We don’t know when the Iranian missiles will come, let alone the ones from Hizbullah up north, but we expect it sometime in the next few days. My own humble guess is tonight, late, because it’s Shabbat. They love to attack during a holiday, when a large portion of Israel won’t be accessing their phones (though it’s pikuach nefesh—saving a soul/life—to keep your phone on in these circumstances, to receive the alert). They love to take a day of joy and turn it into a day of mourning.
We will never think of the holiday Simchat Torah–which translates to ‘Joy of the Torah’–without thinking of October 7, 2023. Never again in all our lives will that celebration be completely about celebrating. It was also Shabbat that day. In Jerusalem, we had seven sirens. Everyone stayed inside for days, for weeks, learning more, the horror building as every story was told. We are still hearing their stories. There is always another. Some are horrifying. Some are so inspiring that they give me hope for trusting people are mostly good, which I did used to think. I’m not sure anymore. Not after all these months of hatred and war.
And the majority of the hatred didn’t come from our explicit enemies we’re fighting. Most of the hatred, maybe 95%, came from people who aren’t at risk at all, who know a little about a very complex issue I can’t claim to understand completely after living here nearly 11 years. They learn a little from the internet, they hear a few people with experience, and they think they understand. Listen, friends: if you think you understand this conflict in full, that’s an obvious sign you do not. I don’t understand it. I don’t know a single person who truly does. Not our prime minister, not our enemies, not me, and not you. We all see only parts. We all understand only parts.
But I understand enough to identify the ignorance of people I used to trust and others I used to support, not knowing they’d turn on a dime to this ugly, hateful aggression that helps no people, unless it helps them feel better about themselves. I see all those eager protesters glorifying in their given license to hate Israelis, to hate Jews (~90% of whom are Zionists), who define the word Zionism as a slur, taking our words from us and twisting them, steamrolling us with their semantic games that conveniently condemn every single Israeli without actually knowing us or what we think or what we stand for. We do not all think the same. You cannot consider us all the same and be accurate. You cannot hate us all and keep the high ground.
It’s wonderful, the way they can now make sweeping accusations, how they are allowed to be cruel and bigoted and call it moral and good to do so. It’s the same rationalization people have made for thousands of years of hatred against us. Over and over. It’s so good to be allowed, finally, to point a finger at an entire group of people, at an entire nation of 9 million citizens and state that they are corrupt and therefore exempt from safety or the right to defend their own lives and their children’s lives. I’ve seen it so many times the past ten months that it no longer shocks me as it did at first. I am used to this hatred. I understand it intimately now, better than I understand the war.
And now the singing has started, which blasts from I don’t know where about 50 minutes before Shabbat starts. Soon the siren will call, warning us Shabbat is 40 minutes away. It’s different from the sirens we might hear later tonight, or in the oncoming days. Those are cycling blasts, signaling us about missiles and suicide drones. The one about to call in the next few minutes is a sustained blast, which tells us there is no attack, and there is another purpose for the siren. Practice. Memorial. Reminders.
Our ancestors used to be told by three shofar blasts: come in from the fields, then close up the shops, then light the candles. These air raid sirens are our modern shofars. I live in a land of tradition, that my genetic ancestors left at the time the second temple fell (so says my matrilineal DNA). Were they forced out? Did they elect to leave? Were they enslaved? I don’t have any idea. I know they were here. I know I am here in their place. In my own place.
And I am waiting for the attack. I have a flashlight. I have two week-long yartzeit candles that last seven days each, in case we lose electricity. I have enough food to last a few weeks, including dog food. I have a solar-powered phone charger. I have chocolate. I have enough water for a few days, in case the water shuts off. I have a decently clean apartment, if you don’t look in my bedroom. I have art supplies: oil pastels and colored pencils and kneaded rubber erasers. I have words in my mind. What am I to do with these thoughts, if not write them down? In poetry. In essay form. In fiction. I will tuck you into paragraphs and stanzas, this uncertainty and this fear and this blasé insistence that I am safe as I can be and all will be fine. I don’t actually know if things will be fine.
There is the siren, that long call. We are 40 minutes from Shabbat now. Come in from the fields.
Sigma is snoring at the foot of my bed. Zephyr is sleeping in a cubby hole at the bottom of my bookcase, which I leave empty because he loves napping there. We will stay as safe as we can.
What I understand more than anything else, more than the war, more than the bigotry and gleeful hatred I’ve seen over and over the last many months…what I understand better than all of that is that this is worth it.
If we have to suffer this attack and many more because Haniyeh is dead, and Shukr is dead, that makes this a good thing, ultimately. We can pay this price. Children deserve to know they are safe. This is how we make them safe. The ones that aren’t already gone. So many people are gone. So many stolen. This price is so high. None of you outside Israel can tell us whether it’s worth paying. We make that choice ourselves.
We make choices every day. Light these candles. Say this prayer. Protect these people.
Say a prayer for us, if you want. Protect the people you love. We can say we are doing the same. We are waiting to understand the price. We will find out soon.
