My son’s backpack was shot and that wasn’t even the craziest part of the story

Story time: a few days ago, my kid came home from his special-needs preschool without his backpack.

“Oh, I must’ve left it in the classroom,” his escort said to me.

Which happens. It’s not a big deal. I’m the literal empress  of forgetting things, and I certainly don’t hold other people to a higher standard than I can maintain myself.

I basically forgot about it until I got a text message from his preschool teacher containing a photograph of my son’s little yellow backpack with the lion on it sitting all by itself under a willow tree in front of the school.

She explained that another teacher had spotted the backpack, taken a picture, and sent it to her to see if it belonged to any of her students.

Which it did.

But by the time she saw the message, the other teacher had left, and the backpack was still out there, underneath the willow tree, all by its lonesome.

O willow waley.

Now, this wasn’t some kind of magical backpack.

I think I bought it at Max Stock for ten shekels, and yeah, there was probably a change of clothes in there, including a pair of pants that were already half a size too small, so that was no big deal.

But what WAS a big deal was the 1,000-shekel glasses my son needs.

Notice the word needs.

Needs.

I did not say wears.

Because honestly, he doesn’t wear them.

But I like knowing he has them because it makes me feel like a slightly more competent mother. Like, at least I’m trying.

So now the little yellow backpack with a lion on it was going to spend the night under a willow tree, outside in the cold. O willow waley. 

With 1,000-shekel glasses inside.

“God willing, the backpack will still be there tomorrow,” the teacher texted me.

At this point, I called in davening support.

Because schlepping across Jerusalem with my neuro-sparkly four-year-old, who is deeply committed to his afternoon screen time and snicky snack, was an adventure I was simply not prepared to undertake.

Spoiler alert:

The backpack was not there in the morning.

I heaved a sigh and mentally noted that I was going to have to deal with this at some point.

Probably not today.

I added it to the ever-growing list of things I was absolutely, positively going to forget, right alongside making sure my kid actually wears the glasses in the first place.

About an hour later, my phone rang.

Unknown number.

Oh, how thrilling.

The last time I got a call from an unknown number, it was “your friend Itamar Ben Gvir” on a political robocall.

I hung up after a few choice, cutting words, just in case the call was being recorded.

The time before that, it was Rabbi So-and-So from Such-and-Such asking me for money.

I hung up on him, too.

But maybe this time would be different!

Maybe this time I’d won a million dollars in a sweepstakes I forgot to enter!

Nope.

“Hi, this is Tali from the police. Is this Sarah?”

“It depends…”

“Well, I hope it’s Sarah, because we found a very cute yellow backpack with a lion on it in Gilo today. Someone thought it was a suspicious object, but Baruch Hashem, we didn’t blow it up. It does have a bullet hole in it, but you’ll be happy to know we didn’t shoot the glasses!”

I’m sorry.

WHAT?

“Can you please come pick it up within the next hour? Otherwise we’ll have to send it for evidence processing.”

I hightailed it to the police station.

And sure enough, there it was.

My son’s little yellow backpack, sitting on the counter of the police station with a bullet hole straight through the lion’s face.

Like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

If Norman Rockwell had painted scenes from Jerusalem in 2026.

I thanked Tali profusely and later sent a letter to her supervisor expressing my appreciation for her kindness and for the work the police do.

None of this was my fault, but I apologized anyway.

Because what else do you say when your child’s schoolbag has just been involved in a security incident?

Anyway, looking at the backpack, I realized that my son was going to need a new one.

So I went to Jumbo.

For those unfamiliar, Jumbo is basically a bougie Max Stock.

For those unfamiliar with Max Stock, Max Stock is a huge disorganized maze of all the things you don’t need but then desperately need when you see them.

It’s also a deeply dangerous place for people like me.

I went in for a backpack.

I came out with a backpack and approximately seventeen things I did not need, including some very pretty candleholders, a statue of a giraffe, and more pillows for my living room, which is rapidly beginning to resemble a brothel from the late Ottoman period.

Eventually, I made my way to the checkout.

I had two options.

Self-checkout or regular checkout with an actual human being.

Now, you may not know this about me, but I get performance anxiety when it comes to self-checkout.

Seriously.

There’s something about standing there with a machine barking instructions at me while a line of people waits behind me that makes me forget how barcodes work.

Also, I like human interaction.

So I chose the cashier.

I began unloading my purchases onto the conveyor belt.

The pillows.

The candleholders.

The giraffe.

The new backpack.

And, for some reason, the old backpack.

The one with the bullet hole.

And then, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I developed a staggeringly bad case of verbal diarrhea.

Completely unprompted.

COMPLETELY.

I started telling the checkout clerk the entire story.

“So this yellow bag is actually my son’s old backpack, and you see this bullet hole? Well, the police thought it was a suspicious object and shot it, and now I have to buy him a new backpack, which is why I’m here, except obviously I also bought all these other things because this place is extremely dangerous for people like me with ADHD, and anyway, it’s really nice to meet you, and thank you so much for your help!”

The cashier stopped.

She held up her hand.

“Wait. Did this happen this morning?”

“Why, yes, it did!”

“Did it happen in Gilo?”

I blinked.

“How did you know?”

She stared at me.

“Yeah. I think my mom was the one who called the police about the suspicious backpack. They blocked off our street for, like, two hours, and I was late to work.”

OH MY GOD.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

I was absolutely delighted.

A full-circle Jerusalem moment! The circle of life!

Of all the cashiers in all the stores in all of Jerusalem, I had somehow ended up in the checkout line of the daughter of the woman who had called the police about my son’s backpack!

And I wouldn’t even have known if I hadn’t spontaneously decided to tell a complete stranger my entire life story while buying decorative pillows and a giraffe.

I thought this was wonderful.

She did not share my enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “I nearly got fired.”

Oh.

OH.

Well.

That put a bit of a damper on things.

So naturally, I wrote ANOTHER letter.

This time to HER supervisor, explaining the situation and apologizing on behalf of my son’s backpack.

Because apparently this is my life now.

I am the mother of a four-year-old who needs glasses he refuses to wear, a woman who cannot be trusted to enter Jumbo without purchasing decorative wildlife, and now, apparently, the unofficial public relations representative for a ten-shekel Lion King backpack that managed to shut down a street in Jerusalem, mobilize the police, acquire a bullet wound, and nearly get an innocent woman fired.

All in less than 24 hours.

And the thing is, I completely understand why someone called the police. We live in Jerusalem. An unattended backpack isn’t necessarily just an unattended backpack.

I’m grateful people are vigilant. I’m grateful the police took the situation seriously. And I’m especially grateful to Tali, who went to the trouble of tracking me down and making sure my son’s glasses got home.

(I’m also grateful the cashier didn’t throw the giraffe at me.)

But there is something so spectacularly Jerusalem about the whole thing.

A little yellow backpack gets left under a willow tree. Someone sees something suspicious. The police arrive. A street is closed. A lion takes a bullet to the face. A woman is late for work.

And somehow, by sheer coincidence, the mother of the backpack’s owner ends up in her checkout line, buying an entirely unnecessary giraffe and more throw pillows.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Well, you could, but your editor would probably tell you “naw bruh, tone it down” because the coincidences are too implausible.

And yet, here we are.

Anyway. My son has a new backpack. His glasses are safe. The cashier has an apology letter. The police have a thank-you letter. I have seventeen things I didn’t need, including a giraffe. And somewhere in Jerusalem, there is a little yellow lion who gave his face for the security of the State of Israel.

May his memory be a blessing.

And may my son, someday, actually wear his glasses.

For more stories like these, check out my new book, Fairy Lights in God’s Backyard: A Jerusalem Love Story available HERE.