We Dream of October 6
A letter from our Israeli Friend Lynn
Dear Friends and Family,
Its been around a week since I last wrote to you. Here’s a snapshot of my sentiments today nearly 4 weeks post October 7.
Compared to the paralysis, fear and shock that swept over the country on and after October 7, the challenges of daily life have eased since then within the general civilian population. Many here are trying to carve a pathway within a different reality. My sense is that nerve endings were stretched to their limit until finally, after several weeks of political fumbling, an emergency government emerged to take the driver’s seat, promising to create and follow through some type of course of corrective action. The former feeling of national helplessness and lack of guaranty of any level of personal security that resulted from October 7 events was wholly unpalatable and even intolerable, most particularly to the Israeli/Jewish psyche. I dare to say that it almost didn’t matter what the action plan is. Folks here dream -- only if it were October 6 again.
But of course it isn’t. The desperation of the agricultural sector grows daily more apparent. At first, some of the growers said, we were shocked at ongoing events. Then we spent a week in mourning. And at the third week we woke up and looked around and said – our fields are not being harvested!!! And we have no solution. So volunteers like us jumped. We personally are now not only expert lettuce cutters, we also have dabbled in tamar tomatoes (which, by the way, are a better choice as they do not tax the knees as they are strung on lines upwards). And we hope move on to other fields where our help is needed. You can believe when I say we never thought we would be engaged this way in early retirement….
At the fields, the numbers of volunteers soar on the weekends, as folks descend from everywhere they can, but during the workweek, fewer folks can appear, as the market requires their return to their usual work places. That is, of course, a good thing in general. Work places are desperately trying to recover a sense of stability, moving their employees from home zoom office work back to the in office mode for increased interaction and creativity, and of course encouraging employees to pick up business connections and projects from the outside wherever they can. Management efforts to require folks to return back to the office are of course familiar internationally, and perhaps a superficial overview resembles the post corona period, but the circumstances are different now. The population isn’t fearful of catching a virus from a coworker, but of being caught on the roads by a rocket directed at their car from outside the borders. Or, worse, that their kids are under siren warning and they aren’t next to them to make sure everything is okay. Whether or not it is forefront in the conversation, all are submersed in an attempt to adjust their personal compasses to the realities of living in this ongoing war. So as the economic papers headline dire ramifications and negative projections, the economic downturn is yet another front to battle.
Revival of schools and kindergartens are crucial in order to restart the economy and no less importantly, to aid parents to revive and reinject social normalcy into their children’s lives. In fact, the first action of the temporarily rehoused folks from the destroyed kibbutzim was to revive classes for their children and youth in the halls and open grassy grounds of the hotels they are housed in. School, kindergarten and nursery reopenings remain subject to logical restrictions and rules imposed by the branch of the military in charge of homeland security. There is a general feeling here that the homefront security military apparatus indeed first and foremost has the best interests of the population in mind, and its directives can be trusted. I don’t know anyone who ignores the rules requiring us to run to safe rooms in case of a siren alarm. We know that sirens reverberate only in the specific geographic location where a rocket’s projectory is to land, and most people outfit themselves with the cellphone application that lets us know, according to physical location, if to immediately run to a shelter. And of course, the many reserve soldiers remain far away from their homes, and absolutely no one has any idea for a timeframe. And the families of the approximately 240 kidnapped who project their fears and grief into our lives daily, if not hourly, are alongside our thoughts. And volunteerism that I wrote to you about last week continues to surge.
A high percentage of the population doesn’t have safe rooms within their homes to run to, some say 40%; nor do many public buildings. That fact translates as follows: if 40% of the kindergarten rooms in a city don’t have safe rooms, the kindergartens in that city are only run part time for each class, so that all of the kindergartens can have an opportunity to meet at least part time – let’s say half the week for one class and then the other half of the week for the other class in the safe building. That is the case for one of our granddaughters.
The domino effect is that on any given day only half of the parents have a place for their kids to be so that they can go to work. What happens to the other half? In many cases, grandparents who can pitch in to babysit, and in others, work suffers.
In trying to scrutinize better and squint for a clearer perception of what is happening around us to relate to you, I perceive an active effort by governments local and national to “guide” or lead the populations viewpoint and to subtly exercise censure. Israeli flag posters are posted on billboards instead of regular adverts, and nearly every major road I drive down is decorated by rows of Israeli flags flying roadside together with written messages that “we will win”. Popular patriotic songs and melodies, usually broadcast only on national holidays such as Independence Day and surely not on everyday programs, are playing ad infinitum on the radio. Repeated quotes of various heroics by civilians and soldiers are replayed on radio programs and newsfeeds.
Other news seeps through as well, particularly examples of rising and often violent exhibitions of anti-semitism worldwide. Those cases really shake us. Because, if Israel is not really as safe as place as we had believed for a Jew (which it apparently wasn’t on October 7), and the world consistently coughs up a nasty case of antisemitism nearly everywhere else, exactly where does the world expect the Jewish people to be?
There are many questions that pop up as we struggle for clarity. Geopolitical experts are shooting out detailed podcasts and publishing distinguished articles. Everyone has at least one opinion.
But the reality is harsh. The numbers of people being killed are awful and rising. No one that I would call a friend has even the vaguest interest in harming children or innocent civilians. The thought and the reality are absolutely horrendous and I believe totally foreign to any Jewish sensitivity. I had learned in school that war, if necessary at all, is supposed to be waged between armies and not civilians. And even there - we listen to the ever growing list of names of Israeli civilians or soldiers who have been killed as they are announced over the radio, and hold our breaths as we do so asking please, please not to hear about anyone familiar.
I cannot know if what we are news fed about the Hamas’ purported attitude of nonchalance towards Gazan civilian casualties is true. I do know about October 7-8 and also that I don’t have the power to convince someone else to think my way. What are the true alternatives for Jews today and in the future, particularly those who wish to pass that proud heritage onward to our descendants without fear of being ourselves. There is lots of horrendous news coverage lately, but I was shocked to my core most of all to watch the pro Hamas cars cruising the main drag (Union Turnpike) where I grew up in Queens, NY with Hamas flags afloat, car after car after car.
All my best
Lynn
About Lynn: In 1971, Lynn and BHC member Debbie S. were 13-year-old best friends in Queens, NY. and stayed in close touch
Lynn and Yitzchak visited Bethlehem last summer and enthusiastically participated in the BHC book club, film festival, music series, and religious services.
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel, Lynn has been sending a weekly letter to American friends and family to provide her take on what’s happening. She has kindly allowed us to reprint her letter here.