Tuesday, Day 4

Jerusalem was quiet today. Our neighborhood is called German Colony, or Moshava Germanit in Hebrew. It was established in the mid 1800's as a German Templer Colony, on land purchased from the nearby Arab village. The Templers were Christians who broke away from the Protestant church and encouraged their members to settle in the Holy Land to prepare for the Messiah. The British Mandatory government deported the German Templers during WWII fearing they were Nazi sympathizers. The Christian Arabs who also lived in the neighborhood fled when Israel became a state in 1948. At first these vacant homes were used to house new Jewish immigrants, and it has gradually become a vibrant enclave, filled with many English-speaking residents. There are many shops and restaurants on the main street, Emek Refaim which is one block away from our apartment. Today there were few people on the street, everyone is laying low. 

 It was not quiet in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and many of the towns near the Gaza border. Hamas continues to bombard Israel with rocket after rocket. Israel is now in control of the border, and has begun the horrific task of entering the kibutzim and villages to find the murdered victims. We learned today that 40 babies were butchered in Kfar Aza. Images of body bags are being shown in the reports on tv. They said that the foreign press is now allowed in, so maybe you are seeing these images too.

Our rabbi from Berkeley is on his way here to mourn the loss of his nephew with his family. The family that made aliyah from Berkeley was part of a press conference today to talk about their son, missing from the desert festival.

To distract ourselves today, we cleaned the apartment. Scrubbing floors, vacuuming and doing laundry were tasks that helped us take our minds off the war, even if only for a couple of hours.

I leave you with a poem by Chaya K-L, a friend of ours who was a classmate of Noah's at Pardes in 1997, made aliyah, and lives here with her husband and children.

The Mourning After

 

the streets are empty

the heart, over-run

with a slight hint of numb

with a slight hint of stunned

with a slight hint of

Oneness

with everyone

as we walk the dog

we encounter

'the morning after'

'the mourning after'

first its Moshe down the street

he slouches into the bench

drowned in his phone, he moans

we rush to his side

he can not speak, nor can we

he finally lifts streaming eyes

and tells us his friend's son

was just confirmed

slaughtered

at the festival in the South

we are speechless

and hold his grief

a tender but distant tragedy

and then he says,

'wait, you knew him too'

and it's true

the son of our friend

we mourn together on the empty street

murmur condolences

and stumble forward with the dog

next its 2 young reservists

with packed bags on shoulders

and war-time wailing cellphones

they are headed South

towards life and death

but first grab a coffee and

a smoke for the way

a smoke for the way

a smoke for the way....

we thank them and bless them as if they were our own kin

as we make our way to the shuk

it's a ghost town

except our coffee joint

where we ask total strangers how their hearts are holding

we express into our espressos

a shared and baffled agony

raise a muddy l'chaim

to each other and this new day

and are on our way

home

to find our 8 year old son

wrapped in a pink blanket on the couch

with a stream of questions in his mouth,

'how many soldiers do they have?'

'And how many soldiers do we?'

'why don't we fly to grandma and pop pop in america?'

'will there be classes on Zoom?'

'will there be peace?'

we piece

together impossible answers

with all our hearts

the morning after

...the mourning after

We are all together...

Torn apart