It’s relatively quiet here in Central Israel

Rina Lapidus (Petah Tikva, Israel)

The rocket shelling from Gaza usually takes place between early morning and early hours of night. After midnight there are usually no air-raid sirens, and you can snatch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep until 4 or sometimes even 5. And thank heaven even for this – “Alhamdulillah,” as the Arabs say: Praise be to God. Aside from rocket shelling, the Central District, where I live, is not really impacted by the ravages of war. No large centers for evacuees from border areas are located here, and neither do you see many wounded people walking about in the streets; no burned houses, except for a few high-rises here and there damaged by shelling, with walls partly destroyed and some debris and fragments of missiles scattered around on the roads and sidewalks below. Also, medical centers are bursting at the seams with all the wounded brought here from other areas, so it is impossible for anyone else to get treatment – like me, for example, a woman who is neither young nor healthy.

Still, I did not give up hope and ordered a taxi to take me to the hospital. The hospital is in the city center of Petah Tikva, north-east of Tel Aviv. The Arab taxi driver who showed up was pleasantly surprised when I agreed to ride in his car. But I thought to myself that it wasn’t really up to me to agree or disagree: the taxi company must have sent me an Arab driver because all their Jewish drivers had probably been called up to the front. However, seeing that the driver was happy that I was prepared to travel with him, I thought it unlikely that he would harm me along the way. Besides, I could stick my bag in the window to keep it open, so if worst came to worst, and the driver’s behavior seemed to me suspicious, I would be able to escape. 

The ride was uneventful, and I arrived safely at the Petach Tikva hospital. At the entrance lobby of the health fund to which I belong sat an elderly Mizrachi Jewish woman. By the look of her she was about 75 years old. Her skin color was brown, but her face was black to the point that it radiated blackness. She sat there mumbling, “My grandson is gone… they killed him in Gaza…” Her words struck me to the quick. I was so shaken that tears burst from my eyes. I went up to her, bent down, and reached out to give her a hug. She shrank away, and pushed me back. Then she shouted at me: “What do you think you are doing, putting your hands around me? They killed my grandson in Gaza! And you came here to hug me?! What’s got into you? My grandson is killed in Gaza! Do you understand?!” I sat down next to her and cried. A Russian-Jewish cleaning lady came up and offered us two cups half-filled with water. I took one and drank. The Mizrachi woman waved away the cup intended for her and shouted, “I’ll manage… but they killed my grandson in Gaza!!”

I went to the reception window and asked a female secretary sitting behind it to set an appointment with a doctor. In reply, she said: “Can’t you see that there are no appointments available? Can’t you see all these soldiers – wounded and sick?” But the other secretary told me: “Try private, not through medical insurance. Maybe you can get an appointment that way.” I said to myself, “Oh, that’s a good idea. Why didn’t I think of it myself?” I thanked the secretary and turned to go.

I headed back home, but as I was getting off the bus, the air-raid siren started, signaling that the shelling from Gaza had resumed. Around me, everyone was running, looking for bomb-shelters in the nearby buildings. I couldn’t have run even if I had wanted to. I lay down on the asphalt of the sidewalk, face down, and put my hands over my ears, to protect my eardrums from bursting in case of an explosion. It was a short barrage, lasting only about fifteen minutes. When the sirens stopped wailing, I tried to get up from the pavement but could not, because there was nothing around that I could grab for support to push myself up. My face was sore as well, because I had scratched it against the asphalt. There I was, lying down prone on the pavement. At that point, people started coming out of shelters. I saw a Bukharan boy, beckoned to him to come over, and asked him to help me get up on my feet. He did, and I went home.

At the entrance to the building where I live, I saw a crowd of people, all of them religious Mizrachi Jews, like my next-door neighbors. I turned to a woman and asked, “What’s going on?” “The Ohanas’ eldest son was killed in Gaza,” she replied. “When is the funeral?” I asked. “It’s finished. We’ve just come back from the funeral, and are starting shiv’a now.” I went up to my apartment, left my bag, and came downstairs again to take part in the neighbors’ shiv’a. The apartment and the landing were full of people, men and women sitting separately, as dictated by religious custom. On the tables outside, there were sweetmeats. A woman whom I had not met before brought me some cakes. I said to her: “Since the war started, I haven’t been able to eat. Every morsel sticks in my throat. I keep thinking of the young people who were killed in the war and they will never be able to eat again.” She said: “I feel the same way. When the war started, I also cried non-stop and was unable to speak for several days. But you must get over it.” I said: “I can’t.” She said: “You mustn’t stop eating completely. You see what the Arabs are doing to us… don’t do it to yourself.” I said: “I’ll try.” I sat there and cried. 

Sometime later I returned to my apartment. Then my cousin, Olivia, called from Australia, where she lives, and started lecturing me, in a patronizing and didactic tone, that Israel should end the warfare and stop punishing the Gaza Arabs collectively. I told her, “It’s not a collective punishment. Gazan leaders keep appearing in the English-language media and saying that, as soon as they are able to, they will invade Israel again and again, the second and third and fourth and millionth time. We need to make sure that they cannot do this, that they don’t have the ability to invade Israel and massacre us again and again.” She said: “The massacre they carried out on October 7 was justified, because Israelis hadn’t been treating the Gazan Arabs well enough – they had even cut off their electricity.” I said to her: “Why don’t they generate their own electricity? Do they really believe that they can burn our babies alive and we will supply them with electricity in return??” Then I told her: “Don’t call me ever again!” and slammed down the phone.

In the evening I called my daughter, who lives in the north of Israel, and told her: “Get out of there and come to live with me, in my apartment in Petah Tikva. It is quiet here, and in the North there is going to be a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.” She said: “My husband can’t leave his job.” I said: “I will come down and take your girls to me.” She said: “My youngest is only a few months old. How will you take care of her? It’s hard, you won’t be able to.” I said: “I’ll take the older girls, then. Actually, the girls should be taken abroad.” My daughter said: “Do you really believe that it’s safer abroad? With all the anti-Semitism there?” I said: “Which is better – to stay inside the Warsaw ghetto or to hide in the Polish part of the city?” She said: “Inside it’s safer because in the Polish quarter you can let out that you are a Jew even by the way you look at people.” I said: “When WWII ended, not one whole brick was left in the Warsaw ghetto. You have to hide in the Polish part. Yes, it’s true that you can easily let out that you are a Jew, so learn not to look people in the face. Just keep your eyes to the ground – don’t raise them.”

In the evening, I said to myself that I should hurry up and sleep while there is no shelling: “Who knows what the night will bring and whether the Arabs who are throwing missiles at us will let us sleep.” I took my blood pressure and cholesterol pills, and went to bed. I didn’t really sleep: it was a kind of drowsiness mixed with nightmares and hallucinations. In my mind’s eye, the Arabs from Gaza were bombarding us with shells and missiles. These were flying in the sky in every direction, and Israelis were intercepting them in midair. And among all the shells, missiles and interceptions, I and my two young granddaughters are on a plane headed abroad. I woke up in a panic and thought to myself, “I didn’t really dream this up. A few days ago, I actually saw how, at the Lod international airport near Tel Aviv, an Israeli plane was taking off into the night sky amid shells, missiles and interceptions swishing hither and thither all around it.” But then I made up my mind, “Right now, it doesn’t matter so much if it’s reality or a nightmare or a hallucination. I have to try and go back to sleep as soon as possible, before they start shelling us again.”

Rina Lapidus was born in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. After graduating from a high school in Haifa, she obtained her BA, MA and PhD degrees in Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Since 1984, she has been working at the faculties of Jewish Studies and Humanities at Bat-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan. Rina Lapidus is divorced, with one daughter and three granddaughters.