Darkened Windows

Israeli life is intense. News reports underscore this daily, helped by videos of demonstrations, street confrontations, and Knesset debates, along with interviews of people who have suffered injury or loss, or who founded or work at volunteer organizations set up to help those who deal with such challenges.

And of course there are other reminders of the intensity of Israeli life: az’akot, alarms, when people at all hours of the day or night dive for cover.

Yet life goes on. People walk the streets. Vehicles cram the roads. Coffee shops and restaurants fill with chatting friends.

Of course life goes on. What else should it do?

In any case, things are calm and regular, until—reliably but unpredictably—they aren’t.

Israelis love to travel. They want to see the world, but they also crave a break. Which they may get, unless they don’t. A neighbor flew to Thailand. As she checked in, she got a security alert: threats to Israelis in her area called for caution. She spent her week abroad in her hotel room.

And then of course wars flare up. People must get home, to be with family or to rejoin army units.

Life proceeds. Tension stays, mostly, subliminal. Until the reminders.

You are abroad, near an airport. Something roars overhead. You tense, look up. Then you see an airplane. Ah, yes, airplanes do take off and land at airports, don’t they? Not just jets on missions.

Back home, outdoors, a quiet roar begins. swells. Then you see it is a motorcycle. A siren wails, from somewhere. Your eyes dart. Are people ignoring it, or diving for cover?  Right, it is just an ambulance, heading for a hospital. Only a private emergency.

But life proceeds. My vantage is Jerusalem, somewhat safe from missiles on account of nearby Muslim holy places. Still, alarms come when they come, to be dealt with when they do.

Some reminders show up in surprising places.

We had an early-morning appointment at Hadassah Hospital. Because Hadassah is labyrinthine, I reconnoitered the place two days early, to make sure I knew which building to enter and which corridors, unadorned by helpful signs, to follow, and for how long.

On the way back out I saw a sign pointing to the Chagall windows. I had heard about these forever and seen pictures. Now here I was.

I followed the arrow and entered an almost empty Bet Knesset. I looked up. It took time to realize what I was seeing or, better, not seeing.

An Israeli woman called out to a man sweeping the floor. “I can’t see the windows,” she said. “Can someone turn on the lights or something?”

The man shook his head and went on sweeping.

Two days later, after our appointment we passed the small Hadassah Museum down one of the corridors, and went in. Nicole greeted us, a pleasant woman who came to Israel from Switzerland forty years ago. She pointed to a full-length photo of Henrietta Szold, shown as an old, severe woman with a suitcase. Szold came to Palestine from Baltimore in 1909, because her male friend had dropped her for a younger woman. “That never happened before,” Nicole noted wryly.

Szold met with friends and supporters of a proposed new hospital on Purim in 1912.

“Why do I tell you it was Purim?” Nicole asked. “What was Queen Esther’s original name?”

Hadassah. How about that?  We’d missed that 1912 fund-raiser.

We asked about the darkened windows. When might they be visible?

“Windows must be protected from nearby explosions,” said Nicole. “Chagall is not here anymore to fix them. So, in war, they are sandbagged.”

Chagall installed the windows in 1962. They were partially shattered during the Six-Day War in 1967. Chagall oversaw their repair. He passed away in 1985.

Darkened windows. Oh yes, there is a war. There was another war. There were….

No need. Everyone knows.

Perhaps being on constant, intermittent alert pays dividends: resilience, energy, innovation, courage, maybe even fertility. Cause and effect?  Who’s to know? No life is a controlled experiment. This is where Israelis live ours.

Meantime, life proceeds, often to be savored with pleasure, warmed by solidarity, suffused with meaning. Best to focus on those.

At least until the next reminder. A growl on the Home Front app. A siren’s wail. Darkened windows.