Not the Blog Post I Intended

   I have two blogs in my heart right now, and hopefully I will write them today.  But, in response to the outpour of stateside friends who are checking in on me after the attacks on the Temple Mount, I need to write this post about what I am learning about the nature of Israeli security.

  First, a literary moment of silence for the slain officers.



   One of them had a 3 month old baby.  I was deeply touched by a recent photo of them which is cropping up in the news here. Both of them came from Druze villages and had committed their lives (quite literally) to this service.  This is a critical point: their culture was Arab-Israeli.  This isn't an antisemitic action. This isn't a Palestine vs. Israel action.  This was an anti-police measure, and one that was intended to be much bigger.  These men (and their injured counterpart) prevented it from becoming bigger.

  I'm sure the story will unravel much more, and already these men have had their funerals which were open to the public.  For many, life keeps going. Prayers continue.  Fights continue.  The sabbath comes... and identities forge forward into new days.

   My conversation with Herb Keinon, a foreign correspondent for the Jerusalem Post who covers the Israeli diplomatic process, helped me understand more about the security and insecurity of this nation.  I'm not ready to get into my view on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, but I think it is important to see how people nowadays live with this kind of insecurity, and to see what governments do (or don't do) to help it.

   We all know that the news cycle is crazy. Fake news aside, we have 24 hour coverage of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Media hype focuses more on the bad and the ugly; I try to focus more on the good.  Here, though, there are so many threats.  Israelis are so close to the hotbed that is Syria.  They are at the mercy of changing governments around them (including ours) and according to Keinon, there is the "constant threat of nuclear Iran."  He has lived here for 31 years and doesn't remember a time as intense as now.

    Just today, I received an email from a friend, comforting me about some anxieties I have about next year.  She wrote to me:  "Try not to worry... it will all work out as it should in the end."  (Cue John Lennon!)  Keinon told us that a common question here is "Mah Yiheyeh", מה יהיה: What will be? He shared the point of view that a Rabbi gave him once:

We are Jews.

We believe that in the end it will all work out.

The problem is we were born in the middle, not the end.

    Today, in the light of an attack so close to where I walked a few days ago, I have a sense of what Keinon described as a national "sense of personal and national insecurity."  There is that fear for people who live in Gaza that a rocket can crash into their liven room.  If you're in Haifa, you know that missiles are pointed toward you.  And, of course, anything can happen on the street in Jerusalem (or any big city.)

   Apparently, things were really bad here when the second Intifada came about in 2000.  The Gaza war of 2008-2009 is still in recent memory, too.  The Israelis are still living with the trauma from the attacks of that time period.  They are also living with conservative governments because there is the perception that Netanyahu will keep the country safer than a more liberal mindset.   "Netanyahu isn't beloved here, but they vote for him again and again because of security. When he is in power, your children are safer."

    And, when every Israel parent knows that their kids will be a part of the army,  the "risks are being borne by your own children."   He said that everybody knows people who have been killed.

   I'm processing this.  "Everybody knows people who have been killed."  Not "everybody knows somebody".  Not "I know people."  No.... "Everybody knows people who have been killed."  

   I had an honorary cousin who was killed in a car accident.  I had a former student who was killed when her car swerved off the road.  I had another former student who was killed in a hazing disaster.  But somehow, what he was saying is different.   

    Death stinks.  Accidents stink. Alcohol toxicity stinks.  This isn't a case of "their tragedy is worse than mine."  And my guess is most of you know someone who has died in an accident or perhaps of an overdose.  (I'm still raging about the hazing.)  But I can't imagine what it would be like to know people who have been killed in war or religious persecution...or to feel threatened by that myself.

   Keinon told us that "every time there is an attack, it brings that all back."  There's a societal post-traumatic stress here (my interpretation), that led to a strong need for defense.  The security fence is immense and intense.  The checkpoints are crucial, according to the Israeli mindset.  And intelligence of what the next big threat will be is beyond crucial.  

  Still, people here get up. They go to work. They make the country filled with flowers and fruits, nuts and orchards.  They keep up their studies and love their families.  Life continues.  Such is the plight of a nation whose national anthem means "The Hope."

   In short--I'm safe.  I wish safety on all the world.  This picture-light post ends with a song I really want you to listen to.  I heard it for the first time at a Dar Williams concert a few days after 9/11.