Memories of Nahal Oz

I went to high school with someone from Nahal Oz (her father's work took the family away from the kibbutz for a few years) and many years ago DH's cousin got married to someone from there in a beautiful, joyous, irreverent kibbutz wedding (the couple later set up their home elsewhere).

When I hear Nahal Oz these are the people and images that come to mind. Every time we drive by the area. Every time over the years I see it flash up with a rocket alert on my rocket siren app that just about everyone in Israel has the way people elsewhere might have a weather app.

I know the news is a dizzying blitz of place names most of you have never heard of, Beeri, Kfar Aza, Re'im, Nir Oz, Nahal Oz. Two weeks later and the horror stories merge in to each other, the murdered families, the butchered babies, the houses burnt with their residents inside, the elderly and children kidnapped to Gaza, even the family pets slaughtered for sport in the modest gardens and neat paths of these kibbutzim. Each place name a nightmare of gruesome photos and body bags, families wiped out, communities shattered. But please try to also remember the reality of what these places were, the modest agricultural communities, the special people, the idealism, the spirit of these places. The care and concern for each other and for their neighbours in Gaza. The many social initiatives locals were involved with. Their love of Israel and their for their fellow human being. This is what Hamas could not abide, this is what it so gleefully wanted to erase in its barbaric amok murder spree of its Israeli neighbours. Remember what Hamas did to these kibbutzim, but also remember what these kibbutzim were, what hopefully one day they will rebuild and become again. Keep this in your mind: a wedding in Nahal Oz, locals and guests in sandals and informal summer clothing in the heat of this semi-arid region in late spring. A makeshift outdoor hupa (wedding canopy) in the dusty, sandy soil with a backdrop of agricultural fields, a few dusty leaved eucalyptus trees. The sun low in the sky, glowing in to a gorgeous sunset. Depending on which direction the breeze is blowing there is a faint or not so faint smell of cow shed. Everyone is smiling and happy and a bit silly. The groom walks down the aisle to the theme from the Muppet Show. The bride to something Latin American. There's a lot of giggling and humour during the ceremony. And then dancing in the meadow near the hupa to music that spans modern Israeli and Middle Eastern pop, Latin American dance beats and golden oldie rock and roll. Simple, irreverent happiness and love.

I don't know what happened to the local people at that wedding, to the people from the kibbutz we were casually dancing with. To the couple from a neighbouring kibbutz I got chatting with. All these years later I don't remember names, just people I casually chatted and danced with at a wedding nearly 25 years ago. But each time a new death or kidnap notice is posted with a photo I'm afraid it will be one of those random smiling faces I remember from all those years ago at a wedding in Nahal Oz.

Mr Rogers said in times of fear or crisis or tragedy look for the helpers.

Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczno Rebbe, also known as the Esh Kodesh, said in times of fear or crisis or tragedy or when you are feeling down BE the helpers, be the people doing good, find someone else who is also hurting or sad or in crisis and find a way to help them.

Take the energy of pain and sadness and use it to help someone else.

That is all we can do right now.

Our lives on the line

This isn't about teaching Hamas a lesson, this is about defeating them so they can't keep killing us. This is about our survival.

When an entity invades your country, massacres, rapes and burns civilians, and takes hostages, you have no alternatives but to fight back.

This is about removing the guns and missiles Hamas has pointed at every Israeli and the Hamas army which has proved its enthusiasm for engaging in intentional indiscriminate mass atrocities across our border.

If we do not defend ourselves the ones teaching a lesson will be Hamas, and that lesson will be that Israel either can't or won't protect its civilians and that it is open season for mass murder of Israelis and Jews around the world. This is a war against a serious existential threat to our very existence.

It is a sick and depressing way to live, but at the moment we have no choice. We don't have any alternatives.

Broken hearts in the Negev desert

On the first day of the war, Shabbat Simhat Torah October 7th, Hamas unleashed a massive barrage of thousands of rockets targetting cities, towns, villages and farms all over central and southern Israel as cover for their invasion of Israel. In addition to the 1300 Israeli murdered by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza border area several more Israeli civilians were killed and wounded by rockets hitting homes, farms, vehicles and spraying open areas like fields and backyards with deadly shrapnel.

One of the areas worst hit was a collection of small Bedouin communities in the Negev desert. Several children and women, some from the same family, were killed by rockets hitting their villages. Other Israeli Bedouin were killed and injured by terrorists while working in the Gaza border area.

This is some of their story as told by Shalom Weil, a member of the regional council in charge of bereaved families (my quick translation of his Hebrew article):

As the regional council member with the dubious job of caring for bereaved families I call Jum'a and ask him how I can pay condolence calls for those murdered in the Bedouin diaspora in the Negev. How can I honour the memory of Bedouin pupils killed during the intense rocket bombardment last week?

Jum'a, the impressive school supervisor for the Bedouin sector listens for a moment. He then answers emphatically "You have to come and visit them. It's very important to them. It will honour them. I'll come right now and take you in my jeep from the Beer Sheva region, it will be fine."

We set off. The drive was over winding roads, then on to dirt tracks, climbing through hills, past makeshift homes. On the way he explained to me that the covenant between the Jews and the Bedouin is a covenant of blood going back to the days of the Palmah (the pre-state period underground). This covenant is strengthened today.

We arrive at the first mourners' sukkah (tent), between corrugated iron makeshift structures and sheep. Outside waiting for us in the sun is a line of barefoot men with red eyes.

Salam aleikum, shaking hands, greetings and blessings, and a hand over the heart as a sign of pain and condolences. We sit on a colourful rug, Jum'a and I cross legged, the mourners kneeling.

One of the children comes over to us with bottles of water, another with dates, another with a traditional finjan Bedouin coffee pot full of strong, bitter dark coffee.

I hear about the two children killed from the rocket which exploded on top of them in the sukka where they were playing. I ask where was the sukka? Right here, they point to the open area outside the mourning sukka in which we are sitting.

We return to the jeep and Jum'a explains to me that this is the first visit from a government representative to the bereaved families, and that is why they are all so emotional and moved, and even though the traditional three days of mourning have already ended they have turned out immediately to honour me and give respect to an official representative of the government. It turns out that the whole of the State of Israel is on my shoulders and I am her representative.

We go to the next mourners' tent, and the next. From there we drive to a more organised village, and when we arrive at the mourners' tent there the head of the local council, three sheikhs and a kadi (Islamic judge) are standing outside and waiting for us. The mourners are standing in the tent with red, tearful eyes full of pain.

With all the pain I can't ignore their pride in being visited by an official government representative who has come to honour them, and also the emotional way I hear over and over, with which they talk of faith in the Creator. "Everything is written".

One of the sheikhs asks to sit besides me. Tells me in shaky Hebrew and with profound shock about the atrocities of Hamas.

He told me that there was a woman in the community who was working in agricultural fields on that cursed Saturday morning. She was wearing the traditional modest long Bedouin robe typical of many southern Bedouin women. Hamas terrorists shot her 42 times, shot 42 bullets in to her and then desecrated her body.

She was found lying like that in the fields and returned home for burial.

"I see that you are also a religious man" he said "Are these acts that honour faith in Allah? These are beasts" he asserted "Inhuman beasts of prey."

In the sixth mourners' tent we visited I was already exhausted and full of dates, water and coffee. But nothing prepared me for the sight I saw. Outside the house lay two overturned, burnt out vehicles. They had been hit by a rocket which caused them to burst in to flames, killing the children who'd been playing nearby. The mourners' tent faced the site of the rocket strike, and the impact site was clearly visible to all who came to offer condolences. The bereaved father looked over at me, hurting and seeking comfort in his surviving children.

All was quiet.

Jum'a returned me to my car in Beer Sheva and as we parted ways the rocket alert siren sounded. We got out of our cars and lay flat on the ground. Another rocket hit the Bedouin communities of the south. This time without injuries.

My heart breaks and I feel sick to my stomach every time I think of Darom Adom, the annual late winter "Red South" festival celebrating the season's profusion of wildflowers, and the horrific new meaning that has now, how the bright red kalaniot (crown anemone flowers) will bloom this year from fields literally drenched in blood.

Helping hand

 We have seen many serious crises in Israel over the years but this is the most serious that we have experienced in our lifetimes. While we've tried to shelter the younger children from the horror of what happened to Israel's Gaza border communities they are aware of the rockets, the displaced people in our town, the general atmosphere of uncertainty.

It's hard being a little kid in the middle of this. Big brothers and sisters, parents, they have jobs to do, whether they are first responders, army reservists called up in the emergency draft, medical professionals, police or just ordinary grown-ups and teens who can give blood, volunteer or go to work.

If you're a kid of 8 or 9 or 10 or 12 though, what do you do? How do you feel like you are contributing or just exerting some control over this very tense and unsettled situation?

When I was growing up my mother would often quote teachings of the Piaseczno Rebbe, Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, also known as the Esh Kodesh after the posthumously published book of his teachings and writings during his time in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Rav Shapira did not survive the war but when it became clear that the Nazis were going to kill all the resident of the ghetto he and other Jews, such as Emanuel Ringelblum, historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, buried their writings in a metal box under the ghetto. One of my mother's treasured books was Esh Kodesh, this voice of hope, sadness and life from these Jews murdered by the Nazis who's words miraculously lived on to guide future generations of the Jewish people.

One of teachings of the Esh Kodesh that made the greatest impression on me and which I find myself passing on regularly to my children is that when you yourself are troubled, be it because you are sad, in difficulties or living through a national crisis, do not let yourself be brought down by that crisis or sadness, instead take that painful energy and find a way to help someone else.

Right now it feels like all of Israel is an embodiment of that idea, a nation in mourning galvanised en masse to bring more good, more light, in to a dark world in which evil has revealed itself in the most horrific way.

So DH and I, just like everyone around is, try to help the children to focus on doing, on helping, on extra mitzvot, actions that help to spread a little light, a little joy to the stressed, grieving, shocked people of Israel.

Whether it's baking hallot for our neighbours with family who've been drafted, delivering meals and care packages to elderly relatives or mothers home alone with kids while their husbands are at the front, drawing pictures with messages of encouragement to the many Israelis forced to flee their homes, collecting toys and games for children who lost everything in last week's attack or just bringing a smile to neighbours' faces by decorating apartment buildings with flags and positive messages. And davening and saying Tehillim for our country, for the missing, the wounded and the bereaved.

This isn't a brag or a eureka parenting moment, we aren't doing anything that our friends, neighbours and countrymen are doing all around the country. But if you're reading this in English it's really just an attempt to explain what it means to be in Israel in time of crisis, the ethos of mutual care and responsibility for one another, the strength of community and the commitment to our fellow citizens.

It's time to go to bed kids so you can do more mitzvot tomorrow.

Friday 13

It's hard to think that it's been a almost a week since this started, but also hard to think that it's only been a week because I feel like I have almost no memory of the time before, it seems like another lifetime. We are not the people we were last Friday. I don't think we will ever again be the people that we were last Friday. In the middle of all the bleak news we heard this week that DH's family from a kibbutz near the Gaza border were safe. The kibbutz security volunteers were able to fend off the terrorists who attacked their community for many hours until help could arrive, the army eventually getting through and evacuating the residents out of the battle zone. Their kibbutz suffered damage and even as they are safe now, being hosted in quieter areas, their beloved kibbutz continues to be hit by rockets shot over the border. If and when they are able to return they have no idea what will be left of it.