagined my granddaughter crying--perhaps
screaming in fear--and her parents trying so hard to comfort her while being
helpless to reassure her in any real way, or to do anything about the endless
sirens and explosions: to do anything to stop the night.
My mind kept going back to that
picture though they were safe now, the next day, having gone to stay with my
daughter-in-law’s family in the center of the country, until things were calmer.
That bothered me, too. What
kind of life is it really, if you have to leave your home to get a break from
danger? What kind of home sweet home can you really have when living there puts
you and your children in mortal danger? And here were my brave children,
building a home in Netivot, in the Gaza Envelope. How should I feel about that?
Proud, of course, even as my
mind wrestled with competing narratives: Is it right to raise children in a
dangerous part of Israel? Is it right to build a home in a place that suffers
from near constant rocket attacks, sirens, and Molotov balloons? Is it right to
live in a place where kindergartens suffer direct hits and oncology wards are a
target?
 |
| This kindergarten in Sderot suffered a direct rocket hit on Shabbat. The writing on the blackboard says: "My Eretz Israel." |
What happens, on the other
hand, if they leave? If many leave? Will we lose our hold on the land? Which
begs the question: shouldn’t more of us move south to strengthen the area, and
live under fire, too?
I called my mother in
Pittsburgh. I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t need to. She has long wrestled with
the same concerns. This is how she felt when I moved to Gilo, and she couldn’t
figure out if it was over the Green Line. It's how she felt when I moved to
Gush Etzion, which is indisputably over the Green Line. She worried that it was
dangerous. That I and my children were in danger.
And yet she came to visit us
many times, staying in our home or nearby. Her friends worried about her. During the Second Intifada, when
they voiced their concerns on the eve of yet another one of her trips, this
time for my daughter’s wedding, Mom dismissed their worries with a wave of the
hand, saying, “What’s the difference if a 75-year-old-woman blows up?”
Just the idea of this makes me
laugh. My mom is such a Litvak, possessed of such a dry sensibility and humor. She
deals with things by making light of them, by minimizing their impact. It’s not
that she’s unaware of the danger. It’s that she sees the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture for her
was being there for a granddaughter’s wedding.
The bigger picture for me is
the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel. I believe in this mitzvah with all of my heart and soul.
And if someone said to me: “we need you to move to the South” I would totally
go there, in spite of the missiles, the need to be near a shelter at all times,
heart racing whenever there is a siren, living to the accompaniment of
explosions, lack of sleep, interrupted sleep, interrupted business, interrupted
education, interrupted showers, interrupted love,
for crying out loud—yes. I would do it.
My daughter in-law said to me, “Every
place here in Israel has its own risks. We choose to live here for many other
reasons and we shouldn't let anyone stop us from doing that.”
This is also true. My friend
Ari was murdered for being Jewish while talking on his phone, next to our local
supermarket. And his family didn’t leave. None of us did. Efrat is a beautiful
place, with great neighbors and every convenience. We doubled down. Our
community had more children and named them after Ari. Ari’s daughter got
married.
You can’t extinguish us. Not
with your sirens, your rockets, your knives, balloons, petrol bombs, stones, kidnappings,
decapitations, rapes, terror tunnels, and car-rammings. Not in Auschwitz with gas. And certainly not
in Israel, no matter what you do.
We won’t go. And we will keep
getting married and having children. Our children will have children, too.
Couples, on the other hand, should not be getting married in bomb shelters, but in beautifully appointed wedding halls. My granddaughter, not yet four, should not be losing sleep, afraid in a bomb shelter to the tune of sirens and explosions. She should not have to take shelter, to cower and fear. It is not 1948.
Scout leaders should lead. Children should not have to, with their own bodies, shield other children
But mistakes have been made. There
was the Gaza Disengagement, perpetuated against the will of the people, by a former hero
of the right, under suspicious circumstances. A deed not so different from an earlier one, hailing back to 1967: What Ariel Sharon did was not so
different from what Moshe Dayan did.
Back in 1967, Moshe Dayan gave away the
Temple Mount. We’d just wrested it from the enemy after centuries of longing.
No one gave Dayan permission to do that. He just did it. And we are left to
deal with the aftermath.
Many years later, it was Ariel Sharon, expelling thousands of his own people from Gaza, after promising he would not
do so. Sharon’s actions have brought us here, to a small room in Netivot where my
granddaughter can’t be lulled to sleep with a lullaby of sirens and explosions.
Disengagement means there is no
easy solution. No matter the good intent we sense in the naming of this latest military
operation, there will be no “enduring silence” in the South. Not as long as we
continue this pattern of letting Hamas build up its arsenal, shoot up the
South, and then agree to a ceasefire after one or two operatives are killed and a bunch of empty buildings are taken out.
Can we go on like this for
endless years?
The answer is yes. We can, and
if we must, we will. In spite of feeling exhausted and blue at this endless
battle.
Because that is what it is to
be a Jew. To be an Israeli.
It’s why we have stiff necks. And
we also hope. We hope that if we do not know what to do about this state of
affairs in the South, someone else will, and if not, we still hope that God
will preserve us.
To live in this country one has
to have hope. And this is what the children of the South will be hearing
tonight, on the occasion of Israel’s 71st birthday. They’ll be hearing
the sound of hope, sung louder than ever before. It is a sound that is louder
than sirens or explosions or even a little girl’s fear. They will hear no
voices faltering, as our anthem is sung, Hatikva.
It’s a song of hope, of two
thousand years and counting. And this is the lesson our children are learning tonight.
That to be alive and in Israel
is to hope.