Many years ago, as rockets rained down on Tel Aviv, I was sitting in a trendy eatery with a lovely friend from the United States. It was crazy. We weren’t at war with anyone; there’d been no warnings. One minute we were sipping cappuccinos, the next wondering if we’d be blown up. I vaguely remember it was all a Hamas mistake; it soon melded into our general existential madness.
Anyway, as passersby crammed up against our coffees, sirens blared and we braced for the boom. My friend, who professes to love Israel so much that she gets withdrawal symptoms when she doesn’t visit, scrambled for her phone.
“I must go home,” she announced. “Now. Immediately.”
“That’s the difference,” I declared. “I am home.”
That disconnect between being a Jew in Israel and one who dwells under foreign vines and fig trees has never been as jagged as it is today. Increasingly, I am finding it hard even to talk on the phone to friends from abroad, even connected friends, who scour news sites and visit us, and even volunteer.
They don’t get it, one hundred percent; and how can they? Their focus has moved on, almost a year down the line. There are grandchildren to play with and holidays to plan; there is life to be lived day to day. They don’t send their kids to the army; their taxes don’t pay black-coated cultists to study all day. They don’t wonder about securing foreign passports for their kids or imagine their houses being hit. They don’t sit on their beds and track missiles coming in from Iran and wonder whether they will wake up the next day dead. And Netanyahu doesn’t leer at them from every screen.
In Israel, we can’t move on; not for a nanosecond. We go to the beach and the hostages’ faces smile from light poles and flap on fences, pleading not to forget them while we splash in the waves. And we don’t. We go to a wedding, and from under the huppah the young bride and groom intone the names of dead friends who will not be dancing that night. The plumber arrives to fix a drain; he looks drained and lost. His son is in Gaza. The gardener’s nephew has lost a leg; he brings progress reports when he prunes the daisies. The news anchors cry as they report the daily mess; we trudge to demos as Shabbat fades each week, and we come home and shake. And we wonder: What will become of us?
My son-in-law asks, “What’s our red line?” When do we pack up the babies and raise our hands in surrender as we sadly, like Tevye, leave our Anatevka? This was not supposed to happen; we were supposed to put an end to being strangers in a strange new place, searching for an old familiar face. Building a homeland was meant to end all Jewish wandering; we planted apples and paved roads and invented WAZE and cellphones and beach bats. We came to settle the land, and to settle our spirits; we were here to stay.
Has that dream been dashed?
It’s strange for me to question my choice to live here, after 50 years. Not exactly to question my decision – I don’t, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat – but rather to wonder whether it has caused my children and grandchildren to be screwed.
I was 10 when I became a Zionist; the Six Day War was raging, and our concerned South African Jewish Day School broadcast radio bulletins came constantly over loudspeakers. Over dinner, I announced that I was going to live in Jerusalem; a month after high school, I was here. My family, who later joined me, were distressed that I upped and left, but Zionism wasn’t a dirty word, nobody jeered. When my parents brought home brochures from the glorious University of Cape Town, with ample parking for the car they promised to buy me if I stayed, I remember protesting pretentiously: “What will I say to my children if Israel falls and they ask, ‘Where were you? Why weren’t you there, helping?’” and “I want to be part of the greatest miracle of the millennium.” I was a baby then, and sure of myself and my world. At 17, I loaded up with Cadbury chocolate and a year’s supply of Tampax and started the adventure that lasted a lifetime.
Over the years, as we built our families, our careers, our homes on the shores of the blue Mediterranean Sea, we were aware – I, my husband, our cousins, our friends – that it was always different living here than anywhere else. There was the army, for a kickoff, and the ongoing wars and intifadas, skirmishes and bombs. There were rockets and Kassams, Katyushas and mortars, and even fire-spewing balloons that sent orchards up in flames. And there was the cash factor: we’d have more if we lived abroad; we’d have swisher cars, swankier homes, and more plentiful ski trips to fancy Alpine resorts.
We didn’t care. We were building a dream. Terrible drivers, and dirt on the beach; pushing and shoving and boiling hot summers weren’t fabulous, but we coped. Then air conditioners were invented and environmentalists were born; peace treaties were signed, and Israeli brains burst onto the world. We got richer, we won Eurovision and an Oscar; our good energy bounced off the tree-lined boulevards and beaches. We were living the dream, or pretty nearly.
And then it all crashed. October 7 has become nine plus months; we can’t fall asleep anymore. If we do, we are afraid to wake up; we shake as we click our phones to discover more dead, more wounded more crazy madness from government goons. Lunatics control our already appalling prime minister, politics is prolonging the war, and Knesset members outdo each other in insanity. Likud MK Nissim Vaturi called anti-government protesters with kids fighting in Gaza a “branch of Hamas.” It’s too much, we keep saying; it’s just too much.
Friends call, and message, and say that they are with us. And it’s nice that they do; we appreciate the hearts and hugs. They are quaking, too; their campuses are encampments, their shul windows are being smashed. The world is mad, and it all feels frightening.
Recently, at the Reichman University where I teach, my Argov students gathered for their graduation event. Six of the cohort of 23 had been in and out of Gaza and Lebanon for the academic year, one constantly missed class to work with hostage horror, and others came swollen-faced from funerals. Yet there they were on the festive stage, promising better days ahead; beautiful youngsters, full of Israeli energy and verve. And they made me feel better.
This government will fall; it’s beginning to crack. Saner leaders will lead us back to normalcy, and we will sleep soundly again. Somehow, some day, somewhere, white smoke will mingle with the clouds in our blue, blue sky, heralding better days for all the people of this region, and our olive trees will drop their bounty on us in peace. ■
Pamela Peled, who was born in South Africa, is a journalist and author who teaches at Reichman University in Herzliya.