I feel like since October 7th I can either have no words to say anything or it all comes pouring out and I can't write less than thousands at a time.

I'm not really sure how suddenly it's all these months later, how did it get to be spring when it's still autumn?

So many weeks and months of funeral after funeral, friends burying children and grandchildren. Weeks when it was almost a relief to go to the funeral of a beloved elderly relative who'd died in old age of complications of Alzheimer's. We were heartbroken to lose her but took comfort that it was the natural order of things for children to bury a parent. 

Friends who's children have spent weeks and months in the ICU with blown off limbs or gut-wrenching headwounds.

Friends who's kids survived the slaughter at the Nova dance festival. Friends who survived the attacks on their kibbutzim. Friends who's family or friends are still being held hostage in Gaza 190 days later and no one knows if they are alive or dead. 

Schools struggling to function with masses of teachers amongst the hundreds of thousands called up in an emergency army draft. A teacher returned from months of reserve duty with shaking hands. Another still learning to walk again months after being wounded in the fighting.

Weeks and weeks when going out to volunteer in agriculture meant open fields and orchards with no shelters but overhead the regular boom of rockets fired into Israel and the thunder of distant and sometimes not so distant artillery firing back at launch sites.

Israeli agriculture was one of the targets of the October 7th attacks, farmers and farm workers massacred and kidnapped to Gaza, farms burnt, cow sheds and henhouse torched. Months later going south with thousands of other Israelis to help out as farmers try to rebuild and there are still burnt patches by the verges, groves of burnt trees even as fields are verdant again from winter rains, covering over much of the destruction of October. 

In the face of all of this who has the stomach to write of food? 

And yet it turns out that food has been so much a part of this war as a civilian. The first few weeks there was a run on the supermarkets. No, not panic buying, but ordinary citizens seeing how overwhelmed the authorities were and stepping in to fill that gap. At one shopping centre near me people set up food collection for refugees. At another they were collecting sanitary items. Outside shops teens stood with boxes asking shoppers to contribute snacks and shelf stable items to stock refreshment stands on main roads in support of first responders with no time to take food breaks. Another centre focused on aid packages for people unable for whatever reason to leave towns under bombardment, keeping them fed when it was too dangerous for them to leave their shelters. 

Caterers, restaurants and private individuals turned their kitchens over to feeding whomever needed to be fed: refugees, families of wounded, emergency services, hundreds of thousands of reservists called up with no notice and rushing to the front.  People volunteered to drive all this down to the front near the Gaza border, even with the constant rockets and sirens and in the first few weeks the continued threat of terrorist incursions. 

Ordinary civilians just doing anything they could to help, to support, to comfort, to nourish. 

Give me shelter

On the face of it many Israelis have returned to some kind of regular routine despite the war situation, but we are a nation in trauma, PTSD nation in a way that many outsiders don't understand or don't even see.

The Hamas attack on October 7th twisted so many things which should be safe in to things which are now dangerous.

Like the way that the public shelters you see in many places in Israel, especially near the Gaza border, which should be symbols of safety, set up all over to protect from the threat of Gaza rockets, were turned in to death traps by Hamas on October 7th.

As part of the Hamas invasion on that terrible Shabbat they fired massive numbers of rockets from Gaza in to Israel and people logically ran for cover to these public shelters, especially the hundreds and hundreds of people caught out in the open at the Nova dance festival.

And then the terrorists came and threw grenades in to the shelters full of civilians sheltering from the rockets. And fired RPGs in to shelters full of civilians seeking safety from the rockets. And fired kalashnikovs and M16s in to the shelters full of civilians seeking sanctuary. From places of safety these open public shelters became death traps where Hamas murdered and maimed hundreds of people.

Today for millions of Israelis these public shelters, many painted in cheerful colours or decorated with murals, are a symbol of the October 7th massacres.

Drive down to the Gaza border area in the weeks and months after that horrific day and you'll still see these shelters lining the roadsides where Hamas terrorists rampaged. Many of the happy bright murals adorning the stark concrete are pockmarked with bullet holes and shrapnel.

By the open entrances notices have been hung up indicating that this shelter has been cleared by Zaka, the volunteer organisation that ensures the respectful burial of the dead and any body parts or tissue left behind after a terror attack (or other disaster). Cryptic marking indicate whether and how many dead were found at this site.   

These open public rocket shelters are a constant reminder of what Hamas did to us, the cynical way they turned would should have been a sanctuary in to a death trap.

Each time we walk by a shelter like this. Every time we pass one on the road. The sight of one outside a hospital or by a bus stop.

They are a constant reminder of the evil atrocities Hamas perpetrated against our people that terrible day.

Most of the time the shelters I see like this are (in local terms) are nowhere near the scenes of carnage in the Gaza border areas. In the first couple of months of the war many areas of central Israel were under daily rocket bombardment too. Open public shelters like these were set up near bus stops and public areas in towns like 

A friend recently wrote about how during a visit to a local zoo with her grandchildren it started to rain. The children excitedly ran to what looked like an artificial cave but turned out to be a disguised rocket shelter. She couldn't bring herself to go in. Better to get drenched in the rain than revisit the nightmare of the public shelters of October 7th. 

Since that day there are many Israelis too traumatised by the shelter massacres to even take cover in one of these from rockets. A friend who's relatives were at the Nova festival tells me that she'd rather take her chances lying on the ground out in the open but able to run if need be than enclosed in the concrete of what was once a sanctuary but now a symbol of Hamas mass murder. 

שלח את עמי Let my people go

I will never forget the day Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky was freed. Our entire small primary school gathered in the big hall, crowding around a small television on a rickety trolley watching this moving event live as this great man of short stature walked to freedom.

We all grew up with the struggle for Soviet Jewry an integral part of our lives. Our parents, family, rabbis and teachers travelled to the USSR to smuggle Jewish religious texts, vital medicines and clandestine tapes with recordings of Hebrew lessons. We wrote letters to Soviet Jewish children our ages and hoped that they would make it past the Soviet censors.

On Shabbat and festivals, especially at the Pesah seder, our tables always had an empty chair or more, waiting for our brother and sisters trapped behind the Iron Curtain. We had special prayers for their freedom, that one day they would be able to join us. 

That day in February on the little tv screen we were watching the realisation of our dreams and our prayers, one of the greatest heroes of our generation walking to freedom, a walking embodiment of our hope that one day all the Jews stuck in the Soviet Union would also go free and fill the chairs waiting for them at our Shabbat tables. 

That day is engraved on my memory, a formative experience in my childhood. A real life struggle of Jews held captive by an evil tyrannical regime. With every yellow chair I see, every hostage poster, remind me of those hopes and prayers: LET MY PEOPLE GO! May we merit to welcome them home to freedom very very soon. 

תמיד אזכור את יום השחרור של אביך. אספו את כל בית הספר והצטופפנו באולם הגדול סביב לטלוויזיה הקטנה וכולנו ציפינו בלייב ברגע המרגש הזה. גדלנו לתוך המאבק למען יהודי ברית המועצות, עם הורים ומורים שהיו נוסעים לשם כדי להבריח ספרי קודש, תרופות חיוניות וקלטות ללימוד עברית, ובשבת ובליל הסדר תמיד היה כסא רק, מחכה לאחינו יהודי ברית המועצות והיו תפילות מיוחדות שיום אחד הם יצאו לחופשי ויצטרפו אלינו. והנה על הטלוויזיה רואים את אחד הגיבורים של דורנו יוצא לחופשי, התגשם חלום ותפילה, תקווה מהלכת שיום אחד כולם יצאו לחופשי למלא את הכסאות המחכים להם ליד שולחן החג. זה חרוט אצלי בזכרון לעד וכל כסא צהוב וכל פוסטר של חטוף מזכירים לי את אותה התקווה ותפילה: שלח את עמי!

I was volunteering in a picturesque citrus orchard yesterday picking clementines with some friends, our attempt to help our country during wartime. Suddenly a mobile phone rang out. One of the women sat down on a plastic crate under the shade of a tree heavy with fruit and cheerfully answered her daughter's call. I stepped away to give her privacy but even from a distance I could see body language that told of bad news. Tragically we have all become too used to that in recent months. It was the news about the passing of Hanan Drori, a friend of her son-in-law.

Three Israeli soldiers from the small town of Psagot who fell during the war: Amihai Witzan z"l and Moshe Yedidya Raziel z"l, were killed defending kibbutz Kerem Shalom during the Hamas invasion on October 7th, saving the kibbutz residents from being massacred like so many of their neighbours.

Hanan Drori z"l died this week after he was seriously injured in northern Gaza during December. His wounds were infected with a virulent fungus, and despite attempting innovative new treatments doctors were unable to save him.

Amihai was Yedidya's counselor in the Bnei Akiva youth group. Yedidya was Hanan's counselor. All three were counselors at the local Bnei Akiva group in Psagot. Three generations of brave Zionist leaders who fell in defence of Israel. May we be worthy of their sacrifice.

A few friends from overseas have said to me recently, why doesn't Israel just capitulate, free all the Hamas terrorists (and yes, they are terrrorists, people with gallons of Israeli blood on their hands from bombings, stabbings, shootings and more) and end that war in Gaza, enough already, it's just a tool for Netanyahu and his right wing government to stay in power. 

The thing is it isn't. If you're overseas maybe you've already forgotten October 7th and moved on. Here in Israel we haven't. 

This really isn't a left right issue, a religious secular issue, a liberal versus conservative issue or a moderate versus extreme issue. This is a mainstream across the board issue of a nation still deep in trauma from the massacre of October 7th. For us it isn't February, it is the 120th October and counting. We have not moved on. Our people are still hostages in the tunnels of Gaza. Thousands of Israelis from towns and villages in the Gaza border are still refugees in their own country. Hamas is still sitting pretty in Qatar acting as though it has the upper hand and gleefully reminding us that it's already working on the next October 7th style attacks. 

This is not about "revenge" on Hamas for October 7th. This is about making sure Hamas is dismantled so that it can never do it again. This is about Israel's survival and protecting Israeli lives.

This war is a long way from being won and to see not just Israel's enemies but her supposed "friends" and "allies" trying to force a ceasefire before the goal of eliminating the Hamas war machine and infrastructure has been achieved is a sign that either they don't understand what is at stake for Israel or that they simply don't care, prepared to sacrifice yet more Israeli lives and possibly Israel itself for their own illusion of quiet. 

So the hostge deal and with it Hamas' outrageous demands are being pushed harder and harder on Israel. Release convicted blood thirsty Hamas terrorists serving multiple life sentences from Israel's jails, impose a ceasefire in Gaza, withdraw Israeli forces. 

There are a great many Israelis, including liberal, progressive Israelis, including families of hostages, including a great many soldiers and reservists, who are very worried about releasing Hamas terrorists in exchange for hostages, who are furious at the prospect of a deal which means a ceasefire, granting Hamas the reward they wanted for the atrocities of October 7th - the release of their murderous terrorists and their brutal regime intact to commit a rerun.

I've been to shiva after shiva after shiva after shiva, where tearful parents and spouses entreat whomever will listen: let the IDF finish the job, don't give Hamas a victory, don't give them a reward for what the did on October 7th, don't let our family's sacrifice have been in vain, don't leave Gaza without destroying Hamas, without getting the murderers who planned and carried out October 7th, don't give Hamas the reward of releasing more murderers (including the Nukhba squads who carried out October 7th) to murder more Israelis.

Sinwar and a whole ton of Hamas nasties who've killed loads of Israelis were released during the Gilad Shalit deal and we are still paying a hugely bloody price for that, including October 7th. It was the same with the fallout from the Jibril deal (also thanks to a Likud govt), later in the aftermath of Rabin's attempt to solve the issue by exiling freed Hamas people to Lebanon (where they learned the fine art of suicide bombing).

This is part of Hamas' psychological war against Israel. Do you pay any price to release the hostages knowing that in doing so you will be releasing unrepentant mass murderes who will kill again, meaning that you are paying for the release of the hostages with the blood of the Israelis who will be murdered by the released terrorists? Because over and over again we have seen what Hamas and similar prisoners will do when they are released.

I don't know of anyone in Israel who does not want the hostages released safe and well. I know many who are opposed to this deal with Hamas. Not because they don't want the hostages home. Because they worry how many Israelis will be murdered and mutilated and yes, taken hostage, by the Hamas prisoners who will be released in such a deal. The Hamas list of demands includes some of the bloodiest and most murderous terrorists, responsible for multiple murders of Israeli civilians in recent decades.

My heart breaks for the hostages, but how many Israelis will be murdered or kidnapped if they are released in exchange for hundreds or thousands of terrorists in Israeli jails? Who will pay the price of the terror attacks and intifadas that will unleash?

The mitzva of pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captives/hostages) is a very important mitzva but the rabbis were very clear that when the price becomes so high that the community can't keep paying it, when the redeeming of hostages means that more and more will be taken hostage for ever greater ransom demands, then not only is one permitted not to pay the ransom, one is forbidden from doing so, because the price of freeing the current hostages will be that many more will be taken because the hostage takers will see that they can get whatever they want this way. We are facing just such a situation now. It is horrific, it is heartbreaking, it is an evil dilemma that I wouldn't wish on any government.

Red South

This is the Shokeda Forest in southern Israel during peak wildflower season in late January 2015. 

In a regular year this would be the season we'd head down to the Otef (Gaza border) region of Israel with our children to visit the beautiful profusion of red crown anemone flowers that bloom in vast meadows and Mediterranea woodland this time of year.

Over the years this developed in to a festival celebrating the region's nature, agriculture and arts known as "Darom Adom" (red south), attracting thousands of visitors over a few winter weekends. We would always pick a midweek afternoon to take the children after school so that we could enjoy the flowers at a quieter time before the crowds came and on the way home we'd catch a light dinner in Netivot or Sderot or stop by the stunning Ora orchards in Kfar Maimon.

When I heard the news on October 7 one of the first thoughts that went through my mind was "Darom Adom" and how now all I could think of was a very different "red south", one of blood, ashes and destruction rather than red and black anemone flowers.

The flowers are blooming again in the October killing fields where Hamas terrorists butchered hundreds of Israelis in cold blood during their surprise invasion of Israel on that nightmarish Shabbat Simhat Torah.

The winter rains are healing the land, wildflowers and trees covering up the wounded ground, growing around the burnt out homes and barns, the damaged trees.

This winter though there are no day trippers in the Otef the only visitors to see the flowers are the soldiers and security forces stationed in the area, the few local residents who've returned to work their farms and other essential industries, the throngs of volunteers helping local agriculture and solidarity missions from around the world coming to bear witness to the atrocities of October 7th.

This years' anemones are living memorials to the 1200 Iives so brutally cut down that day and to the many others wounded in body and soul, raped, mutilated and burned and the hundreds kidnapped to Gaza to months of horrific captivity, may the 136 still held hostage be set free to come home safely and soon. 

Darom Adom

In a normal year this is the season when profusions of wild red crown anemones bloom in the meadows and woodland of Israel's Gaza border region.Some of the most stunning places to see them are Shokeda, Beeri and Reim. Places with very different associations since the Hamas invasion of Israel and massacre, rape, torture and kidnapping of Israeli civilians on October 7th.

Darom Adom - Red South used to be about these magnificent native wildflowers. Today seeing this photo I took near Beeri a few years ago all I can think of is a very different Red South, one of blood and burnt out buildings and cars, horrific atrocities against Israeli and foreign expat babies, children, elderly, women and men.

This year I look at this photo and think of the heartbreaking memorial at Reim to the hundreds massacred at the music festival, silent signposts with photos of the victims standing upright in the open field like the winter anemones now blooming in the region.

Maybe the anemones are reminding us that fields of bloom can once again become full of life.