Jerusalem is full of loving kindness… and cats who need good homes

I’m sitting at the pub at the end of the world, the place where all worlds meet.

The mulled wine warms my hands, the heat lamp warms my shoulders, and the half-eaten moon hangs above us.

We’re a boisterous group tonight: me, the spiritual mayor of Jerusalem, a diplomat with a perfectly folded scarf, and, because it’s hooligan night, a football match somewhere in the background like distant thunder. Our friend Nili has joined us.

Nili usually sits inside.

She takes her place at our table under the heat lamp and sighs, settling in with her drink — an Aperol Spritz.

Her cigarette curls smoke around her.

Nili does the Lord’s work.

Rain or sleet or scorching Jerusalem sun, she has been at the hostage tent every single day. She wears tape on her shirt with the number of days since October 7 — changing it every morning. She carries a clipboard and urges strangers to volunteer, to bear witness, to do something.

All of us care in our own ways, but Nili shows up. She is a doer. One of the 36 righteous souls on which the world tilts and shudders and somehow stays standing.

The usual suspects drift through. Drinks clink. Laughter bubbles. The night is loud and alive.

And then one of our friends falls quiet.

“I don’t want to bring the mood down,” he says softly, “but I came from my friend’s funeral. He was one of the hostages… Dror… he was such a special guy. We met at a course to be yoga instructors…”

The whole table stills. The pub noise fades, like the world remembers it is Jerusalem and knows when to bow its head.

“Do you want a hug?” I ask.

“To be honest? Yes. But I wouldn’t know what to do with it now,” he says.

He breathes in, slow.

“I’m grateful I live in Jerusalem,” he goes on, “where I have my local places, and I know I’ll always find friends and…’chesed’ [kindness]. I don’t need to call a support group. I can just show up, and the support is here.”

We sit with that. The night wraps around us, both tender and sharp.

“Well,” Nili says suddenly, flicking ash from her cigarette, “speaking of chesed, anyone want to adopt a cat?”

I burst out laughing. It was so random, so perfectly her, spoken from her quiet corner of the table like a decree from a very tired angel.

“I’m serious!” she insists. “Remember the hostage Omer Neutra? We all believed he was alive — we really believed it. And he loved cats. And then this cat showed up at the hostage tent. Every day she came. She’d sit with us, just a gentle, steady presence. We said she was his cat. And now the tent is closed, and she needs a home.”

“Is she healthy?” someone asks.

“We thought she was pregnant,” Nili says. “Took her to the vet. Turns out she just has abdominal fat. I asked, ‘Me or the cat?’ The vet said the cat needs a diet. I told him, ‘What, you want me to take her to Pilates?’ Anyway, she’s healthy. She got her teeth cleaned. She’s perfect. She just needs someone to love her. She should have been Omer’s cat.”

We fall quiet again — but this silence is different. Softer. Like something settling into place.

In Jerusalem, it is easy to find cats who need homes. And it’s just as easy to find kindness and folks who show up for one another.

So I’m sharing the story here, in case one of you reading this wants to help.

There is a cat in Jerusalem — steady, gentle, loyal — who stayed at the hostage tent until the very last day.

She was meant to be Omer’s.

Maybe she’s meant to be yours.