They, Who Kill Children

It's just after Shabbat.

It's the day after Shabbat here, our third since the war began, so I have some time.

Time to write, time to reflect.

This has been quite the week. A week full of moments, you might say, each of which could be a blog post unto itself.

The moment this week when I rushed home to meet a friend, and there was a bus just where I usually park, a police officer directing traffic, people everywhere, and signs indicating someone had died with information about the funeral and period of mourning.

I parked somewhere else, and went to buy peaches, asking the storekeepers what had happened, hoping against hope that someone much beloved but old had passed away--a grandmother, say, or a well-loved but worn uncle.

It was a soldier who had died. The bus was taking people to his funeral.

He was just a kid. He lived near me--where I park every day, closer than the closest bus stop.

I burst into tears in the small supermarket, unable to contain myself. I begged them to take money from me, in case the family came to the store, needing anything. Enough that they have just gotten the worst possible news, but they should have to pay for essentials? He wouldn't take my money, but as he refused, there were tears in his eyes.

He was just a boy, my neighbor. And now he's dead. He was a soldier--a legitimate target in a war--but that doesn't make my heart hurt less.

You know who else was just a boy? Jallal, the young Palestinian child from Jenin who I became incredibly close to more than seven years ago when I was a volunteer in Haifa's Rambam hospital. He had cancer at age three, and the religious girls doing their national service wouldn't play with him since he was Muslim, with a mother fully covered, though her tired eyes were exposed.

Somehow, I became deeply attached to Jallal, even though he and his family spoke no Hebrew or English, and I, no Arabic. We would play together for hours--he was the kind of boy who, handed a puzzle, would start chucking pieces with a mischievous grin. I loved him and came back time after time, even once I left Haifa.

When I brought friends to meet him, his deaf father, with so little money to spare, came running up with a pita full of falafel and as many toppings as he could fit for my friends and me; it was all he could do, but he wanted them to know how grateful he was for the love I had for his child.

When Jallal had a bone marrow transplant, his doctor, nurse, mother and I were the only ones allowed into the room.

We sang the itsy bitsy spider approximately one million times, I even have a video (though I won't post it, for the privacy of the boy I hope is now 10, and has forgotten me and ever being sick) of him doing the motions with me.

How many Jallals are dead?

How many sweet boys and girls of Gaza will never again sing?

But there is a fundamental difference between the two sides of this conflict, one that has been carrying me through.

Because it's been a long week.

A week of figuring out what to leave in the box outside the grocery store, designated for soldiers, that will tell the troops I support them wholeheartedly, but won't melt in the sun?

A week of going to order our crib and dresser, and on the way home, having to stop on the bridge and kneel near our car, since I can't lay on my stomach these days, but rockets are being intercepted above.

A week of deliberations about whether or not it's appropriate to pay a shiva call to someone you've never met, whose loss breaks your heart.

But the difference is between us and them--the protectors of children, and their killers.

No one wants children to die.

But we are taking extraordinary measures, on our side and theirs. The bomb shelters, the camps taking kids to the north where there are no sirens, the red alert song designed to calm anxious little ones--those are the steps we take for ours. There is, quite literally, a ping-pong table in our bomb shelter, which was checked by the authorities last week. It's in good shape apparently.

And there are the steps we take for theirs--knocking on roofs to warn people to get out before a bomb falls, clarifying over and over again with a hospital that no one injured is inside before firing at the terrorists firing rockets from within, stopping targeted assassinations when the targets (terrorists) surround themselves with children to stay safe.

They're storing rockets in multiple UN schools, to protect their rockets at the expense of their children, since they know we won't take out a school without a very specific reason.

You know what we store in our schools? Art supplies. Desks. Blue and white crayons, and songs about peace.

They're using children to dig tunnels, and those children are dying, digging tunnels so they can kill our children.

There are those who treat Jallals, who want them to grow and prosper. And there are those who kill, who see children as their best defensive weapon.

And for all the money in the world, for eternal life, for anything you could offer?

I wouldn't switch sides.

Do you need me to die?

Dear world,

Do you need me to die? That sounds like a silly question. Of course, you don't need me dead. Please God (funny, coming from me), in two months, I'll bring into this world a son, and teach him to be a good, kind man. I spend my days fundraising for an organization that aims to end racism and discrimination in the land in which I live. I vote in elections. I tip right, I follow the rules of the road. Why would you want me dead?

Here's the thing: every time I read the news, there's a casualty count: X Israelis dead, several hundred Palestinians.

Therefore, they're right, and we're wrong. Because more of them are dead.

So I ask again, do you need me to die?

Do you need my blood to justify Israel's reaction to rockets falling everywhere?

It's clear that my fear is not enough. My friends sending their husbands off to fight, my husband's family sending his relatives, my leaving a robe and shoes next to my shower in case Hamas sends a rocket while I shower, that's not enough.

It's not enough that I sleep with pajamas on that would be presentable to the neighbors, or the fear that ran down my neck last week when I was driving and a siren went off and I had to run for cover.

You see, dear world, I don't run so easily these days. My belly is swollen with child, and so I would think perhaps my fear would be enough to satiate you.

Do you need me to die? How many of us would justify our response to the rockets raining down? The sweet child who lives upstairs with the curly hair--the one who's always attached to her mother in the shelter? Or the little girls who play ping pong as we wait for the booms? What about the awkward pre-teens on our floor? Do you need our whole building to die, before you'll get it?

We're not dying because we've built a society designed to help us LIVE. We've created an Iron Dome to stop rockets, and ensured that there are shelters or safe spaces nearly everywhere. We're not dying because we and our leadership have chosen life, despite the PR death would certainly bring. In the nine years since Israel pulled out of Gaza, Hamas has chosen death.

I am devastated for the people of Gaza. They, too, deserve shelters from attacks. They, too, should be able to prevent civilian casualties. It's not fair. I shouldn't value their children more than their leadership does.

And if you care about them, and that casualty number which is all important to you, you should be ANGRY.

Angry that their democratically elected leadership fire missiles from their homes, making them legitimate targets for war. Angry that they don't value their children enough to tell all parents to take children to safe spaces. Angry that they would plant missiles in a school.

But you're not angry, dear world, not at the Palestinian "leadership" of Hamas.

You're angry at us--Israel. At me. Because I'm not dead, I'm just scared.

And most of the time, I don't even have to be scared, because I have all those shelters and an amazing army fighting to defend me while not raising that casualty number, and I know that I'll probably be ok.

But I'm not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. You can trend a hashtag on Twitter with Hitler's name--you've tried before, and you won't wipe us out now, either, despite making my husband's grandfather with memories of Auschwitz run for his shelter.

And I've got news for you. If you're not as angry about what's happening in Syria as what's happening in Gaza, don't delude yourself that you're about human rights. Many more people are dying there, with no efforts to minimize casualties.

So let's call it what it is. You're paying close attention to Israel's action in Gaza with no regard to people being massacred in Syria, or Iran, or North Korea or Sudan. You're trending Hitler on Twitter, and you're publishing casualty reports as though they mean something more than mere numbers.

You hate Jews. You're an anti-semite. If you weren't, you'd care about these other issues--you'd care about people starving, and dying, you'd post about that, too. It wouldn't just be about the Jews, for the umpteenth time. There would be an uproar over what's happening in Syria.

So let's call it what it is, dear world, and then please accept my apology.

I'm sorry.

I'm not leaving.

This is my state.

And if you need my blood to show you that Israel isn't wrong or power hungry or crazy?

That's just too bad. I have work to do--ending discrimination against Israel's Ethiopian community. I have to grow my baby and make sure I eat right. I have to sit in cafes with friends, and go to movies with my husband and eat Shabbat dinner with my family. I'm a little busy.

So you'll have to forgive me, dear world. I have no intent of dying, no matter how badly you might wish otherwise.

On lychees, principles, and why I'd rather be here than anywhere else

I was going to write about lychees.

I was going to say that Friday, my husband and I went to see the hospital where (please, God) I'll give birth, make sure it looked ok.

On the way there (he had a meeting beforehand, so we met there), I walked by a fruit and vegetable store. Something that looked like this:

They're all over Israel, but somehow not near our new apartment and I've been really wanting some lychees. If you've never had a fresh lychee, they're amazing--sweet, and sticky and they taste of summer. They're my favorite and when we lived near the market I would buy them by the kilo, finishing them off in two days.

But, anyway. Yesterday. I was walking to the hospital, saw the lychees, and decided to pass--I'd get some later, I figured, and walked on.

Just as I walked into the maternity building of the hospital--I mean, as I literally crossed the threshold to wait for our tour to begin--the siren went off. I was quickly ushered into the ER which doubles as a shelter, and a few minutes later, life continued.

It's a good thing I didn't stop for lychees.

But that's not the post that I need to write. You see, I've been writing about how things are hard and scary, and there are rockets falling. People are empathizing and feeling sorry for me, and for us.

The thing is, I'm a bit of a liar. Because about 98% of the time, things aren't hard and scary. They're filled with lychees, visits with friends, delicious Israeli breakfasts, our need to figure out where to hang paintings in our new apartment, and nice cool air conditioning at home.

I got an email from an old friend in the US whose sibling is coming here on Birthright, wanting to know if it was a good idea. And here's the thing. It's not a good idea. It's a GREAT idea. Now is the PERFECT time for you to come see Israel--my Israel. Ok, ok. It's a little warm. Pack some tank tops.

You will hear sirens (unless we end this thing soon, please God), and stand in a safe room for a few minutes. Big deal. You don't live here, you'll get over it. Notice how no civilian has died on our side? We take care of our people. No need to worry.

You know what else you'll hear?

You'll hear gratitude--from waiters who are pleased that you've come to their shop when others were too scared.

You'll hear the Mediterranean lapping away at a beautiful sand beach, with matkot (sort of like ping pong without a table or scores...) paddles going non-stop.

You'll hear Israelis wish you a quiet evening when you buy something, you'll hear guards explain where to go and implore you not to run if there's a siren.

You'll hear the silence that envelops you on a Friday night, as we sing Shalom Aleichem, and you'll hear small children shriek with joy as their Dads throw them in the air, more involved than anywhere I've seen in the world.

Worried you might see an explosion?

I don't know about that. I can't make promises.

But you'll see us--a people under attack, and a people strong. YOUR people. The ones who send our husbands and our fathers and sons and brothers off to defend the land that will be here if you ever need it.

You'll see us laugh in those bomb shelters, as we trade jokes--if you see someone twice, in Hebrew you say "third time, ice cream!" and you'll hear that same exclamation in the shelter, even as we say "God forbid" in the same breath, and head off to the rest of the day.

You'll see our beautiful, resilient children, who giggle when they guess how many booms there will be, and our teenagers, as difficult and obnoxious as anywhere else in the world (I actually happen to love all the ones I know personally but we're dealing in generalities here).

You'll witness our amazing history, going to Yad Vashem and coming out to a vibrant, full Jewish state.

You'll see our state of the art hospitals, universities, famous restaurants, and did I mention how good looking Israelis are? We immigrants really bring down the average.

Forgive me, I'm an old-school Zionist.

I believe that people need a place, and this is ours--that nowhere else in the world is fostering Jewish life the way we are.

I believe that the emphasis that exists on family is unique here, and that my children will grow up stronger for it--even though it will mean Facetiming a lot, with a lot of the people I love.

I believe in a land with very little need for machismo. You don't need to prove your manhood when you spent three years in a combat unit, or are an officer in intelligence.

I believe in an army that calls Gazans ahead of time to warn them of coming attacks, even as Hamas wants them to die as human shields, sacrifices to a cause.

I believe in a state that would rather protect me and my unborn child than have the headline that something happening to me would generate. They're coming to check our shelter next week and make sure it's up to code--just to be sure.

I believe that our prime minister, who I didn't vote for, and who I don't support, wants nothing, and I mean nothing, more urgently than for all of his citizens to be safe at night. And that nothing will happen to me for publishing that line.

I believe in a country where the death of enemies is reported on the news, where it's accepted that a celebration of their deaths is a perversion of who we are and what we stand for, and where soldiers were recently sent to jail for their racism, because it doesn't represent who we are, and what is expected of them during their service.

I believe in the most moral army in the world--the IDF. I could link to ten stories about how hard we're working not to kill civilians, how people I know are at risk to make sure not one child dies, and how hard we apologize when we make a mistake.

So should your sibling come here? Should you schedule a trip? Should you cancel your upcoming trip? Odds are, they'll be safer here than anywhere else--even in the midst of this mess. The food is certainly better here (could be a blog post unto itself!), and the sand is warm. The airport is full of souvenir chocolate, balloons and flowers. Come on over--I've been busy with brunch, friends, shopping and work, but I hear the water's warm and inviting. And the lychees? They're a must.

On the value of denial, and the importance of acknowledgment

There are rockets falling all around me.

Last night, I set my alarm for 7:50 this morning (I know, it's late, and I'm spoiled. I get it. I'm also very pregnant and able to set my own hours.).

At 7:58, I was brushing my teeth when the siren went off. I was still in that liminal state--not yet dressed, no shoes on, moving slowly, when I had to hustle to find shoes I could hustle in, something to wear around my neighbors, and get my keys and myself downstairs within 90 seconds.

On the way down the stairs to the shelter, I saw that there was a bus that had stopped outside our building, and people were coming off--one was a woman with a baby in her arms running to the closest building--ours. I opened the building's door (normally locked) for her and we got into the shelter about three seconds after the boom.

Five? Ten? Some minutes later, I bade my neighbors farewell and went to finish (start?) getting ready for the day. I packed my lunch, put on make-up, got dressed, and here I am in my office, about an hour later. That's what life is like, now, with rockets falling.

But in some sense, there have been rockets falling for some time--those of bad news in absurd proportions. I'm like the world's worst broken record these last 18 months or so.

And over that time, I've learned two lessons, which apply as well to actual rockets as to metaphorical ones, sometimes called crises.

1) Denial is a great tool to help you do what you need to do.

2) Acknowledgment of what's happening by those around you is really, really important.

Last August, we got some bad news about someone I love. I literally collapsed into a pile of tears when I heard. The person only wanted cheery messages. I didn't get it--why cheery messages, when bad things were happening? Didn't she understand that BAD THINGS WERE HAPPENING?

Sad messages don't stop bad things. Neither do sad movies. They just make a person more sad, between dodging rockets, when they're trying to handle their life.

Some months ago, someone I considered a friend essentially told me that in the midst of the worst news I had ever received, I should really be acting differently--that my watching sitcoms, reading trash and trying to focus on other things were wrong.

She has no idea.

It's not like if you watch Schindler's List, and Titanic and some horror films, you can negotiate with illness. You don't get a pass out of depression if you read enough sad memoirs, and listening to sad music won't make the rockets stop falling.

You know what does help? Denial. When you're in your car driving home from work and a siren sounds (meaning: rocket, headed for you NOW) for the first time in years, and you have to weigh whether to pull over or keep going, knowing that you move slower now because of your growing belly and the risk inherent to pulling over on the highway, you can let the tears well up for about half a second. You can ask yourself how you will raise your child here, how you will teach him of things he should never learn. You have time to ask that one question. I know, since it happened, the day before yesterday.

Then you pull yourself together, and make a decision. You tell yourself things will be fine and you do what you need to.

Even with rockets falling, you have to get through a day. Offices don't close because a few times a day for a few minutes you stand in a bomb shelter, and the person at the supermarket doesn't give you a free pass because you're living a nightmare she has no idea of. There are no "park close to the store because you've been in the hospital for 12 hours" signs. The pharmacy doesn't have a separate line for the worst time in your life. There is no express lane for crisis.

So you tell yourself it will be ok, and you do what you have to do. You go into the bomb shelter, you get to work, you carry on. You deny, until you can't. I'm not a mental health professional and you have to let down and deal with your stuff at some point, but on a day to day basis, denial works really well to get you from one point to the next.

Which brings me to my next point. Acknowledgment.

I'm trying really, really, really hard, but I'm having a hard time fathoming the people who aren't saying anything about what's going on right now, where I live, in Israel, far from the territories, in a pretty much undisputed area right by Tel Aviv. On Yom Ha'atzmaut, or when Waze is sold, these folks are proud, but now? Or when Muhammad Abu Khdeir was killed, they were horrified, and now, nothing? When rockets are falling on me, and they're far away? A deafening silence.

That's true for crises, too. "I don't know what to say." "I didn't know what to say." So you say nothing. I get it. This stuff is hard. There's no "sorry rockets are falling on you" Hallmark card.

But you know what there is? Whatsapp, where a friend just sent a message saying "I'm really sorry this is happening. It must be so scary." There's Facebook, where you can post messages of solidarity and let me know that you don't think it's ok that people are trying to kill me several times a day, regardless of what you think of the rest of the situation (which, to be clear, I don't like, either).

Acknowledgment says "I see your suffering." Acknowledgment says "I get it" or "I'm trying to get it" or "I'm really sorry I don't get it, but I'm sorry you're dealing with this."

It's not complicated. But it makes a hell of a difference.

Because whether you pull over or keep driving, when you have to make it through another day that's guaranteed to be difficult, whatever--knowing that you're not alone really helps.  You have the ability to deny what's happening, so long as the people around you acknowledge it. When they don't, you can start to feel crazy.

I don't ever want to be a person who's unfazed by rockets falling. I don't want you to be, either. Someone near you is sick? You're getting a divorce? Running for shelter before you've put on deodorant? These things should throw us for a loop. They are not ok.

And you are not crazy. I get it. I feel your pain. I acknowledge you. And whatever it is, I'm sorry you're dealing with it. Your watching sitcoms, reading trashy novels or running for hours doesn't make your tragedy less.

Denial and acknowledgment. The ways I'm surviving the latest round of rockets.