When the siren ends: Between trauma and resilience

I hadn’t meant to return to Israel just in time for Memorial Day.

The extra week in the States for work should’ve given me a breather, a buffer between me and the rituals of national mourning. But the calendar betrayed me. I’d somehow slept through the night after my red eye back from JFK. I knew the jet lag would be even worse this time, thanks to that extra week onboarding at my new job. The new position in the States — and specifically in the States — was meant to provide a mental and physical lifeline, a cynical reminder to self that I need not be tied to this torn country.

I’ll pick you up in 10.

I texted my friend to meet at Kikar Dizengoff before heading to Habima, where we’d watch the live Memorial Day ceremony. I’d been feeling increasingly disconnected from the day, from the blood, the loss, and decided last minute to mourn with the large crowds at Habima, rather than the more intimate sharing with my Anglo peers in synagogue. I was disconnected not merely because of mounting disillusionment with the government, army, and state — but also because I’d spent the last week staring out at a giant unfilled parking lot, the empty slots almost unfathomably large in the context of my small apartment in Tel Aviv.

So, coming back to the incessant car horns and anxiety of this small country wasn’t merely logistically or existentially unearthing — it felt distant, a reality that no longer needed to be my own. My friend and I arrived minutes before the siren, our tardiness explained by loud comments about the ridiculousness of religion we’d misconstrued to be directed maliciously at us. Tired, confused, I waded my way through bruised bodies and stood still — thousands of us with heads and backs bowed in silence for our dead.

The siren commenced, the initial, piercing shriek one we’ve all become accustomed to over the last year and a half. The shriek that has sent children to bomb shelters in the middle of the night, corralled corporate workers through hallways into claustrophobic stairwells. The shriek that’s caused untold flinches at the picking up of an electric scooter, shudders at the distant sound of an ambulance, and unexpected cold sweats even from the comfort of my suburban childhood home in Philadelphia.

As the wail continued, faces started to relax even as backs remained stiff. The sound soon faded, replaced quickly by a bearded man on stage: the rabbi of Tel Aviv. He assured us our enemies would be vanquished, enmity destroyed, our world replaced with a truth and peace that even the most religious and optimistic among us had come to doubt. He stepped aside. A younger man took his place and started the Prayer for the Souls of the Departed.

Ayl, Molay Ra-chamim, shochayn ba-mromim.
O G‑d, full of compassion, Who dwells on high.

The rabbi continued — the prayer elongated, an extended version for the day of mourning.

Master of compassion, shelter them in the shadow of your wings fore—

Screams. The crowd surged.
Pushing. Yelling. Crying. Running. Ducking.
People climbing over barriers, hurling themselves toward exits. Phones dropped. Limbs trampled. Fences torn down. Children, men, women — streaming toward exits. The solemn ceremony ditched as the traumatized nation trampled each other in a flood toward perceived safety.

My friend and I weaved through the crowd, his hands firmly planted on my shoulders, pushing me down intermittently to avoid the bullets we were sure would momentarily whiz over our heads. We ran through the adjacent alley, hundreds of people streaming into the street, motorcyclists weaving through the panicked crowd. But as we grew distant, our mental faculties came streaming back in place of pure adrenaline and instinct. Our sprint gave way to jog, then walk. On our side street, screaming morphed nervous questions — throngs of people on sidewalks calling family, friends, asking one another what had just happened.

I phoned a different friend, who assured us the incident was over — in fact, that despite the mass pandemonium, there had been no terror attack in the first place. He’d spoken to the police, who said it was a scuffle preceding a non-terror-related arrest that had caused the commotion.

We walked back slowly, passing the eyes of Israel on the way.
Past the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, her white dress stained with the blood of her friend.
Past the couple on the bench, the woman’s eyes pressed into her husband’s shoulder, a repository for her endless tears.
Past the woman calling out for her young daughter, assuring her it was safe.
Past the men with fingers still pressed too tightly to their M-16s.

Past the trauma. Past the grief. Past the resilience.
The walk — a near microcosm of this broken society, this endless cycle of our People.

Trauma, grief, resilience, trauma.

Death, Commemoration, Renewal, Death.

* * *

This morning, I walked outside minutes before the morning siren, making it to the edge of my favorite coffee shop before the wail sounded once more. Truck drivers disembarked from vehicles, families clutching children suddenly frozen in place.

People stood silently. Solemnly. Upright.

Was this just another moment of respite — a mirage in the face of destruction and disunity, infighting and existential dread?

Or was this solitude rooted firmly in resilience, in thousands of years of Jewish stubbornness still brazen enough to continue defying the impossible, backs bent no more.