Jerusalem, missiles, and a minyan of rage in a traffic jam

Special education opened again in Israel today.

It’s always the first part of the school system to start again during a war.

And after two and a half weeks of this latest round, for the first time ever, I found myself actually grateful for my son’s autism diagnosis.

Why? Because he gets to go back to escuela.

Before you judge me, let’s be real: Any parent who isn’t losing their everloving minds at this point juggling work and kids and existential war is either lying or enjoyed a lobotomy.

The parents are tired.

This parent is tired.

And yes, obviously I’m also anxious. Yes, I’ll be checking the preschool WhatsApp group 37 times before pickup — more times than I’ve checked it since the start of the school year to be honest. Yes, I am already a little weepy.

But here’s the thing:

Our shelter is a Byzantine well that is literally 1500 years old, and is guarded by a three-headed dog named Baku with an attitude issue, and the Buena Vista Social Club all smoking cigars.

This is — by any stretch of the imagination — emphatically not ideal.

The school, on the other hand, has an actual shelter.

And a hot lunch.

And essential therapies.

And structure.

And an afternoon that does not involve Peppa Pig on a psychotic loop.

Look: Having any toddler home during a war is hard. Period.

Having one on the spectrum, who needs routine and competent adults — unlike his neurospicy mother who vacillates between magical whimsy and Tupac Shakur — is something else entirely.

So we head out into the morning.

The sky is a hopeful blue.

Look at the trees! — “Wow, mommy!”

Look at the birds! — “Tweet tweet!”

We get into the taxi.

And then

Look at the pre-alert EXTREME DANGER siren!

Oh FFS.

I ask the driver what the protocol is.

(I mean, do I invite him back to the Byzantine well? Is there coffee involved? What would the Vanderbilt book of Etiquette advise?!?)

The radio crackles: missiles headed for Ramle, Yavne, Nes Tziona, Modi’in, Jerusalem.

“We keep going,” he tells me. “If you keep moving, they can’t get you.”

This feels… scientifically questionable but whatever. I don’t have a better solution.

And so: we drive.

Weaving along the Old City walls.
Past the ramparts.
Silwan below us in flickers through the walls.
The Mount of Olives glowing in the early light like something eternal and completely indifferent to our nonsense.

And then…

We stop.

“Why are we stopping?” I ask, panic already climbing my spine.

(Because if you keep moving, they can’t get you.)

And we are very much not moving.

The driver points:
A truck the size of half the British army circa 1947 is blocking the Dung Gate.

Honestly, well played, Suleiman. Your anti-invasion infrastructure is still delivering centuries later. It’s truly… magnificent.

Behind us, a line of cars snakes back toward the Armenian Quarter.

Jews. Arabs. Everyone leaning on their horns.

A full minyan of rage.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen me have a panic attack.

It’s not pretty.

I go from peace, love, and whisky to velociraptor meets Libertarian in under thirty seconds.

And I’m not panicking because we’re late.

(And for the record, I’m also not panicking because the taxi meter is cheerfully clicking away.)

I’m panicking because if you keep moving they can’t get you and we are now deeply committed to NOT moving and there could be a siren literally any minute and the sky is too blue and the birds are too loud and the trees are too tree-ing and just two days ago, shrapnel fell from practically light years away across the Old City and at this point we are all completely relying on the Be’ezrat HaShem / Inshallah factor to keep us safe.

There’s a policeman nearby.

The driver asks when we’ll move.

A Haredi guy asks when we’ll move.

An Arab guy asks when we’ll move.

United Jerusalem. Moshiach must be right around the corner.

The policeman shrugs like he’s been handed the meaning of life, saw it wasn’t 42, and would prefer not to engage.

Seconds stretch into tense long minutes.

I’m hyperventilating.

The driver tells me to calm down.

Sir. No one tells me to calm down.

The velociraptor – slash – libertarian emerges in all her toxic glory.

I lean out the window and ask — by which I mean howl — “what the fresh hell are we supposed to do.”

The policeman shrugs.

“Can’t the truck move?”

“Maybe the driver is going for coffee. Maybe he also wants to daven.”

Pause.

“Isn’t this illegal?!?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the police?!?!?!?”

“Oh.”

He walks over.

The truck lurches backward.

Moves.

Departs on its merry way.

We move.

My heart starts to slow.

The taxi driver puts on classical music and tells me his father was a famous violinist in Moscow. Just like it’s a regular Wednesday.

My kid is happy as a cricket.

And then the phone buzzes:

The EXTREME DANGER alert is over.

No siren.

Nothing.

Just another morning.

We keep moving so they can’t get us.

And I realize — again, and not for the last time — that this is what it does to you.

The body prepares for impact.

The mind runs ahead to catastrophe.

You brace. You break. You become something feral and sharp.

And then — Sometimes catastrophe. And sometimes… nothing.

Except now your heart doesn’t quite know how to come back down.

And tomorrow morning, we will get in the taxi again.