It’s still October 7

The 6 months since October cannot be described really. I’ve heard people use the term “rollercoaster”, but to me, most rollercoasters are fun, even if there are moments of fear while on the ride, when you get off the coaster at the end, you feel invigorated, elevated, on a high, you may even want to queue up to do it again.

This is not something that can be said about the reality since October 7th. Even when this war comes to an end, there will be nothing good about the feelings it will leave behind.

So many lives lost. So many lives changed forever. So many young people who have lost limbs, who have lost their friends. So many parents who have buried their children. So many grandparents who have buried grandchildren.
So many homeless. Refugees in their own country.
Cannot return home because they have no home to return to.
Cannot return home because it is not safe.
Cannot return home because of the trauma home now contains.

The world yet again has turned against Israel and the Jews. This tiny oasis in the Middle East. A paradise surrounded by enemies who want to annihilate her and her people, and who then want to go on and take over the West. The West who is so blind to the truth. The West who is so ignorant of the culture in this corner of the world. The West who bribes us to “stop the war” that we didn’t start, conveniently forgetting the complicity of the “civilians” they claim to be concerned about, in the actions of October 7th.

None of this should surprise me, and none of it really does. As the months go by, I understand more and more how the Holocaust happened, and how the Nazis got away with so much before the world intervened.
Today, with the instant access to photographic evidence, the live broadcast of the atrocities carried out by Gazans on October 7th, the world still continues to turn a blind eye. How much easier it was to turn a blind eye in the 1940s! When it took weeks for news to travel and for photographs to be developed.

No, we are not living on a rollercoaster right now. We are living on the hamster wheel of Jews and Israel. Round and round and round and round. Nothing changes. History repeats itself time and time again.

The only thing that we have to hold on to is our faith in God. Somehow we have to cling to that, and to believe in His Divine plan. I am not strong enough to allow that belief to hold me constantly. I am human after all. I cry most days, for the lives lost – those I knew, and those I do not. I cry for my son who is now a man, not because he is 20, but because of what he has seen. I cry for my daughters because I believe that one day they too will be mothers to children they will have to send to the army. I cry for them because of the friends they have lost, and the friends of friends, and the friends of friends of friends. Because we are a tiny country. There is no single person in Israel who has not been affected by this war. Everyone knows someone. Everyone has lost someone, or knows someone who has lost someone.
I cry for the hostages, alive and dead. Those who are still alive, may wish they were dead, for who knows what torture they are experiencing at the hands of these monsters. I cry for their families who just want them home. I cry for the children whose parents are gone, whose siblings are gone.
I cry for me, for the fear that envelopes me every time my son calls and says “I love you Mommy, they’re taking our phones”.

This is no rollercoaster. This is our lives. This is our existence. This is our past, our present and our future.
God, I cannot claim to know Your plan, I can only pray that the fate of these people will be like that of the others who have tried to destroy Your people. Just please hurry. Please.

If you’ve read this and would like to help us raise money for soldiers were lease use this link:

https://my.israelgives.org/en/fundme/IronSwordRelief

All money raised goes directly to help soldiers get equipment that can be lifesaving. Please specify Gdud 202/Elnadav Brooks at the end of your transaction in the box for messages. Thank you!

Post Pandemic Ponderings

My closest friends will tell you I’m not one for hugs. I’m just not the one who hugs a friend every time I see them. No reason really, it’s just not me. And yet, for the last couple of months, I have hugged almost every friend I’ve seen, and I’m loving every second of those hugs.

I’m not going to lie, the last year was the hardest for me since battling post partum depression back in 2003/4. But I’m not going to dwell on that right now. (Anyone who is battling depression, or just “feeling low” is welcome to contact me if they want to talk – mental health is SO important, and this year has possibly brought that to the forefront of people’s attention).

What I want to dwell on are the positive things that have come from this pandemic, at least for me.

1. I have learned that putting safety first in my business will pay off.

2. I have learned that Shabbat meals with just the 5 of us can last hours, with lots of laughter and plenty of conversation.

3. I have learned that we don’t need big parties, just having small gatherings of a few people is a beautiful thing.

4. I have learned that some kids do amazing “in” Zoom school, while others do not.

5. I have learned that opposing opinions among friends can actually strengthen a friendship (unless they’re anti-vax, those people have no place in my life).

6. I have learned that physical contact, aka HUGS, with people other than my immediate family, are a beautiful thing.

So, if I haven’t seen you for a while, and we run into each other some time soon, don’t be surprised if I give you a really big hug – it’s my post-pandemic prerogative!

A Maror of a Pesach

Pesach is my favourite of all the Biblical festivals. Despite all the cleaning and prep, I love the holiday, the different foods, the seder, the beginning of sunny days, visits with family and friends who are in Israel for the chag, and especially the preparations for Yom HaAtzmaut – flags start to go up during Chol HaMoed usually.

This year, I am going into the chag with very different emotions. Not only will we be having seder at home just the five of us, but in the last couple of weeks two of my aunts have become widows, 3 of my 1st cousins have lost their fathers, my parents have lost 2 brothers-in-law and my siblings & I have lost two uncles.

My Uncle Zvi passed away just over 2 weeks ago in London to COVID-19, and yesterday my Uncle John was taken from us in Leeds, also by this horrible virus that has changed our world in just a few short months.

This year, I am having trouble finding the joy in my preparation and cooking. I am finding it difficult to put enthusiasm into preparing for a holiday that celebrates freedom, at a time where I am forbidden to walk more than 100 metres from my home. When freedom truly seems very distant, and when I cannot imagine how, and when life will ever return to what it was before.

This year I cannot stop thinking about my parents, sitting for the first time ever, just the 2 of them for seder. About my two aunts, both newly widowed, sitting each one alone, their children and grandchildren so nearby, and yet not allowed to be with them. About my husband’s grandmother, Grandma Fran, also alone for the first time this Pesach. About all the single people living alone, and about all the divorced parents, whose children are not with them, because it is the turn of the other parent.

How do we celebrate Pesach this way? How do we find joy in this festival of freedom, when we are so far from the freedom that we all usually enjoy? When will we be freed from the bondage of this pandemic that has swept over the globe, taking so many loved ones from us? It is hard to believe, that even in the 21st century, with all the advanced medicine that we have, that something like this can still happen.

To end on a slightly more positive note, I want to thank all the medical personnel around the world – doctors, nurses, other hospital staff, scientists – who are working day and night to make this go away, and also to all the people still working in delivery services, supermarkets, pharmacies & restaurants, making sure that we can still get food & medicine during this crazy surreal time.

Wishing all my friends & family a Chag Kasher, and as Sameach as it can be, and looking forward to a time when all this is a distant memory.

Uncle Zvi with Aunty Val and my nephew Dudi

Uncle John

With love, for Grandpa Chick

Last Friday, my husband Keith’s grandfather passed away in Florida. He was 99.
As I wrote on Facebook yesterday, when I first met Keith, I thought “wow, he sure does talk about his grandparents a lot”.

As I got to know him better I understood that his grandparents were more like his parents. They have been the major adult figures in his life since he was a kid, and when I joined the family, Fran and Chick may as well have been my mother and father in-law, not my grandparents in-law.
For our children, Fran and Chick are just “Grandma & Grandpa”. We lived just around the corner from them for all of the kids’ lives until Israel. They had their first sleepovers at their house when they were still babies, and every Wednesday after school, right up until we moved to Israel, the kids went there and stayed until after dinner. Often Grandma Fran & Grandpa Chick had scavenger hunts waiting for them in the house, they taught them to play all kinds of games (including poker) and so many other things too.

Thankfully, Keith and his sister Heather were able to get to Florida in time to spend a few days with Grandpa Chick, and have some last conversations with him.  At the funeral yesterday they both eulogized him beautifully, and with Grandma Fran’s permission, Keith also read out the following eulogy that I wrote. I wrote it from the heart, I mean every single word, and I decided to share it, because the world today needs more Grandpa Chicks.

<<Grandpa Chick. Just Chick really. From the minute I walked into your life 20 or so years ago, you made me feel welcome. You treated me as if I was already part of the family, even long before Keith figured out that I should be part of the family.

A man of few words, something that drove Fran crazy, a trait you passed on to Keith, that drives me crazy, but you somehow managed to always let us know your opinion, and to let us know how much you love us all.

For Keith you’ve been a father figure, you taught him everything he knows, for better or for worse.

Every time Keith fixes something in the house, I send up a prayer of thanks to you Chick, because I know you taught him how to use tools, and how to try to fix just about anything. Maybe I should blame you for us having what was once a broken pinball machine in our apartment?

For my kids, Noffiya, Elnadav and Shalhevet, you were just Grandpa.

From the moment each of them was born, everyone else took a back seat – those great-grandchildren of yours are your pride and joy.

With each baby you couldn’t wait until they started solid food. You asked frequently “when can we give them Cheerios?” And once we introduced cereal, you would show up to feed them, making faces to get them to open their mouths and eat whatever it was.

For Elnadav you were sandek at his brit, and I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands steady. “Don’t worry,” you told me, “these hands won’t move a fraction of an inch” And they didn’t.

Just like you taught Keith so much, you taught the kids so much too.

Wednesday afternoons at your house were the highlight of their week while we still lived in Boca. You loved to help them with homework, even though I told you they should do it on their own. You taught them how to play Rumikub, but you never let them win. You taught them how to play cards too, and all three of them play a mean hand at poker.

You taught them how to hide candy from Grandma Fran, as long as they shared it with you. You taught them that sharing French fries is okay, as long as Grandma doesn’t see you take them.

For a man of so few words, you managed to say so much.

In 2011, at the age of 91, you called me and asked me if I could come over and help you set up Facebook. I asked you how come you wanted to join the world of social media, and you told me all the kids are doing it, and you don’t want to miss out. When Facebook wouldn’t accept your name, Channon, or your date of birth, we had to appeal to them and argue that your given name is really Channon Band, and that you were in fact born in 1920. And so you joined Facebook. And I had to start being careful what I posted, because sometimes I got a phone call from you asking why didn’t I tell you that one of the kids was home sick from school, or how come you found out on Facebook that I wrote another blog post. That was when I showed you how to subscribe to my blog.

While I am sorry that the kids and I didn’t get to see you one last time, I am happy that our memories of you will all be good. When we think of Grandpa Chick, we will think of your always cheerful disposition, your sense of humor, the funny faces you would make every time Grandma Fran chastised you about something, and your seemingly endless patience. You put the “great” into grandpa.

99 and a half years sounds like a long life when you say it out loud, but for us, it seemed you would be here forever. You were a constant in all of our lives, and now you’re not. You didn’t suffer at the end, and for that all of us are grateful. That was the only thing the kids wanted to know, when I explained to them what we knew was going to happen. Does it hurt him, they asked. Is he feeling any pain? And I was pleased that I could tell them no, that you were awake and able to communicate with Keith, Heather and Grandma Fran, almost until the very end. Because they didn’t want Grandpa Chick to feel pain, when he had so often kissed their boo-boos away.

Your physical being may have left this world, but your spirit will always remain here with us, and Noffiya, Elnadav and Shalhevet, have the most wonderful memories of you that they will some day share with their own children, God Willing.

As for me, I want to say thank you. Thank you for the unconditional love. Thank you for the endless patience. Thank you for making me always feel like I am your granddaughter, and not just married to your grandson. And thank you for your grandson  Keith. He is who he is because of you. So for that I thank you the most.

May your memory be always for a blessing. We love you more than you’ll ever know. >>

 

 

Five Years!

Last week was the fifth anniversary of our family making aliya (and of my return to Israel). A few weeks before we left Florida we made a batmitzvah for my eldest daughter. This weekend, we celebrate the batmitzvah of my youngest daughter, who was 7 when we arrived here. Feels like a full circle!

I asked my now 17 year old daughter if she could write a guest blog post again this year, but she simply doesn’t have the time. How so? It’s still summer vacation, doesn’t she have plenty of time to laze around doing nothing?

Not really, actually. In fact, I have hardly seen her all summer. She finished school towards the end of June,  having taken a number of bagrut (matriculation) exams. She will take the rest of those over the course of next school year, and by next June she will be done with High School. As soon as she was done with her last exam (and I mean, like they went straight from school), she and five of her closest friends took a bus to Jerusalem, and then another bus to Tiberias, and then a third bus to a beach on the Kinneret where they camped for 2 nights. (And for those of you reading this who live here, it was a quiet beach, where loud music and parties are not allowed). 6 girls, camping on the banks of the Sea of Galilee for a couple of nights. They did a little hiking (a very little), spent time in the fresh springs near by, and spent time relaxing by the water.

Once she returned home, relaxed from a couple of days of fresh air, she immediately began work for the Scout summer camp. All this past year, my daughter has been “Head of the storage room” in Scouts, a title which has led us to tease her quite a bit. But there is really no room for teasing, because all year long she has worked extremely hard to maintain a very orderly store room, take stock constantly, and make sure that everything needed for every trip is always where it needs to be. She spent full days, from early in the morning until late at night at the Scout building, along with other active Scouts, including her 15 year old brother.

On the morning that the leadership went up to get the  campground ready, both my teens were dropped off at 5:15am for their 2 hour bus ride north. They spent the next 3 days building the camp area, and then relaxing over Shabbat. The kids start arriving on Sunday morning. You can read all about the amazing, incredible Scout camp here on my friend’s blog. While my son stayed up in camp for a full 10 days, my daughter returned late on Saturday night, because she had a concert to go to on the Tuesday night. She got back at 11pm on Saturday night, but left at 6:30am Sunday morning, to go back up to the Kinneret for another night with the same friends! She returned Monday night, went to her concert Tuesday night, and early Wednesday morning, returned to Scout camp, by hitching a ride with a parent who was driving up for the day to cook. Then she stayed up there until Friday when the leadership take it all down and come home – the kids all return Thursday.

Since her return, she has been no less busy. As she is already in the process of being recruited by the army, she has spent a couple of days at various army events that she was invited to. Lots of testing, and teamwork type exercises, all with complete strangers. Eventually, all the scores from all these things help the army figure out what role she will be most suited for. In addition, she’s been babysitting whenever she can. And even though Zofim (Scouts) is technically over until the beginning of the school year, for the kids in leadership it’s non-stop. She now has her role for next year, and since being told what she will be doing, she has been busy meeting the people who will be directly under her, or directly above her, spending her own hard earned cash on little gifts for everyone, and fun things for the kids. My son has also been busy with Scouts since camp ended, as next year sees his move into being a leader.

So, when she told me she really didn’t have time to write a guest blog, there wasn’t much I could say!

 

Eye on the prize

Pesach is over, the temperature is rising, the sun is shining. Tourism Season has begun. So has Aliyah Season.

With summer fast approaching, so too are the dates of Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flights from the US to Israel for those taking the plunge and making Israel their new home. Summer is aliyah season, especially for families with school aged children, because it makes more sense to come in time for the new school year. Just five years ago, we stood in your shoes. We waited for confirmation from the Jewish Agency and NBN that our status had been approved, and that we could be on the flight of our choice. We waited to hear from our realtor in Rehovot, that he had seen apartment that would work for us. We waited for the shipping companies to give us estimates. We waited for confirmation from schools that our children had where to go on September 1.

Five years in (feels like more), I’m offering advice to those arriving this summer. Keep your eye on the prize. Remember why you’re doing this.

You’re not making aliyah for the paperwork and bureaucracy.
You’re not making aliyah for the socialized medicine.
You’re not making aliyah for the superior education system.
You’re not making aliyah for the bigger house or car.
You’re not making aliyah for the higher salary.
You’re not making aliyah for the premium online shopping.

You are making aliyah because no matter where in country you choose to live, you will be no more than a few hours away from Jerusalem.
You are making aliyah because no matter where you walk, you are walking in the footsteps of your ancestors.
You are making aliyah because you will no longer be a minority, but part of the majority.
You are making aliyah because even in a non-religious school your children will celebrate the Jewish holidays.
You are making aliyah because your children and grandchildren will defend our country on behalf of Jews around the world.
You are making aliyah because you can live the life that previous generations could only dream of.

There will be days when you wonder why you did it.
There will be days when you feel like a complete alien.
There will be days when you cry.
There will be days when you get yelled at.
There will be days when you do all the yelling.
There will be days when your kids tell you they hate you for bringing them here.

But remember this: Keep your eye on the prize.

להיות עם חופשי בארצנו, ארץ ציון וירושלים

 

Letter to my daughter in Poland

My eldest daughter has spent the past week in Poland with her school. From the time we arrived in Israel and she learned that most schools here make the trip to Poland in 11th or 12th grade, she said she wanted to go. Since last May, when she signed up for the trip, the school has spent days and weeks educating the girls, both historically and psychologically, what to expect. They left before dawn last Monday morning, arriving in a cold, wet Warsaw around 8am, and went immediately to a Jewish cemetery. They have traveled the routes traveled by our own ancestors, visited towns and cities where Judaism once thrived, and seen the horrors of Treblinka, Majdenak, and the woods of Zbylitowska Góra where there are mass graves of Jews, including thousands of children, shot to death by the Nazis. Tomorrow, Sunday, is the final day of the trip, one that is spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Parents were asked to send a letter to their daughters for them to read over Shabbat, which they spent in the city of Krakow. Below is an edited version of the letter that I wrote to my daughter. It was originally written 2 weeks ago, but I have modified it slightly to reflect the anti-semitic murderous attack that killed 11 Jews in Pittsburgh just one week ago.

‏

<<I am writing this on Erev Shabbat Lech Lecha, when Hashem commanded Avram to leave his homeland and his birthplace, and to go the land that Hashem would show him. In the parasha, we see Avram’s blind faith in Hashem, how he was willing to leave behind everything that was familiar to him, to follow Hashem.

For thousands of years, the Jewish people yearned to return to Zion, to the Land of Israel, after the exile and the destruction of the Beit haMikdash. The area that makes up the Promised Land has been controlled by so many different powers during these years of Diaspora, and each of these governing people played some role in making sure there was no official Jewish homeland.

Finally, in 1947, immediately following the genocide committed in Europe by Hitler and the Nazis, the British Mandate came good on the Balfour Declaration of 1917, to give the Jewish people their own state. There are those who believe that the only reason the modern state of Israel exists is due to the guilt felt by the world following the Shoah. These people believe that if it weren’t for the Shoah, we would never have our State of Israel, and we would not have been able to establish a Jewish homeland in the Biblical land that was promised to Avraham our patriarch in Parashat Lech Lecha.  I choose to believe differently. I believe that while the Shoah was a factor in us getting back our homeland, the realization of the dream, the establishment of the state, is nothing short of a miracle. You see, as soon as Israel declared independence, all Arab nations surrounding us declared war on us. We had no proper army. Our army was made up of various underground movements who had resisted British, a haphazard group of people with little military training. We had newly arrived immigrants from Europe, (many of whom had arrived illegally, due to British limitations set on the number of Jews allowed to land in Israel in those post-war years) survivors of horrors worse than anyone could imagine, recovering from years of starvation and illness and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who immediately joined forces to fight for their new homeland. It is only by God’s Hand that Israel won that war. As you know, that was only the first war, many more have followed, and still our enemies try to wipe us from the face of the Earth.

When I asked if you were anxious about your trip to Poland, you answered that you were not. You said that you hoped to get some clarity from it, some more understanding of what happened, and to find some connection to your past, to our past.

I have never been to Poland, nor do I have any desire to go. From what I understand from others who have made the trip, the last day is the hardest day.  Auschwitz-Birkenau is always described as devastating – people who didn’t know they could feel such deep emotion, describe how it is impossible not to feel the souls of all those murdered there. Just the sheer size of the place, makes it impossible to digest how many were murdered there.

Yours is the second generation to grow up with the State of Israel as fact and reality, rather than a dream and a prayer. It is difficult to communicate to you and to your siblings and friends, the true meaning of Zionism and why it is so important. Your great-grandparents, and even your grandparents, remember the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. They remember the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in a unified, free Jerusalem, giving us access to the Old City and the remnants of the Beit haMikdash. It is easy to take this for granted today – that you can hop on a bus and then the light rail in Jerusalem, and show up at the Kotel whenever you feel like it. But we must never take any of it for granted. We must always remember the days when we didn’t have a country of our own, and when we had a country of our own, but no access to the holiest of places for the Jewish people.

Today’s fight is different. We have to continue to fight the BDS movement which does its best to put Israel in a negative light all around the world. When we hear people saying that Israel is an apartheid country it is up to us to show the world that this is not the case.  The Palestinians do not want a 2 state solution – their vision is a single state that is devoid of all Jews. As a Jew, and as an Israeli, it is your job and your duty to educate others, to make sure that they see the truth, the real Israel.

As we learned last Saturday night, anti-semitism is alive and well. Exactly one week ago, eleven Jews, praying in their synagogue on Shabbat morning, just as we do every single week, were murdered, in an act not unlike those carried out by Nazis nearly 80 years ago. It can happen in Pittsburgh. It can happen anywhere. Where there are Jews, there are anti-semites.

I have no doubt that you will return from this trip changed. How can anyone visit Poland, and see what was lost, and not come back feeling changed? When we meet up at the Kotel on Monday morning, look at it with new eyes. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t see an ancient wall. Look again, and see all that is left of the Beit HaMikdash. Look again, and see the miracle that enabled us to reunite Jerusalem in 1967. Look again, and see how God is a part of everything that happens in Eretz Yisrael and Medinat  Yisrael. Look again, and see how the existence of the State of Israel is not a direct result of the Shoah, but the realization of a promise, and of a dream of thousands of years.

I can’t wait to see you on Monday morning. I am sure tomorrow will be a tough day, but hopefully you will return empowered, and believing that God exists, even though we may not understand how He works, and why He makes things happen the way that they do.  I pray that this trip has been all that you expected it to be, and that you return feeling proud to be Jewish and proud to be Israeli.>>

 

Friends Make My World Good

I’ve learned a lot about friendship in my 44 years.

I’ve learned that you have to work harder to maintain some friendships.

You have to decide which ones are worth the effort.

I’ve learned that some friendships will last the geographical distance, whereas others will simply fizzle out.

You have to decide whether or not this hurts you or makes you stronger.

I’ve learned that your best friends are not necessarily the friends with whom you agree with on everything, sometimes they are the ones with whom you frequently disagree. But because they are your friends, you can agree to disagree over and over and over again.

I’ve learned that my closest friends are the ones who are there for me, day in, day out, through thick and thin.

They may be the friends I have known for decades, or they may be the friends I’ve known for 6 months.

But they are there when I need them, and I want to be there for them when they need me.

I’ve learned that friendship is when I feel heartbroken along with a friend who is going through a difficult situation, and it is when I feel elated along with a friend who is celebrating something wonderful.

True friendship is being able to show up at a friend’s house unannounced, and that friend doesn’t care that she is in her pyjamas and hasn’t showered, or washed off last night’s makeup, and her house is messy, because she knows if you just showed up, you need to be with a friend right then.

True friendship is dropping everything, without a second thought, to rush to help your friend in need, no matter what the reason, no matter what your plans were.

Nothing has happened that prompted me to write this.

I just feel blessed that I am surrounded by true friends.

I feel lucky to have friends to whom I can turn when I need to.

I am grateful that with my friends, I do not have to hold my tongue and refrain from saying what I really think – even if I know that not a single one of my friends agrees with my opinion.

That’s okay, our friendship will survive our conflicting views.

To all my real friends reading this, you know who you are. I love each and every one of you, even when I think  you’re being a crazy paranoid hypochondriac (not necessarily all at once)

Reactivated

If you knew me 25 (okay, a little more) years ago, you might remember me a little differently to how you know me now. Most of the people I have met since 1998, when I left Israel after 7 years of living here, likely think of me as a passive, somewhat liberal person. Certainly no one would think of me as a political activist. No one who has known me only post 1998 could imagine me, standing  on a hill opposite the Knesset, or standing in the street near the Prime Minister’s house in Jerusalem, surrounded by like minded people, demonstrating against something we believed would ruin us.

When I arrived in Israel at the tender age of 17, I had minimal knowledge of modern Israeli history beyond the basics. Ottoman Empire. British Mandate. 1948. 1967. 1973. Lebanon War. Gulf War. I came here eager to learn Hebrew, not history,  but history classes were mandated as part of the Mechina (preparatory) programme for overseas students at Hebrew University, so I chose classes I thought would be easy. Within a few months I had learned so much more about this  country we Jews call home.

Towards the very end of my first year there were elections. I remember staying up until the early hours of the morning as the results came in, watching in disbelief with a small group of friends, as it became apparent that a coalition would be formed headed by Yitzhak Rabin and his Labour party. This government brought us the Oslo Accords.

In the weeks leading up to the signing of these accords I spent my every spare moment demonstrating against them. Every night we stood in large groups, for hours, protesting that there would be no peace. How can there be peace with people who don’t recognize our right to exist? How  can there be peace with people who chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”?

Our voices weren’t heard. The accords were signed. The Prime Minister of our Jewish country shook hands with the leader of a terrorist organization, a man with so much Jewish and Israeli blood on his hands, that no amount of bleach could clean them. What has Oslo brought us? Only more  violence, more hatred, more senseless murders, suicide bombings on our buses, in our malls, hotels. More recently, since the complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip in 2005, rockets hitting deep into Israeli territory, tunnels allowing terrorists to infiltrate into Israel, and since earlier this year, Molotov cocktails attached to kites and balloons.

Somewhere along the way, between September 1993 and October 1998 I stopped fighting. I gave up. I became passive. What’s the point in constantly arguing when no one is listening? Why waste my time, my breath when all around me there is terror. So I just stopped. I moved away. It took me 16 long years to find my way back. I remember watching from far away the protests before the disengagement from Gaza. I cried while watching Jewish soldiers forcibly evict Jewish people from their homes. And I wondered “why are they bothering to resist? Their voice will never be heard. It’s not worth it. Give up”

I barely knew Ari Fuld z”l. I  met him a couple of times when he came to speak in Boca when we still lived there. I ran into him a few times since we moved back to Israel. We chatted on Facebook at length, about 5 years ago when he was considering a trip to the UK to fundraise for Standing Together, and I was trying to get him some connections in London. I would see Ari post on Facebook and wonder “does he never sleep?!” because on the same day he would post photos of the sunrise in Efrat, and then videos from the Kotel in Jerusalem in the middle of the night. His video messages were so passionate and full of energy, you couldn’t help but smile, and I just wished for a little bit of that energy. I can’t quite put into words the shock I felt Sunday when I first heard that it was Ari who was stabbed in the Gush. I got a message on whatsApp from a friend, but it wasn’t until I actually heard his name on the news an hour later that I began to process.

Like so many others, I have spent this week grieving, praying on Yom Kippur perhaps with more fervor, but also with more questioning (why? why do You always take the best ones?). At the end of Yom  Kippur, when we sang “Next Year in a rebuilt Jerusalem” I meant it more than ever before. I’ve also spent this week thinking about what I can do. I can share Ari’s messages, I can post on social media, I can donate to the fund set up in his memory. But I want to do more.

Something inside me has been reactivated. The me from 25 years ago is fighting her way out from deep within. I no longer want to be regarded as passive. I don’t know how to start, but I’m going to find a way. Last night I went to the Kotel. It was late, it was easy to get up to the old wall and touch the stones as I davened, and from the angle I looked up, it was like there was nothing on top, just an empty space waiting for the Beit haMikdash to be rebuilt. May it be Your will, God, that the Temple is rebuilt soon, and that Mashiach comes to redeem us all.

Empty space on Har HaBayit just waiting for the 3rd Temple to be built

Home is where the?

One of my clients asked me yesterday “where do you call ‘home’?”

It’s not a simple question for anyone who lives someplace other than the place they were born and/or grew up. My husband, for example, was born in Detroit, but if you ask him where he’s from, he will say “Florida” or “Miami”, because that is where he grew up from the time he was a baby. Ask me where I’m from, and I will counter with “originally, or where did I come from this time?” But the answer to the question “where are you from?” is not the same as the answer to “where do you call ‘home’?”

We are in the midst of my favourite time of year in Israel. Spring. Spring doesn’t last long here; the pleasant, sunny, warm days with breezy nights, quickly become the never ending, humid, hot summer. But it’s not just the season of Spring that I love. It is everything that Spring in Israel brings on the calendar.

The blue and white starts to appear just before Pesach. The city streets get decorated with flags and streamers. There is something in the air. Slowly but surely, more flags show up on apartment buildings, office blocks and cars. The pre-Pesach sale of wine and matza becomes a sale of disposable grills, beer and blue and white marshmallows.

This year is particularly special, this the 70th celebration of our little country’s independence. All year in school, the kids have been doing special projects to commemorate 70 years of the State of Israel. My parents’ generation saw it happen, watched a 2000 year old dream become a reality.  My generation is the first to grow up with the State of Israel as an established fact, a vacation destination for many, the place so many of our friends came for a “gap” year after High School, and for the rest of us, the country we have chosen to call “Home”.

It’s been almost four years since we arrived as a family. I can say with absolute certainty now that this was the best decision we ever made. I can say with complete clarity that my children have been successfully absorbed. They switch easily and flawlessly from English to Hebrew. They  have that air of confidence that I thought was only possible in Sabra kids. They have trekked across parts of the country that I have yet to discover and slept under the stars. The older two have already compiled lists of their preferences for the army. The youngest walks all over the city alone, coming home only when it’s getting dark, something I cannot imagine allowing a 10 year old to do elsewhere.

Where do I call home? There’s a little bit of home in each of the places I have lived.

Dublin, where I was born and grew up until at 17 I came to Israel. I have no family left there now, and only a few friends. I haven’t visited for more than 5 years, and have no plans to return right now.

London, my second home for so long as a child, and the place I lived for 3 years after my first stint in Israel. With my parents and all my siblings and nephews and nieces there, the pull is strong, and I love to visit. The feel of “home” is strong there, but I think it’s more a feel of familiarity. I didn’t enjoy living there.

Boca Raton, my home for thirteen years. I recently returned for the first time since we came back to Israel. I love Florida, I can’t lie. It was great to be back. It was wonderful to see Keith’s grandparents and so many of our friends. I really really really enjoyed driving a minivan for a week, on wide, six lane city streets, and easily parking it in any parking space. I had fun at Target, at Ulta and Marshalls. But you know what? I spent most of the time at the wheel of that minivan thinking “was this really my life for so long?” and then laughing. It seems so foreign now, so different and so not really me.

Israel. Grand total of almost 11 years living here. Most definitely Home. No explanation – none necessary. But this is just it. It’s just where we’re supposed to be.

Where do I call home? Home is where the heart is. And my heart is right here.