Picture of the week: Finding friendship in the ruins of war
Israel is a country of contradictions. While the world outside sees the conflict in the clean crisp black and white of headlines, here in Israel we tend to see things in myriad shades of grey.
Take these two kids for example. Maria Aman (in the wheelchair) is a Palestinian girl from Gaza who was hit by an Israeli rocket during operation Cast Lead. Orel Ilizrov, is an Israeli child from Beersheva who was left with severe brain damage after he was hit by a grad missile fired from Gaza in the same conflict.
Against all the odds, they are best friends.
Maria was left paralyzed when her house suffered a direct hit. Four of her family were killed. Orel, an only child, is lucky to be alive. His mother threw herself on top of him in an attempt to protect him from the missile.
The children were hospitalized at the Alin Rehabilitative Center in Jerusalem and were given neighboring beds. Despite the traumas that both suffered, they ignored the conflict – as kids so rightly do – and formed a deep friendship based on everything they have in common, and not everything that keeps them apart.
Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90
Victims donating to victims
Filed under: A New Reality, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War, coexistence
Throughout the recent Gaza war and its ongoing aftermath, Israelis and Palestinians have been trying to paint themselves as “the real victims” and the other side as “the real perpetrators.” But if we’re all victims, then how can we possibly take responsibility for war spearheaded by our leaders? And if we’re all perpetrators, then why would we care?
The fact is, Operation Cast Lead has meant horrible levels of destruction for the infrastructure and people of the Gaza Strip, destruction which could have been avoided if Hamas hadn’t hidden behind the human shield of one of the most densely populated areas in the world. And as we’ve seen on ISRAELITY before, just because Israelis support our government’s recent war against a terrorist regime that’s been shooting rockets at us for years doesn’t mean that we’re numb to the damage done.
Two grassroots activists are trying to organize Israeli sympathy into material support for Gazan families whose lives and homes were recently under severe fire by the region’s military superpower. 27-year-old peacenik Lee Ziv and Sapir Academic College 25-year-old student Hadas Balas (pictured, doubling as a not-so-shabby singer-songwriter) decided to collect clothing, bedding, nourishment and other essentials from donors to bring them in to Gaza.
Ziv spoke with the Jerusalem Post this week:
“There is no connection to politics,” said Ziv. “We don’t represent a side, we just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat.”
Since a short radio interview on Sunday morning, Ziv said her phone had been ringing off the hook. “Within two minutes of the interview, I had 40 voice messages. The response has been overwhelming. Schools have called asking how they can help. A father called who had three sons serving in the IDF in Gaza. A woman called who had a mortar fall on her house.”
The duo thought they’d be bringing one or two truckloads of supplies in today, but thanks to the viral snowball of their email campaign, media interest like the radio interview last week, and the bandwagoning on their efforts by some key human rights organizations, the donations have been so numerous that they’re spearheading a fleet of 10 full trucks.
According to coverage in Haaretz, the duo has accomplished this feat thanks to key help from organizations like Hashomer Hatzair in Jerusalem, Beit Hachesed in Haifa and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the Qassam-battered community which has offered up its warehouses as a depot for the donations.
More information on donating to the operation can be found here.
An Israeli soldier’s story
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War
IDF soldiers mourning at the funeral of a fallen comrade.
Our rabbi’s oldest son Didi, an army medic, was part of one of the first units to enter Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, and was lightly injured in the face by shrapnel. In the midst of his four-day hospital stay, Didi’s close friends Nitai and Dagan were killed in one of the war’s regrettable ‘friendly fire’ incidents.
Let’s let Rabbi Schlesinger take over.
After being discharged from the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Shira drove him home to Efrat to change into his dress uniform and then to the Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery to take part in Nitai’s and Dagan’s funerals.
I never knew that Nitai’s parents had such a warm kesher (connection) with Didi. At the funeral, Nitai’s parents, aunt and siblings hugged Didi, thanking God that he was only injured. Didi spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday sitting Shiva with the family. He was part of them.
I returned home on Thursday to see Didi for the first time since I had left for the States. I saw my child in pain – my child was bereaving. He could barely smile and wasn’t ready for conversation. He was clearly in a Shiva mode. He had lost his spark….
Om Saturday night we drove up to Pisgat Ze’ev, a very large neighborhood in Jerusalem (the size of a city) to do a Shiva call. As soon as we walked into the Stern home, Reuven, Nitai’s father noticed that Didi had arrived. He called out “Didi, get over here!”.
Didi went over to Reuven, they hugged and cried – and then Reuven let go and said lovingly “Beat it kid, before I break down.”
Shira and I waited among the many Menachamim (consolers) to get close to the family. We finally got close in order to offer our condolences – when Nitai’s parents Reuven and Sarah both looked at us and asked:
“Are you Didi’s parents?”, we answered “yes” and then they both exclaimed together “Mazal Tov – you have received a gift from God – you have a lot to be thankful for.”
We were overwhelmed with a combination of joy and extreme sadness.
As the rabbi’s wife, Shira, wrote soon after Didi’s injury, “Life/reality for these young handsome strong wonderful “boys,” because they are boys/children that have to grow up so fast and so suddenly, is so different here than anywhere in the world. The pride that they feel within the unit with their friends is so intangible, that only they can understand.”
Didi will always carry a small piece of shrapnel around embedded in his cheek as a reminder of the war in Gaza. But he, and all of the boys and men who fought in this war, will likely carry around something else far deeper in their soul.
A tragedy of the Gaza war
Filed under: A New Reality, General, War, coexistence
One of the most heartbreaking tragedies of the recently completed Operation Cast Lead is the story of Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian gynecologist from Gaza City who works at Israel’s Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv.
Abuelaish, a fluent Hebrew speaker and known among his colleagues as an advocate for peace and coexistence, had been a regular interviewee on Israeli news broadcasts during the 22 days of war. On Friday night, three of his daughters were killed by an Israeli shell at the Abuelaish home. The IDF said gunfire had emerged from the home, a claim Abuelaish denies.
What set this tragedy apart from the other innocent Palestinians and Israelis who were killed during the war is that it played out on television According to a report by Ben Lynfield in The Independent, Abuelaish’s raw anguish -captured live on Channel 10 – forced Israelis to take their first real glimpse of the suffering and death caused to Palestinian civilians
Shlomi Eldar, the Channel 10 correspondent, his own voice choking with emotion, repeatedly noted Dr Abuelaish’s connection to Shiba Hospital as he held out his mobile phone, allowing viewers to hear the physician cry and sob: “My daughters, they killed them, Oh lord, God, God, God.”
“I want to save them but they are dead,” Dr Aboul Aish said. In a video of the interview, available on YouTube, the physician can be heard imploring for help while a shaken Mr Eldar pleads on air for anyone in the army who might be viewing to let ambulances reach the Aboul Aish home in the Jebalya refugee camp. “Maybe something can still be saved,” he said.
The IDF allowed ambulances to come straight to the house, and the doctor’s other daughter, niece and brother were rushed to Israeli hospitals – first to Barzilai in Ashkelon and then to Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv.
Abuelaish, who did his residency at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, was adamant he had not allowed his house to be a Hamas firing position. “They should just admit they made a mistake. There is no shame in making a mistake, but don’t deceive the nation,” he told the Independent.
Israel Television reported that autopsy reports showed traces of Grad rocket fragments in the head of one of Abuelaish’s daughters, the kind of weapon fired by Hamas, and not the IDF. But there has been no followup on that, and it appears that the IDF shell was the cause of the loss of life.
The high civilian casualty count in the Gaza operation has been attributed by Israel to the fact that Hamas both used civilians as human shields and fired from inside major population centers. Most people I know are able to use that as justification for retaining a clean conscience over the civilians killed.
But the Abuelaish case makes it impossible to ignore the victims on the other side. We can blame Hamas for the deaths of the Abuelaish girls, but we can’t just shirk off responsibility, and say ‘tough luck’. Otherwise, we become as inhuman as our enemy seems to be.
If quiet rains down on the South of Israel now due to the Gaza operation, will the loss of innocent life have been worth it? Perhaps. Could it have been achieved in another way?
Doubtful. But the images of a grieving Abuelaish, a man who epitomizes the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians can one day live together in peace, were a chilling reminder that even in winning a war, we are all losers.
Thinking of the boys in the IDF
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War
As we finish the third week of Operation Cast Lead, there’s a growing sense that the diplomatic process is taking over. And before we finish the fourth week, some mechanism will be in place that both Israel and Hamas can accept.
While it remains to be seen whether we will have achieved our goal of bringing quiet to the South, one thing is clear – we have every right to be proud of our soldiers. Mostly kids and mostly untested, they’ve proved their mettle in performing their mission.
And despite the calls of ‘war crimes’ over the civilians who have tragically been killed in the fighting, they’ve conducted a moral war. AP reported about Capt. Orr, 25, a pilot who’s been conducting sorays into Gaza and targeting Hamas fighters. He told the AP reporter that he felt that aborting some of his targets for fear of harming civilians were among his proudest achievements.
“The ones I remember are when I have locked in on a target and I fire and then at the last second I see a child in my cross hairs and I divert the missile,” he said. “That leaves a mark.”
Of course, even one civilian casualty is too much, and we won’t get into the whole Hamas human shield /value of life issue that resulted in so much innocent life lost. But with all the talk about Palestinian casualties, let’s not forget that there have been soldiers killed during this operation and many wounded.
Observant Jews read off the names of loved ones during Shabbat morning services in a prayer for healing. But you don’t need to be religious to scan down this list of soldiers wounded in Operation Cast Lead as of Friday morning and wish them a speedy recovery. Shabbat Shalom.
Aharon Yehoshua ben Chaya Shoshana
Avi ben Shoshana
Ben ben Batya
Binyamin Ben Ben Netiva
Chaim Moshe Naftali ben Ruth Reizel
Daniel ben “Sara”
Dov Baer ben Devorah Blumah
Dvir Ben Laya Â
Eitan ben Sarah Â
Elishama Shalom ben Rivka Leah;
Eran ben Batsheva
Gal ben Hedva
Gal Or ben Aliza
Geva ben Avital
Hoshea ben Miriam
Idan ben Liora
Idan ben Nadi
Itai ben Rinat
Liel Hoshea ben Miriam
Lior ben Mazal
Maxim ben Olga
Mor Mordechai ben Orna
Moshe ben Chana Malka
Moshe ben Dina
Moshe ben Eidi
Moshe ben Pnina Rose
Nadav ben Miriam
False alarm in Jerusalem
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War
Can someone get these other girls behind me to stop crying?
Until yesterday, that is.
Just before 1 pm, that high-low frequency, nuclear-bomb-coming-in siren went off around Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh. Even level-headed people might have been jolted upright with a moment’s panic going through their system – Kassams and Grads fired from Gaza can’t reach here, can they?
I initially thought the noise emanated from actual ambulance or police car sirens and surmised there must be a major accident somewhere, or a regular, old fashioned terror attack/suicide bombing that we all too frequently encountered in the earlier part of the decade.
I walked out onto my porch in Ma’aleh Adumim, and realized that it was a warning siren, and could see pupils in the playground of the junior high school in my view’s range running into the building.
Ah, an excercise. Good deal, I thought, Let’s keep everyone on their toes, remembering the nuclear bomb drills we used to participate in the US growing up in Colds War era. Still, just to be sure, I turned on the 1 pm news on the radio.
Turns out it wasn’t a planned drill, but an alarm malfunction that caused the sirens to go off. Evidently Magen David Adom and the Jerusalem Municipality hotline received hundreds of calls from panicked citizens, but my eight-year-old son wasn’t one of them. When he returned home from school later in the day, he recounted his ‘alarming’ experience.
“I was just about to go into the bathroom, and we all had to hurry back to our class and then go into the big bomb shelter next to the school’s library. The kids were running around and really excited, and some thought it was a real attack. But I knew it wasn’t because I saw that the teachers were calm,” he recounted. “When we were waiting inside the shelter, some of the girls were crying. They’re so emotional.”
So, at least he got an astute life’s lesson out of his false alarm experience, which will hopefully provide some guidance when he starts dating.
Fred Teng Gets It
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Politics, Profiles, War, coexistence
Given the avalanche of hate against Israel on the internet, at anti-Israel protests around the world, and in the media (of course!), it’s easy to believe that “nobody” likes us. By “nobody,” I mean, of course, folks from the wide world. And even if they are willing to overlook our “crimes” in Gaza (no, of course I don’t mean that), they still don’t “get it” – they just can’t understand what we’re up against. 
So I wanted to share with you a message I got from a friend who’s in New York right now. There was a big pro-Israel rally this past Sunday, featuring speakers from the Jewish and general community. According to the message I got,
“The most powerful speaker at Sunday’s massive rally for Israel was Fred Teng, president of the Chinese Community Relations Council of NY. His words would have been exceptional even coming from an Israeli — and how much more striking for having come from the heart of a New Yorker and a member of the Chinese community.”
Suffice to say Mr. Teng “gets it.” He’s got Hamas’ number – comparing them to the gangs of big American cities who get their jollies running drive by shootings against innocent people. In the words of Mr. Teng,
“Enough is enough”
“These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like Drive-by Shootings. We have to put every gang member away for good, not just the ones that did the shooting. These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like a Fire in the Forest, You can’t STOP only half of the fire in the forest, and thinking you will be safe. If your house is next to the fire, you won’t think so. It is not the Qassam Rockets; it is the people behind the Qassam Rockets that we need to go after. This is an epidemic threat to the entire world.
“In the last 60 years, every gesture of peace by Israel only met with escalated violence. Every peace proposal, whether it is multi-lateral, bi-lateral, or uni-lateral was never honored by the terrorists. However, in this time of extreme difficulties, we shall not lose hope. We shall say yes to Peace. We shall say yes to Life. And we shall forever say yes to an eternal Israel Am Yisrael Chai.
Maybe someone should tell this guy we have an election coming up? Sounds like he’d make a good prime minister!
Peace now, or later?
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War
Whether it's the right move or not, Israeli society is open to debate on whether the Gaza campaign should continue.
In fact, Haim Oron, the leader of Meretz, the flag bearer of the Zionist Left, spoke out in favor of a military operation in Gaza to stop the Hamas rocket attacks on the South. But now, two weeks into the campaign, the general support for the operation is being frayed. And last night marked the first demonstation by Peace Now and Meretz against the continuation of the campaign.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
“Even though we supported initiating the operation after Hamas broke the cease-fire, now we are saying enough,” Meretz head Haim Oron said at the rally. “A cease-fire must be reached now. We must do everything possible to reach a peace agreement under the umbrella of the Arab League. Only an agreement between us and the Palestinians can end terror.”
Peace Now expressed understanding for the operation when it began, but started calling for a cease-fire six days into the fighting. “Calls for a cease-fire are not anti-IDF,” Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer said at the rally. “We just don’t want the soldiers to lose their lives in an operation that should not be continuing. The Left was divided at the start of the fighting. But when the choice is between staying in Gaza for years or leaving now, it is clear what we support.”
As caualties mount, the IDF prepares a ‘phase three’ of its offensive which will likely take troops farther into Gaza toward Gaza City, and efforts intensify to find a formula that will enable both Israel and Hamas to accept a cease-fire, the calls for a withdrawal will likely increase.
And the debate is intensifying too. A weather vane of public opinion, Facebook is full of back and forth whether the status report that many supporters of the IDF efforts have adopted, which tracks each Kassam that falls on Israel, is ‘jingoistic’. And there have also been reports of a similar status report on the other side labeled ‘body count’ which marks each Palestinian fatality at the hands of the IDF.
Friends by any definition, are turning on each other with increased exasperation and lack of understanding for the other side. Self-criticism has long been a tenet of the Israeli way of life, and now is certainly no time to stop. It keeps us in check, reminds us that we, as a people, abhor war and killing, and sets us apart from our enemy, which doesn’t seem to have any internal debate or qualms about the suffering and death it causes.
Unclogging the drains
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War
Almost two weeks into Operation Cast Lead, and there’s a strange sense of normalcy that pervades the major parts of the country not in Hamas rocket range.
There are plenty of ways that the average person is getting involved though – like care packages being arranged for soldiers serving in Gaza, and there’s home hospitality that’s being offered for residents of the South at families in other parts of the country.
But with Friday morning being ‘erev Shabbat’, the Aroma at the local mall was packed this morning with coffee drinkers and diners, going about living their lives. They’re not being callous or uncaring, but just as the rest of the country carried on as usual during the Second Lebanon War, you wouldn’t know there was a conflict going on by walking around Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
There’s still errands to do, and clogged drains to fix. And we’ve got plenty of both of them. Our friend, and local plumber, Haim Mayim (loosely translated as Haim the Water guy), spent a couple hours at our house trying figure out the source of our kitchen sink clog. Joe the Plumber’s got nothing on Haim, who can expound on Talmud and Springsteen with the same breadth and humor.
Simultaneously, my wife was trying to cook for Shabbat, and we were making sandwiches for the kids’ lunch. Not easy when you’re ankle deep in dirty, muddy water.
The police daughter was keeping the peace in Jerusalem’s Old City, where she was monitoring Friday Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount. With tensions taut due to what’s happening to their brethren in Gaza, there’s no guarantee that riots wouldn’t erupt at any moment. But a 2pm check found her enjoying a relatively boring shift. Thank God for boring.
And daughter number two was staying in Jerusalem after school so she could attend a birthday party Friday night. if you’re wondering what senior year parties are like in Israel, they’re probably just like senior year parties in other countries, with the potable accessories that come hand in hand with adolescence. But these are the ‘kids’ who may be on the frontlines a year from now, so if they want to indulge now, I’m not going to complain as long they don’t drive.
Before Shabbat dinner tonight, we’ll remember the soldiers who have fallen these last two weeks, and say a prayer for the safety of those defending our country, including many family friends. We’ll also remember the civilians in Gaza who have lost their lives, and express the hope that they’ll one day find leadership who will care about them enough to not put them in the middle of a war.
Then we’ll eat, drink, and enjoy each other’s company – and contemplate the totally illogical, impossible, yet intoxicating place in which we live.
The lights are on but nobody’s home
Barenboim -a little too close for comfort (Photo: AP)
Having never been here before, he envisioned entering a country with bullets whizzing by, and rockets falling around every corner. Fair enough, if I was watching CNN or SKY, that’s what I might be thinking too.
But it’s still a bit discouraging, never mind that we were preparing a damn good meal for his first night here of broiled salmon, cream of cauliflour soup and baked potatoes topped with grated cheese, that American Jewish staunch supporters of Israel are preferring to stay at home during this time of need, when we could use a little moral support.
Of course, we didn’t expect any support from famed conductor Daniel Barenboim. His orchestra of Arab and Israeli musicians cancelled two shows because of the war – and they weren’t even in Israel! They were slated for Qatar and Egypt, but Barenboim, known for his critical views of Israel’s policies, was evidently concerned for the musicians’ safety, not that I’ve heard of the IDF attacking Qatar recently.
But the most worrisome cancellation, in my mind, was that of Clarence B. Jones, an octagenarian academic from California, who was the attorney and one of the key speechwriters to Dr. Martin Luther King. Jones wrote a book last year focusing on Black-Jewish relations called What Would Martin Say, and I had set up an interview with him to discuss that issue in light of the inauguration of Barack Obama and the fact that over 80% of Jews voted for him, and in general to talk about the perennial question of whether Obama is ‘good for the Jews and Israel’ (Mr. Jones is adamant that he is).
Jones ‘regretably’ had to cancel his planned week in Israel, without giving an explanation. Again, it’s perfectly understandable. But given Jones’ supposed staunch support for Israel, and his assurances that the president-elect is on the same page as his one-time mentor King – who Jones claims was an ardent Jew and Zionist lover – it doesn’t sit very well. If this the backing we get from our friends, then we’re more alone than we think.
While Jones has no formal connection with Team Obama, his cancellation reconfirms something we already know – we’re in for an interesting 4 to 8 years.
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