Israel will live. But a part of us has been shattered.
This morning all Tel Aviv awoke at the same time. I was staying with my friend Eitan for Simhat Torah in his apartment in central Tel Aviv. Around 6:30am the sirens blared. We threw off the covers and went out into the stairwell. Half-sleeping we sat in underwear on the stairs. A middle-aged mother with two young children came out to join us. I apologized for the nudity. Tel Aviv is still hot in October. Less humid, but still hot. We didn’t have time to put on clothes.
A few hours later, we dressed for shul. At first I put on sandals. You better wear sneakers, in case we need to run to a shelter, Eitan said. He was right. We started walking in a dead city, eerily silent. The normally-bustling Pinsker and Bogroshov streets were deserted. Cafes shut, stores closed. We kept walking. The sky was hazy clouds. Another siren shrieked. We darted into an old building and jumped over a locked fence into the basement. We stood there for a minute or two, then boom. A huge blast outside. We waited 10 minutes and continued.
At shul the scene was surreal. Those of us who made it, 50 people or so, were dancing with the Torah. With our phones powered down for the holiday, lots of us assumed another routine round of rockets. We’ve gotten used to it. I’ve gotten used to it, in Israel since 2019. Hamas shoots some rockets, maybe hits a building in Ashkelon, a house in Sderot, but a majority of rockets are shot down by Iron Dome.
But no. This was different. People were saying crazy things. It sounded like fake news. We didn’t know whether to believe it. Hundreds killed, kidnappings, rapes. Seven kibbutzim along the border had been taken control by Hamas terrorists. Someone was showing a video of gunmen paragliding into Israel with little propellors and fabric wings. Were these videos being fabricated? Someone else showed a video of a bulldozer destroying the border fence with Israel to allow them unbridled entrance into sovereign Israeli territory.
That’s when I began to get…well, terrified.
During Torah reading they called a soldier wearing his jungle-green uniform up for an aliyah. After he said the blessing, a tall man donning a long tallis began to read from the scroll. Then the soldier’s phone began to ring. Everyone stopped. The soldier answer the phone and everyone went silent as if to listen. He was being called to duty. He asked the Rabbi for a blessing, who lay his hands on the soldier’s head, closed his eyes, and blessed him to go in peace and return in peace.
The shul had planned a festive community meal for the holiday, but the situation demanded distribution of meals around family’s homes in the community. We were going to return home, eat there, but craved closeness and solidarity with our brethren during this confusing time of chaos. My friend Benny asked the Rav if he knew of any families that could host us for lunch. Come to us, he said.
At his home we joined some 30 people — the Rabbi’s family and children, young yeshiva men, women. People brought food from the synagogue. The food was cold since they hadn’t set up a hot plate at their home.
Next to me sat a young soldier with blonde hair and sea-blue eyes who looked horrified. He reminded me of the harrowing scene from the new movie Golda where you hear a young 18 year-old soldier screaming for help from his tank on the front lines: I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die! Mom, save me!
Halfway through the meal he was called up, and the Rabbi’s wife packed him a to-go box with schnitzel, rice and potatoes.
Later we returned home and went over to a friend where we sit now, glued to the news on the couch. A couple of times sirens blared again, and we sped downstairs to the shelter to join the building’s motley crew of residents hiding for our lives. The last time one lady was crying, hysterical. Outside we heard loud blasts.
Statistics can be desensitizing but authorities are reporting 300+ Israeli civilians murdered, mutilated; more than 1,590 injured and hundreds kidnapped, many probably from a music festival in the Negev.
I can’t share the videos, they're too horrifying. Check Twitter if you can stomach it. One from Gaza shows the lifeless body of an Israeli soldier being trampled by an angry crowd shouting “God is Great.” Another shows a bloodied woman being pushed into a jeep. Another shows terrorists gunning down elderly Israelis point-blank. These are people’s mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, their children and grandparents.
The barbarism unleashed on Israeli civilians today must be reported in full. The sanitized headline news reports do not capture the horror consuming the country, the executions in the streets.
It’s surreal: this utter evil, cruelty, heinous disregard for human life.
Tens of thousands of reservists are being called up.
There’s a Google form going around Whatsapp chats for people to sign up to host families escaping the South. Tons of places are opening for people to donate blood.
Words fail me.
It’s hard to imagine 24 hours ago we were dancing on the streets, celebrating with joy and love for Judaism and the Torah.
Now we hunker down, try to get some shut-eye before another siren, another nightmare.
Israel will live. But a part of us has been shattered.
