Alarmingly Normal
Repeated messages from different people prove I’ve failed to convince them that, despite atrocities in Gaza, life in Israel is peculiarly normal.
Let me try again. Every weekday morning, I head for my daily two-kilometer swim. Disregard my allusions to anxiety lest we need to rush out of the pool for shelter. It’s only happened to me twice – no big deal. While swimming, I calculate, if there’s a siren, will I resume swimming or not? Depends: office day or work-from-home day, what time my first meeting is, how the siren might delay others.
Routine. Disruptive thoughts remind me it’s normal. Recalling scuds from Iraq during the Gulf War, and my swimming routine then.
Routine. Worried about my swimming routine? Really? Children orphaned in Gaza. Homeless. Do children join together or follow adults to a new tent when the IDF warns of another pending attack? Or does Israeli intelligence about a Hamas leader on site render considerations of endangering children’s lives negligible? I don’t know the accuracy of presumptions in these questions I’m not asking, but I condemn what the government of Israel perpetrates. Normal. Becoming more normal, for more people.
But Iran.
Routine. Thought mode off. Work. Avoid doom scrolling. Avoid headlines. Concentrate. Write a project update about its measurable impact. Normal. Routine. Lunch. Webinar: participate, simultaneously writing something else. Evening news. Switch channels, avoiding despicable politicians. Pictures of destruction in Gaza too rare to require switching channels. Funerals, eulogies for fallen Israeli soldiers.
A hostage’s mother demands the return, immediately, of all hostages. Yes, ending the war. Deal with the consequences. We could. We will have no choice. Consequences worsen as war continues. Some think differently.
Normal evening. Babysitting for three of our granddaughters. Their mother is celebrating her birthday with friends. Convinced we’re safe and sound, and life goes on as usual? Haim’s daughter celebrated with friends. Her husband is in the reserves, again, for a few days – a minor disruption to family routine.
It was the second day that Israel allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza, using new distribution methods and strategy. Our 5th-grade granddaughter entered the room. Closeup on food supplies on the screen. She asked why there was Hebrew on the packages? “Because we supplied them,” I explained. “Why,” she asked, “would we provide them with food after what they did on October 7?” Innocent people, I lamely explained, children in Gaza who can’t be blamed. She didn’t hesitate to remind me, the pictures that day: people in Gaza cheering.
I tried to explain differences between democracy (ostensibly) and Gazans’ fear (now seemingly waning) of protesting Hamas. With a child’s naivete, and her sensitivity, she asked why they don’t come to Israel if they don’t like Hamas. She knows about visas and entry permits, and I reminded her you can’t just decide to enter Israel and stay.
The same evening, her toddler and 1st-grade sisters refused to go to bed. We tried getting the 1st-grader to take her little sister to bed. It usually works. Not this time. Changing tactics, I suggested the 3-1/2-year-old take her older sister to bed – it was late, it would be hard to wake her up for school the next day. When her sister still refused to go to bed, the little one proposed the 1st-grader stay home the next day. Not an option, I said, because their mom has to go to work and the 1st-grader can’t stay home alone. The toddler understood. She mumbled explanations making sure we understood – there could be a siren, her sister couldn’t stay home because she’d have to run to the safe room alone. Babysitting. Normal.
A few nights later Haim’s daughter was at a concert-in-the-park in Tel Aviv – Art Garfunkle performed two songs alongside the Israeli performer. A siren. Performers didn’t hear it.
Shavuot approaching – my favorite holiday, for several reasons. One reason is food related. Although Erev Shavuot is my father’s yahrzeit, commemorating the date he died in 2021, traditionally Shavuot involves dairy menus. My dad loved New York cheesecake with rich Philadelphia cream cheese. In my heart, every cheesecake I make is for him. Normal. Cheesecake. Using lower fat cheeses. Now there’s worries: choosing cheeses for cakes and for spinach lasagna.
Children starving in Gaza. Turn-off mode turned on. Before the war, thoughts of starving people in different places made me feel bad, but admittedly, not to my credit, I moved on. Gaza. The government of my country has a hand in this. That’s a dismissive statement if I ever made one. (The 5th-grader’s voice on my mind holds Hamas responsible too.)
Shavuot – when we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Should I press turn-off mode for that thought too? Complex Torah messages, gory war stories, and some questionable commandments. But the legacy of a process initiated. Time and evolution of Jewish law, scholars and rabbis interpreting, offering commentaries, adapting practices. I believed Jewish tradition resonating from that book teaches tolerance, pluralism, justice, pursuit of peace. Now, Israeli Jews in the name of that Torah have confiscated my values, supported by a government; or the government hijacked my values endorsed by its Jewish Israeli constituency. This nightmare will end soon, healing will begin. Will sufficient public commitment surface to reinstate the Jewish values we receive anew, from the Torah, every Shavuot?
Repeatedly asking. Alarmingly normal.
