No Cucumbers Today

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Nicki

My favorite Hebrew word is melafefon. It means cucumber. An exotic-sounding, complicated, delicious mouthful of a word for such a plain and greenly simple vegetable. I try to say it as often as I can when I’m in Israel – my kids love cucumbers, so that helps. Where are the melafefonim? at the supermarket. Do you have melafefonim? at the restaurant. And today, we were supposed to pick melafefonim at the fields near Rehovot.

source: leket.org.il

But there are no bomb shelters in open fields. No protected rooms, or walls to crouch against. The best you can do is lie down flat and cover your head with your hands. That way if the shrapnel falls it’ll hurt your hands and not your head.

Too risky. So we didn’t go.

Actually, I’m not sure if it was cucumbers we were going to pick. Perhaps it was bright tomatoes. Or green peas. Or plumply purple eggplants. We were going to pick vegetables in the hot Israeli sun as part of my son’s bar mitzvah. To give back. To do a mitzvah. We wanted to be outside, together, kids and grown-ups, littles and bigs, and harvest x number of pounds of veggies to be distributed to families in need in Israel.

But I couldn’t do it.

And I’ve been doing it all: camel riding in the desert, kayaking on the Jordan, the markets in Jaffa and Jerusalem. Not knowing if the sirens would wail in Tel Aviv or further north. They are relentless in the south. Some mornings have found us in the bomb shelter in various states of dress (or undress), and some have been eerily quiet – or maybe we just don’t hear the sirens when we’re in the sea. A week has become 20 days and 43 fallen soldiers. Terrifying cries of anti-Semitism and the most blatant anti-Israel rhetoric I thought I’d never read or watch from countries I feel scared to call home.

I’ve seen the smoke trail from Iron Dome interceptions, heard the booms as rockets hit the ground, cried for the beautifully brave soldiers we’ve lost. I’ve dragged my children to the beach – where there are no shelters, and even when they’ve had enough sun and sand, because there are too many children stuck all day in bomb shelters in areas near Gaza, where the rockets fly too frequently and the risks are not just possible, they are likely.

I’ve learnt Hebrew words I didn’t even know existed: azakah (alert), mamad (protected room), Kipat Barzel (Iron Dome).

I’ve noticed a change – subtle but definite – in the very air around me. On the beach. In the restaurants. Walking outside. The usually noisy, argumentative, full-of-life-and-love Israelis are quiet, preoccupied. Their smiles are tense and their eyes are sad. But determined. They are resolute. Strong.

I’ve been hanging on to that strength. That resolve. So happy to be here – any time and with anyone, but especially now and with my children. I’ve been determined to show them the country I love, no matter what. Determined to celebrate my son’s bar mitzvah mostly the way we imagined. I’ve been hugged in an aura of love and appreciation and even slight bewilderment by Israeli family and friends who can’t believe we’re still here, but are so delighted we are. As if we’d be anywhere else.

I’ve been determined that nothing will stop us. Life continues. This is how it is here. We will celebrate, and be together, and pick cucumbers.

But I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t ask 23 people to meet us in an open field, with no shelter nearby. I couldn’t take my own four children into a situation so obviously unsafe, where the best they could do if they heard a siren would be to lie on the earth with their hands on their heads. And pray.

I couldn’t do it, and I felt worn down. Beaten. That tenacious determination slowly draining ounce by painful ounce out of my fingertips, my mouth, my heart as I canceled our field trip with a sigh of resignation, deep disappointment, sadness. This is how it is.

“What are we doing today, Mom?” they chirped in anticipation. Big eyes, bright voices, adventurous spirits.

I lifted my chin. Took a breath. Inflated my heart.

We did not go to the fields today – but I am determined, before we return to California in August, to pick melafefonim. With my children. In Israel.

Ways to Help in Israel

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Nicki

Operation Protective Edge enters its 16th day today. Over two weeks of sirens and rockets and cease-fires that weren’t. Twenty-nine Israeli soldiers have been killed, and one is MIA. Children in the southern cities of Israel hear the relentless wail of sirens instead of the wind in their hair. They sit against the cold, hard, protective wall of the bomb shelter instead of lying in the green grass and imagining shapes in the clouds.

We read and watch the war and anti-Semitism unfold throughout the world, and feel blindsided, helpless, despairing. Both outside of Israel and in.

Socks, underwear and deodorant are at the top of the list for the soldiers on the front lines. Pizza. Support for reserves. And lone soldiers. Kids in the south. Prayers. Here are 21 Ways to Help Israel, all very concrete and impactful.

And I have a close friend here who is purchasing and collecting donations of underwear, deodorant, toothpaste for the soldiers and delivering it directly to the bases. If you’d like to contribute (any currency, any amount) email, comment, or tweet me. And pray for peace.

For All These Things

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Nicki

(Hit play)

My music teacher in elementary school was Mrs Orr. She was a lovely, Israeli woman with a graceful neck and blonde hair. I liked her. She would stand on the stage and move her hands in time to the music, her face shining light and smiles as she introduced us to classic Israeli songs in Hebrew and English. Songs about hope, peace, and land. Songs that told stories of Moses, young pioneers, Jewish holidays. Shining sea, green mountains, sweet oranges and laughing children.

For all these things…

“Al Kol Eleh – For All These Things”: my favorite Hebrew song. Music and lyrics by Naomi Shemer. Performed by dozens of famous and not-so-famous singers, including the Carmel Primary School choir in Pretoria, South Africa circa 1984, 1985, 1986. Loved by me from the first moment I heard it.

The melody flows like a gentle stream, the words sound and feel beautiful and comforting even if they’re not understood, the tears pool in my eyes, and the back of my throat catches as a soft smile plays on my lips. In 1984. And in 2014. And all the times I’ve heard and sung it in between.

For all these things…

Al hadvash ve’al ha’okets
Al hamar vehamatok
Al biteynu hatinoket shmor eyli hatov.

Every bee that brings the honey
Needs a sting to be complete
And we all must learn to taste the bitter with the sweet.

So sweet. And so bitter. Wine and pizza and night-time play in the park. Siren. Boom. Then boom again. I never fear for our safety, but the siren is loud and the booms and interceptions are scary to hear. But #lifecontinues and Ze ma sheyesh the hairdresser tells me – this is what we have – with a shrug, a wry smile and pain in his eyes. The Red Alert rocket app on his phone beeps again.

Yes. This is what they have here, in this beautiful, tiny country almost entirely surrounded by enemies and hatred – not only on its borders but throughout the world. Two minutes in the bomb shelter in Herzliya is all day for the kids in the south, where the rockets fly too often and the 15-second window of safety is too small to risk corralling 50 little ones into a shelter over and over and over again. So this is what they have.

What they have is 13 Israeli soldiers killed in three days. Brave, heroic soldiers with wives and parents and children of their own, who are on the ground in Gaza protecting not only our children, protecting not only Israelis, but also the Palestinians from themselves. As those soldiers fight to the death, the Israeli Defense Force has established a field hospital on the Israel-Gaza border to treat wounded Palestinians. So bitter. So sweet.

For all these things…

I am here just for the summer. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here right now. It’s a crazy way to spend the summer and I could never have imagined it. But it’s an even crazier way to live, every day, every year, from babyhood and beyond.

Summers are for doing everything you want, and nothing if you don’t. Summers are for fun, and for carefree, for wind in your hair and sand in your toes. Not for bomb shelters and falling rockets and getting used to the deafening wail of the sirens. Summers are for too much screen time playing Wii and Xbox. Not for rocket alert apps and websites like israelhasbeenrocketfreefor.com (20 seconds and counting – it’s reset twice in the last 30 minutes). And there is not a child nor an adult in all of Israel that does not know a summer like this. That is a crazy, unimaginable, unfair way to live.

For all these things…

The road to Jerusalem is quiet. The bright orange letters on the overhead traffic signs tell drivers what to do when a siren is heard: Stop safely on the side of the road. I switch the dial on the radio. My favorite song pours out of the speakers. My eyes well as the gentle melody streams over me. My heart lifts a little and I start to sing along.

“Siren in Ashkelon… siren in Ashkelon,” comes the announcement over the music. Not once or twice. But over and over and over again.

The tears cascade down my cheeks. The words freeze in my throat. My heart breaks into a million pieces. For this tiny country and its blessedly unyielding army, protecting its borders, its people, no matter what. Year after year, decade after decade. For the children spending the summer in bomb shelters and not in the park. And for the children who have done so too many times before and who will again.

A crazy, unimaginable way to live.

Al kol eleh, al kol eleh,
Shmor nah li eyli hatov
Al hadvash ve’al ha’okets
Al hamar vehamatok.

For the sake of all these things, Lord,
Let your mercy be complete
Bless the sting and bless the honey
Bless the bitter and the sweet.

For All These Things written by Naomi Shemer, translated by Theodore Bikel

Every bee that brings the honey
Needs a sting to be complete
And we all must learn to taste the bitter with the sweet.

Keep, oh Lord, the fire burning
Through the night and through the day
For the man who is returning
from so far away.

Chorus:
Don’t uproot what has been planted
So our bounty may increase,
Let our dearest wish be granted:
Bring us peace, oh bring us peace.

For the sake of all these things, Lord,
Let your mercy be complete
Bless the sting and bless the honey
Bless the bitter and the sweet.

Save the houses that we live in
The small fences and the wall
From the sudden war-like thunder
May you save them all.

Guard what little I’ve been given
Guard the hill my child might climb
Let the fruit that’s yet to ripen
Not be plucked before its time.

Chorus:
As the wind makes rustling night sounds
And a star falls in its arc
All my dreams and my desires
Form crystal shapes out of the dark.

Guard for me, oh Lord, these treasures
All my friends keep safe and strong,
Guard the stillness, guard the weeping,
And above all, guard this song.

For the sake of all these things, Lord,
Let your mercy be complete
Bless the sting and bless the honey
Bless the bitter and the sweet.

Bless the sting and bless the honey
Bless the bitter and the sweet.

What I Never Imagined…

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Nicki

We came to Israel this summer to celebrate.

And for many other reasons too: because our kids had never been and we wanted to show them the land of their people, because we love beach vacations and no matter where you are in Israel you’re seldom further than an hour from an incredible beach, because the food is amazing (never mind the shwarma and falafel, even frozen schnitzel and french fries are delicious here – especially if you eat them on the beach!), because you can kayak down the Jordan river and ride a wobbly camel in the Judaean desert, buy fragrant spices and the freshest challah at the bustling Middle Eastern market in Jerusalem and find the most exquisite shoes at the beautiful mall just steps away, because Israel grabs you by all five of your senses and never lets go…

But mainly we came to celebrate my oldest son’s bar mitzvah. He’s been practicing his Torah portion for almost a year. I’ve heard him once or twice – he doesn’t falter, never hesitates. He has spent hours with our rabbi in Oakland learning, discussing, preparing his speech and his words of Torah.

I imagined it. South African grandparents, and aunts, uncles, cousins from Herzliya, London, Florida, Johannesburg, California, friends from Oakland and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I imagined the praying and Mazal Tov! and brunch overlooking the Old City. Shabbat dinner and then a party in Jaffa, while the sun sets into the Mediterranean and we dance and laugh and celebrate.

I imagined us all together, a gigantic family barbecue on the beach, introducing my sister to my future sister-in-law, listening to all the brothers reconnect, meeting my friends at my favorite rooftop bar in Jerusalem. I imagined tears of pride and joy and relief, laughter and singing and so many hugs and kisses on both cheeks.

But I never imagined this.

Of course. I never imagined we would celebrate during a war. I never imagined I would take shelter from an air strike in a restaurant kitchen. Or in my cousin’s house, together with his neighbors and their kids because they don’t have a bomb shelter. I never imagined my kids would know what to do when they heard a siren – but they do, and they don’t falter, never hesitate. I never imagined it was possible to receive so many messages of worry and love from every corner of the earth, every day and through the night. I never imagined I maybe wouldn’t meet my friends to watch the sun sink over the Old City, because who in their right mind would fly into a country during a potential war?

And I never imagined I would almost forget we came to Israel to celebrate my oldest son’s bar mitzvah.

Relentless rockets have been fired into Israel for seven days. Sirens wail from north to south, east to west throughout the day and long into the night. Thank G-d for those sirens, alerting every living creature to take cover, find shelter, usually within 90 seconds but sometimes less. Turn off the car if you’re driving. Move away from it quickly. Find a wall facing north or lie flat on the ground. If there’s no bomb shelter in your building, stand under the stairwell. Listen for the boom, the interception, the all clear.

Finish the surgery on the dog. Continue the soccer game in the backyard. Pay for the sunglasses, and don’t forget the tomatoes. Dinner is almost ready. Life continues.

Who could’ve imagined this? Not I, dreaming my perfect party dreams in my house in California. Not my son, singing his Torah portion over and over with the rabbi at our Oakland synagogue in preparation for his big day at the Kotel. And not our family and friends living their lives in cities and towns all over Israel, planning the summer for their children, taking care of their elderly parents, scheduling appointments and meetings.

Life continues during a war. Or maybe it continues especially during a war.

I could never have imagined we would be in Israel this summer in the midst of an almost-war. But I cannot imagine being anywhere else. Israel grabbed hold of me and every single one of my senses while I was on a family vacation 30 years ago, and has never let me go. Being here while she is under siege, while so much of the world is turning its back on her and its people, only strengthens that grip. She has never let me go, and I will never let her go.

Life continues, especially during a war. And we are here to celebrate my oldest son’s bar mitzvah. Mazal Tov!

Life in a Bubble

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Nicki

The sun glittered on the reckless Mediterranean. Not quite afternoon, not quite sunset. The golden time in between, when the beach shines almost white and the water is a liquid glow.

Not so gently, the sea knocked them over first from one side then the other, occasionally pausing its playful game so they could catch their breath and float in the warm water. With the sun making its slow descent, they were smiling faceless heads of all ages, talking, laughing, diving right into the crashing waves or holding the little ones up high.

The smoky barbecue drifted toward me as I helped my daughter and her cousin build sandcastles. No English for her and no Hebrew for her, they built a beautiful, sandy city together with nods and smiles, gestures and touches. Up ahead three horses carried their riders toward the dunes. The sun sank lower.

The boys played Frisbee. The girls built their castles. The grown-ups drank beer and sparkling red wine, and the dog lay in the cooling sand, watching and sleeping.

They were photo-perfect moments happening every second, and my cousin ran from group to group and captured each one. “Chayim babu’ah,” she said. Life in a bubble.

Because while we were celebrating birthdays and family and togetherness on my favorite beach in Mikhmoret, sirens were wailing in Herzliya and Holon, rockets from Gaza were hurtling toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and even with scarce cell reception on the beach we all knew.

I saw my aunt’s jaw tighten, almost imperceptibly, as she listened to her chatty granddaughter tell a story. One cousin sat quietly on a chair to the side, minding her own stressful business while she decided whether to cancel the 200-person event she’d planned down south the next day or to go ahead. Another calmly showed me a photo she’d just received of a rocket exploding above her house, a wry smile tugged at her mouth and the worry in her eyes was deep and real. Her feisty little girl toddled toward the sea.

The sun set, and the sky was orange and gray and crimson and the palest, whitest blue.

Life in a bubble.

We sang happy birthday, the kids played checkers and my uncle lit a cigar. I gathered up the half-eaten burgers and empty beer bottles, wiped the hummus with a crumpled napkin, and gave my son his fourth piece of chocolate cake. The music got softer. The sea was dark. “Can we stay till the end of the party, Mom?”

In my bag my cell phone silently rang itself into a frenzy. Dozens of missed calls and texts, emails and Facebook messages. “Are you guys ok?” “Where are you?” From South Africa, the U.S., England. And Israel. Family worried about us. Friends unable to get hold of us.

There’s no wi-fi on the beach in Mikhmoret and I forgot about my cell phone buried in my bag on the bench behind the barbecue.

Life in a bubble.

We didn’t hear the sirens on the beach, we didn’t see the Iron Dome intercept some rockets or hear the boom of the ones that fell. We were celebrating life and watching new friendships transcend language and running after toddlers lured by the playful sea. Because that’s what we planned to do that evening.

“We’re fine,” I texted back. “We were on the beach. Sorry I didn’t hear my phone. We’re okay.”

“Stay safe,” the messages came back, over and over. How do we do that, I wondered.

Life goes on here, as rockets are flying and strikes continue. My kids pet bunnies and ride horses bareback, but it’s impossible to keep them oblivious when we are shown where the bomb shelter is in our apartment building, and my husband explains how to pump the air once we’re sealed inside. We still haven’t heard a siren, thank G-d. But we may today, when we go up to the Kinneret or perhaps to the Dead Sea or maybe we’ll just stay put.

“Ma la’asot?” our family on the Kibbutz say, when we visit them and watch the kids swim in the pool. We have schnitzel and salad and delicious ice cream for lunch. What to do? Life goes on.

My aunt calls to check on us. My husband’s family here is worried about us. Because we are visiting. And we’re not used to this. And it’s tense and complicated and scary.

But I’m not scared. We’re supposed to be here.

A bubble with a flimsy, transparent barrier. A bubble that is real and blissful but fleeting and temporary. Anything can happen at any time. And we pray that it won’t. We pray that there will be no more conflict. No more strikes and no more retaliations. No more children killed. We pray for each other, and for our land, and for peace.

It’s scary – but I’m not scared.

And in a fragile, clear bubble, life goes on.