From destruction to rebith

"On a day of destruction we're working on restoration"

ביום חורבן עסקנו בתקומה

With these words today's volunteer group leader bid us farewell after a morning's work helping a farmer hard hit by the Hamas assault on Israel in October 2023. To this day there are still some huge pieces of Hamas rockets lying in the yard, remnants of the massive Hamas onslaught which caused such terrible damage to this large farm which grows so many vital staples. Since the war began about 60% of the farm work is done by volunteers.

Today was 17th Tammuz, a fast day of mourning for the destruction of ancient Jerusalem first by Babylon in 586 BCE and then again by Rome in 70 CE.

Symbolically the group I joined today was mostly coming from Jerusalem, the modern thriving rebuilt city representing the return of so many Jews from centuries of exile.

It's not easy to work in agriculture on a fast day, not only for the volunteers, but for the farmer and his family who as traditionally observant Jews were also fasting. We focused on indoor packing and sorting work, out of the searing summer sun.

Almost everywhere I volunteer I meet people from so many different places and backgrounds, there is no one rubric to define the people that go out to help on Israel's farm, no one defining characteristic other than a deep desire to help and a love of Israel.

Today I sorted and packed chili peppers, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers with:

a retired early reading specialist teacher from Jerusalem

a couple of kibbutznikim from a Dead Sea area kibbutz

a retired Jerusalem agronomist who still lectures at Israel's top universities

a nurse from Ashdod

a social worker and a retired post office worker

an elderly gentleman born and bred in Netanya who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of Israeli archaeological sites

a professor of mathematics born and raised in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) who emigrated to Chicago after the fall of the USSR and regularly visits Israel to volunteer in agriculture

a tour guide from Abu Ghosh

a bus driver from Jerusalem

a receptionist from a Jerusalem area clinic

a young father working in hi tech and his adolescent son

a couple of teachers and a retire nursery school aide

Secular, religious, traditional, left, centre and right. Strangers brought together in common cause to do good.

We have a tradition that one of the causes of the fall of the Second Temple period Jewish kingdom to Rome was due to baseless hatred, internal Jewish feuds and rivalries which weakened the society and made it vulnerable.

Jewish culture centres around discussion and debate, the Talmud is full of people disagreeing with each other, creative thought is ingrained, two Jews three opinions. The question is how we understand this cultural inheritance, do we argue to understand each other or do we disagree on principle and shut ourselves off from hearing people who think differently. Have we learnt the lessons of the disasterous societal divisions that paved the way for the calamity that befell us at the hand of Titus' Rome?

In modern times a tradition has developed focusing on the three weeks of mourning between the fast of 17th Tammuz and the fast of 9th Av to reflect inwards, to encourage dialogue between different communities and ideas, to pay more attention to those we disagree with, to try to really hear.

Over hours of chili peppers and cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages we talked and got to know one another. It's work that's conducive to conversation, groups of us gathered around long tables facing each other, cooperating on sorting the produce, comparing what was good and what needed to be discarded, organising the packing crates, the stronger insisting that they would do any heavy lifting, the more eagle eyed doing quality control to ensure we were truly helping the farm get the job done to the highest level.

In the year and a half I've been out on farms almost every week with so many volunteers I've seen this dynamic repeat itself so often. It isn't guaranteed. Sometimes you're in a big open field where the work is more individual, less conducive to conversation, in more difficult conditions. But more often than not the task at hand requires team work, helping each other learn a skill, divisions of labour that play to a diverse skill set of the more fit and the less fit, the taller and the shorter, the more observant and the less so.

And that builds communication and dialogue and ice that by mid-morning break down has been thoroughly broken. Strangers looking out for each other, that someone shouldn't lift a heavy crate alone, to watch out for sharp thorns or a particularly rocky field, to make sure to keep drinking lots of water in the heat of the greenhouse or sun scorched field.

By the end of the workday we part as old friends, we who were strangers to one another as we boarded the bus at the break of dawn that very same day.

It is the antithesis of sinat hinam, baseless hatred, the tragedy which led to the Roman destruction of ancient Judea and Jerusalem.

On this 17th Tammuz we remembered the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the horrors that befell our people, but we also actively did something construction to bring about the redemption and renaissance of our people from our painful history and present.

ביום חורבן עסקנו בתקומה

Tammuz 17th

 These days if you are an Israeli or a Jew you have it thrust in your face many times a day from ignorant and hateful people around the world that Jews "have no connection to the Middle East", that our people are colonisers, interlopers, thieves and charlatans.

As a Jew who prays three times a day facing Jerusalem and the ruins of its ancient Jewish Temple, who's annual calendar revolves around the rainy cycle of the Land of Israel an who to this day mourns the destruction of our homeland thousands of years ago, this canard is nothing short of ridiculous, a topsy turvy mirror universe accusation that denies the very meaning of Jewish ethnic, cultural and religious identity through the ages.

Today for example was the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and centuries later, again, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Both sieges were two of the most cataclysmic tragedies to befall the Jewish people, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah (Judea), the killing of many and the exile of much of the Jewish people from our ancestral homeland, first to the Babylonian empire and Egypt, later also to Rome and elsewhere in Europe, the start of many centuries of constant persecution, pogroms, expulsions, spurious blood libels and scapegoating and worst of all the Holocaust.

Millenia later the fast of the 17th Tammuz marks the start of a Jewish period of mourning leading up to the 9th of Av, the date on which the ancient Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, in 586 BCE by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnetzer and in 70 CE by the Romans under Titus. The assault on the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was an attack on Jewish sovereignty and civilisation, not an accident of the siege of Jerusalem, but a prime target in the attempt of first Babylon and later Rome, to subjugate the Jews, humiliate them and punish them for challenging the might of the region's great empires.

That's right, here and now in the 21st century Jews in Israel and around the world are fasting and mourning the destruction of our ancient capital Jerusalem and its sacred Temple. It is flesh of our flesh, a wound that still bleeds as down the ages the terrible consequences of that terrible day continued to ripple down our agonising history.

On 9th of Av we will sit on the floor as a sign of mourning and read the painfully graphic descriptions in the biblical book of Lamentations, Eikhah, detailing the suffering of our people during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. We read Lamentations in its original Hebrew, the language clear and accessible to speakers of modern Hebrew today. The descriptions are not for the faint of heart, our ancestors agony our agony.

So painful is that memory that even in modern Jerusalem, today rebuilt and developed on a scale our biblical ancestors could not have imagined, we still feel those scars from the assaults by Babylon and Rome, not only as an almost genetic memory but physically in the heart of our ancient capital, where you can still see blackened, singed, huge blocks of stone where they fell from the ancient walls during the Roman sacking of the city two millennia ago.

It feels ridiculous to have to say these things which are so obvious, such a core part of the culture I grew up with, my parents grew up with, my grandparents grew up with, facts ingrained in our ancient Hebrew prayers, our calendar and our very consciousness. An unbroken chain that binds each generation to the one before in common memory.

And yet today I'm finding I have to explain this over and over and over, even to people who I once thought of as friends, who question why my country, my people, have any right to exist.

Yet another reason to fast and mourn this year.

Thousands of Israelis lost their homes to Iranian missiles but thousands more Israelis have mobilised to clear the rubble, fix smashed windows, supply essentials to those who lost everything, furnish temporary accommodations and cook meals for anyone who needs.

Almost a week after the ceasefire and you could get whiplash from the speed with which Israelis have gone back to their regular routines. Streets are clogged with traffic, beaches are crowded (despite the arrival of seasonal jellyfish in many places), kids finally had their end of year graduations, summer camps are gearing up for the end of the school year, plays and shows are back on at theatres and clubs and people are back to holding hostage vigils in public places that are once again crowded.

And here and there as you drive through certain Israeli cities you suddenly come across a damaged street or building, some hoardings with a bombed out building peaking out, some historic old buildings with shattered tile roofs or broken windows, repair work ongoing.

The Weizmann Institute lost its cancer research building to an Iranian missile but the campus has reopened and some of the world's most dedicated scientists and grad students are back to working on making life saving breakthroughs.

The war against Hamas continues. Down in fields and greenhouses near the border you can still hear it, the pursuit of gunmen who helped orchestrate the atrocities of October 7, the dismantling of yet more attack tunnels, weapons caches and booby trapped buildings. Despite the weakening of Hamas the work remains dangerous. In the last week alone more soldiers have fallen in the ongoing fight for Israel's safety. We are acutely aware of the price of freedom and security.

Tomorrow will be a better day

In the scheme of things while our country is at war this is a very minor issue, but for my daughter who has been passionate about Gilbert and Sullivan her whole life this is huge. She's probably one of the greatest G&S experts in Israel, she knows all their productions, the stories of the actors and singers who first performed them, the historical background to when and how they were staged, every detail about the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

She's always dreamt of being part of full production of G&S and this year she finally had the chance, singing in the chorus in one of her favourites, "Yeoman of the Guard". I hear her practicing each day, voice exercises, snippets of songs, accompanying herself on her guitar or piano, devoting

hours of her spare time to getting it just right. She's been so excited (and nervous) about opening night this week, glowing with enthusiasm.

It was already a wartime project, something to focus on away from the news and concern for all her friends currently serving in the military.

Then came this new war. What should have been a dress rehearsal became a remote zoom rehearsal and of course no one knows when they will be able to perform. Opening night should have been tonight.

It feels tone deaf to say any of this right now. People have lost their lives, their homes, been stranded overseas, been stuck for hours in shelters, received yet another emergency call up to the army leaving their families and lives on hold for who knows how long.

And this is sadly a very necessary existential war against a foe who has pledged time and time again to wipe out Israel. When someone keeps saying they want you destroyed and embarks on a programme to develop nuclear weapons and an extensive array of missiles you take that threat very seriously.

But that doesn't change the pang every parent feels at watching our kids' lives turned upside down yet again. These are the kids who's schooling, graduations, teen social lives and so much more were messed up by covid pandemic chaos. These are kids who've lived through so many wars, rockets, terrorism and then October 7th and the ensuing war. So much loss and trauma, so many interrupted and cancelled plans, so many times "normal" life has had to be put on hold.

Things that seem trivial or like frivolities, but really are the little (and often big) things life is made of, the chance to be in a play, an overseas trip, camping with friends, an internship, summer camps, going to see a show or a concert. Simply going out for a run or a bike ride without having to plan the route according to wear one can take cover. Playing in the park without first figuring out if it will be close enough to shelter in case of an air raid siren.

These ordinary and special things, experiences kids should have, but which get cancelled, postponed or adapted. And that last is the key. Because our kids haven't given up, they still plan and dream, they have their eyes on the future. They have learnt to adapt, to be all the more creative, to be resilient. With my own kids, but also when I'm out volunteering or in the park or wherever I meet youngsters so full of resolve, with a sense of purpose and a determination that they will create a better world and a brighter future, they will protect their country and care for those who need caring for. But they will also have fun and enjoy life and find ways to be happy in the now, however difficult that may seem.

So my daughter keeps rehearsing, practices her parts, does her voice exercises. She's going to do this, whether it's next week or next month, the show must go on and she's so looking forward.

Maybe it's hard for people outside of Israel to understand, but this is not some kind of baseless "hatred" between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, most Israelis feel an affinity and great sympathy with the Iranian people who have suffered under the brutal rule of the radical Islamist regime since Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution in brought him to power in 1979. Prior to that revolution Israel and Iran enjoyed warm friendly relations. Khomeini's new regime broke off relations with Israel and designated Israel an enemy.

The campaign against Israel is part of the ideology of Khomeini and his followers, a twisted regime built on his specific interpretation of a specific stream within the Twelver Shiism sect of Islam.

Khomeini despite being a Shii was influenced by the Sunni Egyptian Jihadi theologian Sayid Qutb, one of the leading ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Qutb's works inspired his ideas on revolutionary Islam, but also anti-Semitism (Qutb was virulently anti-Western, but also anti-Jewish and obsessed with various conspiracy theories about the Jews).

Both the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran and Hamas in Gaza are offshoots of Qutb's ideas and share a common root, despite Hamas being Sunni and Khomeini being Shii.

Historically there were streams within Shii Islam for whom concepts of purity and impurity were fundamental, and at various times in the history of both Iran and Shii areas of Yemen, there were Islamist theocratic regimes who issued edicts against non-Muslims, especially Jews, based on this belief that they were "unclean" and threatened to "contaminate" the pure Shii population.

Thus at various times during the Islamic period in Iran there were laws stating that Jews could not go outside in the rain in case a raindrop touched both a Jew and a Muslim, Jews had to step off the pavement if a Muslim came towards them in case they should touch the Muslim and so defile him and so on.

There were also periods of forced conversion and pogroms, most infamously in Meshhad, where the Jews were given an ultimatum in the late 18th century to either convert or die, some Jews fleeing to other communities such as Herat in Afghanistan, others choosing to publicly convert to Islam while in secret living as Jews like the Marranos in Inquisition Spain.

Despite this history though there were many periods when Jews in Iran were able to flourish and enjoy good relations both with their Muslim neighbours and the ruling dynasty. The Jewish presence in Iran predates the advent of Islam there by many centuries. There was a Jewish community there since biblical times, when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnetzer exiled vast numbers of people from the Kingdom of Israel to his empire. The Purim story happened in Persia. The connection between our peoples is long.

The State of Israel enjoyed good relations with Pahlavi dynasty ruled Iran in the first decades of Israeli independence when Jews from Iran were free to travel to Israel and many made aliya out of Zionist beliefs, not because they were fleeing hardship.

Israel to this day has close cultural ties with Iran. In modern Israel there is a large community of Jews of Iranian descent, including leading Israeli singers such as Rita, the various members of the legendary Banai family, Rita's niece Liraz Charhi and modern day litugical composer and singer Maureen Nehedar. All have released music with Persian influences, several have recorded albums of Farsi music. Iranian Jews have held high office in Israel, including commanding the IDF and Israeli Air Force and President of the State of Israel.

And yet for the Islamist regime in Iran Israel is a thorn in the side of their vision of "pure" Islamic Middle East under their concept of Shii theocratic hegemony.

To this end Khomeini and his successor Khameinei have invested great resources in working towards Israel's destruction. They have built up proxies in Shii communities throughout the Middle East, weaponised them into revolutionary militias to become vehicles of Khomeinist influence in their communities, tentacles of a military infrastructure designed to both project Iranian Islamist ideology and power, but also to encircle Israel in a destructive noose. Hizballah in Lebanon, assorted militias in Shii majority Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, even Sunni Hamas in Gaza and further afield.

This deep seated ideological and theological hatred of Israel is at the heart of this war. The Islamist regime has been conducting this war against Israel for decades now via its proxies, all the while developing Iran's own capacity to wage direct war against Israeli via the development of increasingly powerful long range missiles and drones, and its nuclear weapons project. All the while a clock in central Tehran counted down the minutes and hours to Israel's destruction at the hand of the regime.

Israel waited for years for Western diplomacy with the government of Iran to yield some kind of detente, or at least a moratorium on Iran's nuclear and missile programme. To no avail. The Islamic revolutionary regime continued working on the means to destroy Israel even in the face of Western sanctions, diplomacy and negotiations. The decision of the Biden administration to unfreeze Iranian bank accounts only served to hasten the Iranian project by freeing up funds to finance the plan to destroy Israel.

Which brings us to now. Israel could wait no longer to take decisive action against the Iranian nuclear weapons programme and the increased production of deadly ballistic missile and drones to deliver this doomsday payload.

For years leaders of Iran's regime have pledged to wipe Israel off the map. They backed up these threats with military action via their proxies and an advanced weapons programme of increasingly sophisticated missiles and drones, plus work to manufacture their own nuclear weapons. This is an existential threat that Israel can't ignore. When someone pledges to kill you over and over and over again while engaging in a build up of ever more destructive weapons you have to take that threat seriously to protect your citizens. That is what Israeli is doing now, launching a pre-emptive strike at the eleventh hour as Iran is on the cusp of building their nuclear bombs.

I just wanted to update everyone that we're OK, very tired, but doing OK.

Friday evening until Saturday morning we had barrage after barrage of ballistic missiles to our area, constant air raid sirens. The missiles from Iran have been targeting civilian areas, towns and cities, crowded residential areas.

Thankfully most missiles were intercepted but a few still got through that there were casualties including fatalities and extensive damage in the crowded cities of central Israel. Our immediate area was safe but we heard the interceptions and impacts loudly.

At one point the whole building shook and the heavy reenforced steel blast door of our shelter shook. I was the only with a direct view, and the way the door vibrated I almost wondered if it was going to implode. It was just a second or two, a brief, massive boom when everything shook, but it seemed to stretch out so long. We found out later that one of the missiles had scored a direct hit on a town about 15 miles from us decimating a residential street and killing two people, wounding others. What we felt was the edge of the shockwave from that blast all this distance away.

Our shelter is small, windowless and underground, very hot and stuffy, but we are very grateful to have it. It's like human tetris trying to get everyone in at night when people just want to sleep but there isn't room for the whole family to lie down at the same time.

We tried to make things a bit more light hearted for the kids, joked about having a "picnic dinner" in the shelter, joked that it was really silly we made soup because nope, no way we were eating hot soup in a crowded little shelter. And we sang together, and we read Psalms together and prayed too.

We've been through a lot of rocket and missile attacks but this is the most intense I can remember. The missiles from Iran are much bigger, more lethal and pack a far larger warhead than those fired at us by Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis. The damage one of these things can do, just one, is far greater, and we had plenty of damage from the smaller rockets. It's always terrifying to know that someone is shooting projectiles at you, whether they are smaller or bigger, they are all designed to kill, but this time is definitely more terrifying still. We've had hundreds of these huge Iranian missiles fired at us, even if only a very few get through the air defences, that's a lot of damage.

I'm awake at 0230 because we just had another alert to get to shelter because of expected incoming missiles in our area. Again. All night there have been air raid sirens in the north and far south, I think attack drones from Yemen and ballistic missiles from Iran. Now the densely populated central Israeli cities are being targeted again.

We can hear explosions in the distance, getting closer. Sirens going again now for us. Lots of booms and thuds. We're following local civil defense instructions, staying in our shelter, listening to the alerts, hoping and praying for the best.

Middle Eastern elders

As with the Houthis attacks on Israel, there is an extreme irony in the way the modern Iranian Islamic Republic has gone after Israel with a single minded hatred.

Very simply, there are vast numbers of Iranians in Israel. Most of them Jews, yes, but still with a deep connection to Iranian language, history and culture.

Israeli Jews and Iranians are after all the most prominent remnants in the Middle East of the region's ancient civilisations, predating the Arab and Islamic conquest and to this day clinging to languages and literature that tell the story of the time before it was Arabicised and Islamified.

Unlike the Jews, most Persians lost their ancient religion and became Islamified, even adopting the Arabic script for writing the Farsi language. And yet they retained a keen sense of Persian history and identity, that they were scions to one of the ancient Middle East's greatest empires, a vibrant and influential civilisation who's ruins remain in stunning archaeological sites across Iran and in Iranian literature and folklore, most famously the Shahnameh national epic, and even imprints on the languages and cultures of the Arab and Turkish empires who supplanted them, with both Arabic and Turkish full of loan words derived from Farsi, including terms relating to court life and government, such was the inlfluence and stature of Persian culture even in the eyes of those who sought to dominate it.

Iranians and Jews, Iranians and Israelis, share this feeling of being the older siblings of the modern Middle Eastern peoples, repositories of knowledge of times and cultures buried under the conquests of later civilisations. This kinship of fellow ancient peoples has come up in conversation with many Iranians over the years, both nations appearing in the Bible. Maybe that's the reason Khomeini and his successor Khamenai held such a deep hatred for Israel, Israel reminded them of their own pre-Islamic roots, a nation standing up for its identity and culture, a lone non-Muslim majority country in the heart of the Middle East, a people with a different language and a different script from all their neighbouring Arab and Islamic states.

Jews from Iran and neighbouring Judeo-Parsi speaking communities such as Afghanistan and Bukhara, were among the first to return to Zion in the modern period and develop the city of Jerusalem beyond the walls of the historic Old City during the 19th century. The names of wealthy Bukharan and Persian Jewish benefactors from this period can still be seen on historic Jerusalem buildings originally built as orphanages, soup kitchens, synagogues and community housing for the Jews of Jerusalem. Israel became the biggest world centre for Persian Jewry.
Unlike Jews from most of the rest of the Islamic Middle East, most Iranian Jews came to the Land of Israel out of Zionism rather than as refugees because they had been expelled. Until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran Israel had close ties to the country, with shared economic and military interests. Israelis and Iranians visited each others countries, shared technology and intelligence. 

With Israel home to the largest community of Persian Jews in the world they could be found in all parts of Israeli society, from working class artisans and shop keepers in the markets to prominent musicians, senior generals, a Chief Rabbi and president and more. 

Just as there is something absurd about the Houthis in Yemen attacking Israel with its large, thriving, Yemeni Jewish community, so too the notion of the Iranian leadership counting down Israel's destruction with a giant clock in Teheran and a nuclear and missile programme they openly describe as being developed to wipe Israel off the map. 

Precious ordinary

I'm functioning on coffee and adrenalin this today after a mostly sleepless night following the 3am wake up call from Israel's emergency alert system broadcast on all frequencies.

The war has gone on so long that what's known here as "emergency routine", ie trying to keep as "normal" a routine as possible in the shadow of a most abnormal wartime situation, has become the new normal. Loads of people drafted to the reserves, hostages still suffering in the Hamas tunnels under Gaza, constant air raid sirens due to missiles fired by the Houthis in Yemen... But I've been wanting to be able to write something simple and genuinely normal for so long, just something normal, because in between the abnormal we fit in the ordinary and even the special, but with so much going on around us the ordinary becomes all the more precious and we are grateful for it.

And now we're being instructed to stay close to shelter and to wait for something even more abnormal, a new emergency on top of the existing wartime crisis. The country has been told to shut down, everyone is to stay home close to shelter. So we wait and we pray and we hope it will blow over.

I wanted to be able to write about something normal but at least I can write about food.

We're lucky that our shelter is near the kitchen, so we are staying close and cooking for Shabbat. It's a cliche, but we do have a lot of ripe bananas so my husband is making banana bread. My son made a cheese and vegetable quiche Thursday evening, before he went to bed.

We have hallah and lots of other things in the freezer: bean barley soup, moussaka, various smoked fishes, a few fillets of hake and Nile perch, a whole chicken, cakes and blintzes leftover from the recent Shavuot holiday, some bags of frozen vegetables. The cupboard in our shelter is well stocked with tins and packaged foods, water.

Food preparation is a good way to keep busy, try not to think too much, hope we'll be able to do a supply run to my elderly uncle round the corner because he'd been planning to shop Friday morning. We always make extra portions so we can stock his freezer too.

It turns out that what you do while wondering if Iran is going to fire (nuclear?) missiles and maybe armageddon is cook for Shabbat while staying close to the shelter and praying and hoping for a miracle of peace.

Jaffa Nights

3am Israel time we had air raid sirens and emergency alerts on all frequencies warning us to get to the bomb shelters.

We are used to air raid sirens, or as used to them as one can ever be, the Houthis militias in Yemen fire missiles at us on a regular basis, thankfully almost always intercepted in the upper atmosphere before they hit.

Tonight though we could feel it was something different. It wasn't just an air raid siren, it was the warnings on all frequencies and the special Home Front directive immediately cancelling all large gatherings and warning everyone to stay close to shelter, make sure that they had supplies of water, food that doesn't require cooking, hygiene supplies, medications etc because an incoming amissile ttack was expected soon.

Which is why it's 0432 and I'm wide awake with a stomach full of butterflies from the waiting. Could be imminent, could be tomorrow, days from now, who knows.

Hard to believe that a few nights ago on the spur of the moment my husband and I actually went out for the evening. It was the Islamic holiday of Eid al Adha and the seafront town of Jaffa was lit up with holiday fairy lights, restaurants full of Muslim families enjoying festive meals, the seaside promenade had a party atmosphere packed with families strolling and picnicking, the air a heady mix of seasalt and the sweet aroma of apple and fruit flavoured tobacco from the nargilla (sheesha) pipes being smoked by groups of laughing and smiling men in their holiday finery.

At the marina giggling young women and families with children enjoyed boat rides on pleasure craft decked out in colourful lights, upbeat Arabic dance music blaring from speakers.
At a music club near the old docks people were standing on the terrace enjoying drinks from the bar as they waited for a performance of the Gipsy Kings to begin. The Gipsy Kings! My husband was driving and I don't really drink, so we were sipping on water, delighted to have found ourselves standing space right up front near the stage, the set list tapes to the boards right in front of us. The organisers apologised for a slightly late start, with so many revellers out for Eid and the hundreds of concert goers it was taking more time than usual for everyone to find parking. And then the Gipsy Kings came on stage and whisked us all away to faraway places and the nostalgia of our school years, songs in languages we only partly understood but vibrant rhythms and melodies combined with soulful voices that were as electric as when we were kids.

It was a wonderfully dynamic, upbeat concert, most of us dancing our way through, right up front, eye contact with the smiling guitarist right there, shared appreciation of the happy vibes all around, the infectious positive energy.

More even though than the beautiful music, the smiling warmth of the crowd and the frivolity of just having fun was the simple, blissful escapism of feeling normal, completely, peacefully, normally normal.

And we got through the whole evening with no sirens.

Gimme Shelter

It's all very well if a siren goes and you are home near shelter, or you are able bodied and can run to shelter or easily get down on the ground, but what if you can't?

This evening I was at a yahrzeit memorial service for a close family friend who passed from serious illness a few years ago. We were worried there might be a siren during the service outside in the cemetery in central Israel.

In the end the graveside ceremony was thankfully quiet and dignified but afterwards close family and friends went to honour the deceased's memory with a dinner as we do each year and it was then, as we were sitting out on a relatively exposed balcony in a city mall that we received a warning of an incoming Houthi missile fired from Yemen.

Most of us were able bodied enough to make it to shelter, but some were too elderly or disabled to make a dash for it. Neither could they get down on the ground and cover their heads, they had to just sit there and hope for the best, including a young boy walking with a cane because of a foot injury.

Even for those of us who did rush to the shelters 90 seconds was not a lot of time to make it across to the other side of the mall and find the secure area.

There have been so many sirens by now that for many people they are almost routine, some just saunter to the shelters, others are almost indifferent, another siren, odds are the IDF will successfully intercept it, here we go again.

It's a mentality I can completely understand but it is so dangerous precisely because there are no guarantees that the intercept will be successful (thank God most are) and even if successful, an intercept doesn't vaporise an incoming missile or rocket, it hopefully detonates the warhead high up in the atmosphere and breaks these giant projectiles into smaller less dangerous pieces, but there are still fragments left, some quite large, which do fall to earth. Less deadly than a huge missile armed with an explosive warhead slamming into Israel, but still a risk which can and does cause damage and possibly worse.

Tonight shrapnel "just" fell on the roof of a house and in a street not far from us. Fortunately noone was hurt.

At the moment of the siren I wasn't sure what to do. It felt like those of us who could get to shelter were abandoning those who could not, and yet what could we have done? Us staying in the exposed area alongside them wouldn't have afforded them any protection, there was nothing we could do to help them make it to shelter, there was noone we could have carried. So we decided that anyone who could make the 90 second dash would do so and with uneasy hearts we left those who could not. I felt physically sick having to make such a decision, to have to think that way, it goes against every principle to leave people behind when the siren goes, but my elderly uncle insisted that it was what I should do.

As I was walking briskly to the shelter my phone rang, my middle son checking to make sure I'd heard the siren, that I'd found shelter, letting me know he and his brothers were snuggled up with Abba on the mattress in our shelter trying to help the little boys get back to sleep, Abba reading them a story, our anxious little one curled up with the special blanket and cuddly animal he keeps in the shelter to comfort him through the sirens.

I knew his next call would be to my elderly uncle, my kids always phone him to make sure he's heard the siren and remembers what to do. I updated him about our situation, he said he'd call anyway to make sure he was OK.

We are all fine, it feels almost overdramatic to write about this, sirens have become so much a part of our daily routine. And yet after all this time I don't think I will ever not feel that primal pang of dread at the soul piercing wail of the air raid sirens. Yes I know what to do forwards and backwards and quite literally in my sleep. I know we have Iron Dome and David's Sling and the Hetz anti-missile systems guarding our airspace day and night, most of the time successfully intercepting the deadly projectiles. Intellectually I am calm and matter of fact about it all, I am after all someone who studied military history and ethics of war.

And yet, with all the practical calm and nonchalance with which we deal with this situation it's should never be routine or normal to have to live like this, with the constant attempts on our lives.

So what that our country has invested massive resources into protecting its citizens - the shelters, the anti-missile defences, the early warning systems - massive amounts of resources that could have been used for so many other things but had to be diverted to this huge protective umbrella because damn it there are so many people still trying to kill us.

At the end of the day the fact that our country has been quite successful at intercepting the rockets and missiles and attack drones doesn't remove the fact of the intent behind the people shooting at us because they are trying to kill us.

And that is why with all my knowledge, my practical understanding of the situation, that screaming siren will always strike a nerve within that reminds me that the Houthis, Hamas, whoever it is this time, want us dead and the missiles they send our way are purposefully aimed at us, if any of us are hurt it isn't collateral damage from a precision strike but reason for them to celebrate the murder of a hated Israeli. For them lobbing unguided ballistic missiles in the general direction of densely populated areas is the whole point, pure terror weapons.

My elderly uncle remembers that feeling from his earliest childhood when his family lived in wartime London, not the Blitz, but later, when the Nazis were sending flying bombs to inflict random carnage over the city. He remembers the makeshift shelter his father and uncle built in the garden of their shared building, the midnight "tea parties" the adults put on to distract the children from the nighttime raids, and the next day, children curious to find the bombsites and see the damage from the night before.

He never imagined that the next generation and the generation after would also live with "routine" air raids.

And tonight I couldn't even figure out how to get him to shelter.

Combat medics rushed in to help when a military vehicle caught fire during the fighting in northern Gaza but their vehicle drove over a booby trap and the explosion killed these three soldiers, two of them combat medics.

I've volunteered many times in Israeli villages just across the border from the area of northern Gaza where this happened and while working in the area we often hear the sounds of war, praying each explosion is the sound of a controlled detonation by the army engineers dismantling Hamas tunnels and booby traps, and not God forbid soldiers being caught by one of these horrific IEDs.

Over and over again I've heard from local Israeli residents who've lived for years with the Hamas threat literally hanging over their community about the extent of the Hamas terror infrastructure still in place just across the border, the tunnels still being uncovered, some leading under the border into Israel, the extensive booby traps left by Hamas, munitions workshops and caches of rockets ready for launch.

I hear people in central Israel, just an hour or two away, questioning what the IDF is still doing there, failing to grasp the extent of the Hamas terror machine that still needs to be destroyed to protect the thousands upon thousands of Israelis who've lived for so long in its shadow.

The job of the IDF now has been made all the more dangerous and difficult because Hamas used the recent ceasefire to emerge from their hiding tunnels and booby trap buildings (including hospitals and schools) tunnel entrances and roads all over Gaza. Before IDF engineers can even begin taking apart Hamas infrastructure, for example destroying attack tunnels, they have to first check whether and how Hamas has rigged the site with bombs. The scale of the task is gargantuan.

People ask how over 600 days since October 7 Israeli forces are still dealing with this terrible problem and I in turn ask local Israeli residents I meet from kibbutzim and moshavim on the border, as well as soldiers serving in the area. The answer I receive is that we simply can't conceive of the scale of the Hamas war project, the extent to which they twisted everything in Gaza to be used for their campaign of terror, the number, size and depth of the tunnels crisscrossing Gaza below the surface, the single-minded purpose of Hamas rule in Gaza to turn the territory into a terror launchpad, embedding themselves into Gazan civilian infrastructure and routine.

It is terrifying and sickening to contemplate this, all the more so when I'm down in the Otef, pruning tomato vines or picking raspberries, wondering if perhaps under the very ground I'm standing on there is or was an attack tunnel, listening to the sounds of war, wondering exactly what I'm hearing, praying for the safety of all our dedicated soldiers devoting all they have to end the Hamas terror tyranny. Praying also that every Gazan civilian has evacuated from the area, that they've managed to evade Hamas attempts to force them to stay or forced them to act as spotters as they often do Mostly I simply pray for the evil of Hamas to end and for the day when everyone in this beautiful land can simply live without the constant threat of Hamas and jihadi terror.

Shavuot in the fields

Shavuot is the agricultural festival in Israel, the rainy season is over, the produce of the seven biblical species with which Israel is blessed is ripening in the field, first the barley and the wheat being harvested now all over Israel between Pesah and Shavuot. Shavuot is above all the festival of the wheat harvest. But the vines are lush and heavy with their thick leaves and rapidly developing bunches of grapes. The pomegranate orchards are dotted with the vibrant scarlet of late season blossoms and the first little fruits. The olives are already beautifully formed, just requiring a few more months to become richer with oil until they are shiny and black. The figs are maturing nicely and there are already young yellow clusters of dates on the palms. The bible unfolding before our eyes, the land a living commentary on the Torah who's giving at Mount Sinai we also celebrate on this holiday.

Since the war my routine has been more closely tied than ever before with the agriculture and seasons of the Land of Israel. Since October 2023 I'm trying to do Whatever I can to help farms around the country struggling to keep agriculture going through these difficult times. I'm just one middle aged person without much prior experience of working on farms, my ability to make a difference is limited but hopefully it's something, hopefully the thousands of ordinary people doing the same can together do enough to help Israelis agriculture pull through and preserve our country's food security.

Spending so much time in fields, orchards and greenhouses I feel the agricultural aspect of Shavuot more than ever this year, whether it's seeing the revival and rebuilding of the Otef and the north from the terrible damage suffered during the war, meeting so many modest, quiet heroes, farmers who continue to work the land even under fire or just a kilometre or two from active warzones, people who made the decision that because of the situation now is the time to go back to the land, to support their elderly parents' farms or renew family orchards, people who are choosing life by planting new vineyards and orchards and tomato greenhouses, a visceral response to the horrors our people experienced, people who are planting and building so that when their hostage neighbours are God Willing set free from Gaza they will have homes to come back to.

Shavuot to me this year has a renewed immediacy and relevance. I see so much each week that feels like a living dialogue with the Book of Ruth, a modern exegesis on the themes of Shavuot: My renewed connection to the agriculture focus existence of my ancestors. Farmers who are meticulous in providing food for those in need, finding modern ways to follow the biblical injunction to donate part of their harvest. The intense personal thanksgiving with every field of wheat that I see among the springtime golden landscapes of the north-west Negev. Profound appreciation for the modern desalinisation and water recycling technologies that mean that despite this year's severe drought Israel is not facing famine and our farms can still grow plenty of produce to feed the country. The loving kindness of people from other nations who have chosen to come to Israel in our time of need to lend a hand wherever needed with such warm smiles and support for our traumatised people. A few modern day Ruths in the process of converting to Judaism because in the wake of October 7 they decided that the right response was to join the Jewish people. The many foreign volunteers from all over the world and all walks of life who one day decided to get on a plane and go to help Israelis because they felt it was the right and moral thing to do after October 7. There are no stereotypes or fixed demographics. I meet people of deep faith and none at all, farmers from all over the world who've come in solidarity to help Israelis farmers, random professionals from all over who on the spur of the moment came out to spend a week or two slogging it out in the potato fields of Nir Oz or the orchards of the Upper Galilee. The religious Jewish volunteers who spend the time bouncing around on volunteer buses deep in prayer, reciting Psalms or studying Torah. Middle aged grandmothers from Paris, London, Melbourne who want to volunteer while visiting their Israeli grandchildren alongside a Californian firemen, a retired Yiddish professor, Chinese university students, Mexican tour guides and Asian Muslims (to protect them I won't say which country they were from, their country doesn't officially approve of its citizens visiting Israel) who were here in Israel to try to reach out to the Israeli people in the hope of building a better future. A woman from the south Pacific who saw the news reports on October 7 and took her life's savings to come and help the people of Israel. Devout Filipino Catholics who come each year to spend Holy Week in the Holy Land and who wanted to do something to help while they were visiting.

Each week I see so much, hear so many stories, learn so much, appreciate all the more the blessings of this land and the humble, determined resilience and dignity of my fellow Israelis, the generosity of strangers from around the globe. It's a view that is so different from my regular urban and suburban central Israeli existence and my whole perspective on our national situation, on the Otef, on the borders is much more nuanced as a result. May all our hostages be freed and our grieving nation know comfort and security.

 

מילותיה של נעמי שמר מהדהדות אצלי כבר הרבה זמן, כאילו נכתבו ממש עתה, בימינו, כמו דברי נבואה שנעמי חזתה לנו למציאות של השנים האחרונות.

המילים האלה מהדהדות בכל חג. בכל אירוע משמח. בכל פעם שהעזנו לברך על משהו טוב. בכל רגע של הודיה על חסד שחווינו. בימי עצמאות ובימי הולדת. מכל תינוק שנולד. בכל עת של נחת. בכל מפגש עם האנשים הנפלאים של ארצנו - הגיבורים, המתנדבים, בעלי החסד והלב הרחב והרגיש אוהבי הבריות, העם והארץ. בכל פעם שנהננו מפרחי חורף או אביב ומעץ פורח בניסן ואילן שנותן לנו מפירותיו. בכל פעם שנפעמנו ממראה קסום או מוסיקה מרוממת. בכל פעם שחווינו משהו שממלא נשמה כואבת בכוחות חדשות והכרת הטוב.

אולי זה הנפש החסידי שעבר אלי בגנטיקה ממשפחת אימי. אולי זה פשוט משהו עמוק בתוך הנפש היהודי, מנגנון כזה של השרדות ששמר על אבותינו בכל דור ודור שקמו עלינו לכלותינו אבל בכל זאת המשכנו לשיר את מזמור לתודה ועל הניסים ולחגוג את חגינו עד כמה שהמצב אפשר לנו.

בכל דור ודור השמחה שלנו היא המחאה שלנו ובכל דור ודור אפילו בזר הפרחים הכי יפה יש קוץ אחד או שנים כמו שבשיא שמחת החופה אנחנו בכ"ז שוברים את הכוס ומעלים את ירושלים על ראש שמחתנו.

וכך גם ההפך, אפילו בתוך הזוועות של מגילת איכה יש ניצוץ של תקווה ואפילו בימי חורבן בית המקדש, כשחכמי הדור ראו בשועל יוצא מאתר קודש הקודשים ופרצו בבכי מהמראה המזעזע רבי עקיבא פרץ בצחוק כי כבר חזה את גאולת עם ישראל וירושלים.

על ראש שמחתי

מילים: נעמי שמר

לחן: מתי כספי

על ראש שמחתי

ענדתי זר,

זר פרחי שדה,

עם קוץ אחד או שניים.

יצאה שמחתי

לחולל בחוצות,

ברגל יחפה

בתוך הצהרים.

תפסוה השומרים

הסובבים בעיר,

מה את רוקדת ככה,

ועל מה יצהל קולך?

מוטב שתשירי שירי מחאה,

זה מה שהולך עכשיו,

זה מה שהולך.

אמרה שמחתי

אני ארקוד וארקוד,

עם זר פרחי שדה

וקוץ אחד או שניים

כי השמחה שלי

היא המחאה שלי,

ברגל יחפה

בתוך הצהרים.

אמרה שמחתי

אני אשיר וארקוד,

עד צאת נשמתי

כי השמחה שלי

היא המחאה שלי

והיא כוחי האמיתי.

If you haven't been a Jew or an Israeli travelling outside of Israel you won't get the nerve this El Al ad touches. Growing up it was ingrained that outside of Israel, outside of heavily Jewish areas overseas you hid being Jewish as best you could - tuck Magen david and Hebrew necklaces under your shirt, cover your kipa with a hat or cap, don't tell people you are from Israel, don't carry a bag or wear a shirt with Hebrew writing or Jewish symbols and so on. My parents and my grandparents had heard too many hateful comments, a few times even experienced anti-Jewish physical violence in supposedly "safe" Western countries like the US, UK, Canada and France.

Just now travelling as an accompanying parent with our secondary school robotics team over Pesah to their international competition in the US (flying via Europe on a European airline) we had to explain all of this to the boys. My heart broke telling these religious boys that had to cover or take off their kippot, hide their tzittzit and most galling: we were told by security experts that our team couldn't display the Israeli flag on their competition uniforms because it was too dangerous. It was so humiliating and deeply upsetting to walk around the huge arena and see teams from all over the world with their national flags proudly on their team shirts while our boys team shirts had been designed to make sure they included no Hebrew, no Israeli flag and no mention of Israel.

The boys felt it too though - they had brought Israeli flags with them and during the competition, within the arena itself they draped themselves in the Israeli blue and white flag, just as teams from so many others countries proudly walked around with their national flags worn cape style over their shoulders. And you know what? Our team (and the several other Israeli teams also competing) were well received by people from all over, whether it was American teams (in the clear majority) or elsewhere, including students from Turkey, Armenia and China. This isn't to say that we needed to be alert to possible threats from anti-Semites and anti-Israeli activists, but that there is also a time to show our pride in who we are.  

 Writing about food and specifically the joy of food in the context of all that we have been through in the last 18 months, are going through, well, I don't know, but just, Marie Antoinettish? Obtuse? Detached from reality?

My neighbours lost their son, the deputy principal at my kid's school was seriously wounded and hasn't been able to come back to teaching, relatives of other people I know are still held hostage by Hamas, others are still displaced from their homes, and I'm going to ponder ingredients and recipes, revel in a cake that came out just so and delight in gastronomy?

And yet food is so central to our society, to how we show care, show love. It's cliche to say it, but far beyond mere sustenance, cooking someone a meal is a way to send a hug. Every weekend thousands make homecooked meals for strangers, and others deliver these meals around the country, to the displaced, to on duty first responders, to reservists away from their families for weeks and months and more. We make meals for the bereaved, for reservist families who haven't seen their mother or father in so long, for the new mothers trying to hold it together alone, the families spending every moment by the bedside of a wounded child or spouse, Nova survivors locked in trauma.

Sometimes it feels like preparing food for someone is the only thing you can do because there are no words for such situations and a comforting fresh baked hallah loaf or pot of soup seems so much more articulate.

And now it's spring again and the Passover holiday is coming again but we are all still frozen in October 2023, time moves but at the same time we are shocked that it does so. And yet time moves and life must continue even if we aren't sure how.

Sometimes our days seem mostly normal, some days we're walking zombies because of 3am missiles from Yemen that send half the country running into the shelters.

The elementary school round the corner took the young kids on a little nature walk recently to recite the traditional spring blessing on blossoming fruit trees. Right there in the open they were surprised by a midday missile siren (the Houthis had mostly been firing in the wee hours) and all the children and teachers had to hit the ground, scrambling for cover, no time to get to shelter, listening to the massive booms of the defensive missiles intercepting the attacking missile, thankful that no shrapnel fell in our area and everyone was physically OK.

And then they all got up and continued their nature walk and saw the blossoming fruit trees and enjoyed the wildflowers and the flocks of migrating birds and the dancing butterflies. Because what else can you do?

So when I was asked if I could be a volunteer helper with the school's annual pre-Passover matza bake I had to say yes, These kids have been through so much, I wanted to be able to contribute to something fun and traditional, part of the typical spring routine that they enjoy every year.

I love the teacher who organised the bake this year, low key and very traditional in the way that he set up domed griddles over a bonfire, just as though we were camping out on our way through the desert after the exodus from Egypt.

The children made the dough and rolled it out, then used spiked rollers or forks to create the dots. Some of the kids insisted on rolling the dough out so thin that it tore and others made it so thick that it didn't quite bake through and still others just wanted to make the biggest pile of dough they could. And some got it just right. Not quite the rigorous sterile process used to bake strictly "kosher" matza used for the holiday itself, but enough of an insight into the process for young kids to experience baking matza.

And while the custom is for one to refrain from tasting matza between the Purim holiday and Passover, so that the matza will taste new at the Passover seder meal, the kids of course couldn't resist tasting their freshly baked creations. The teacher in charge also teaches gardening, so the pupils harvested some herbs from their school herb garden, then ground them with olive oil in a pestle and mortar to make a deliciously fragrant herb infused dip. Those children averse to green things could choose chocolate spread instead.

We were blessed with a bright quiet, calm morning of smiling faces and laughter, truly a taste of spring and the holiday of freedom.