Tag Archives: Israel

May 18, 2026 · 7:30 am

A mother’s worry

by Karen Scholl (Mount Vernon, OH)

My 24-year-old son Noah had been in Israel for less than three hours when I got this text:

Noah: Weird question, but do you want to know when or if I hear sirens or have to shelter?

He was attending a week-long conference with other Jewish educators to meet people directly impacted by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. More than a year into the conflict, Noah was there to listen to people’s stories, see what their lives are like today, and hear what they hope for the future.

When he first sent me a link to the program, I knew he had to go. It didn’t just align with his recently earned religious studies-political science degree, but his passion for connecting with people and trying to better understand their experiences and perspectives.

Was I worried about him visiting a country in the middle of a conflict? That was the question most people asked me. Not directly, of course. “Oh, Israel. Wow. Ok. That’s…uh, how do you feel about that?” 

Honestly, my biggest worries were about him remembering his passport and making all his flights.

I’d woken up that morning to a text that he landed in Tel Aviv, and then another one that said he “made it” through customs, which I hadn’t even thought to worry about. 

Noah: I definitely didn’t explain myself the best, but the customs official let me through. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say and she was just like, “Have better answers next time.”

It’s not that I sit and worry, but just knowing he’s en route somewhere— especially if it’s across an ocean—ignites one more burner on the endless stovetop of my brain. So just the sight of a text that says On the ground, or even an airplane-landing emoji settles me. 

When Noah’s question came through I was in the middle of a client project—tweaking a headline about luxury travel to try and attract the most high-net-worth eyeballs. But now I needed to decide about sirens? My Noah burner reignited. Did I want to know—in the moment—if he was in danger? 

Me: So, like right now? Or is this hypothetical? 

Normally I know better than to use punctuation in texts to my kids. They taught me early on that, from me, periods and question marks seem “aggressive.” So I save them for essential communications—How high is your fever? This time I was tempted to respond purely in punctuation—one giant question mark.

Damn those three dots. Noah typed and re-typed, and re-typed again—from the other side of the globe. It felt like I’d just pulled the lever on a slot machine and was waiting for the reels to stop spinning, praying they’d land on Safe. Safe. Safe.

Noah: Not now. Though when I was in the taxi from the airport we sheltered under an overpass for a few minutes—but it was the first siren in Tel Aviv in weeks.


I really wanted to see his face or hear his voice in that moment, to know for-sure-for-sure that he was ok. 

Me: What does the siren mean exactly? 

Where I live in Ohio, tornado sirens are tested once a week, literally like clockwork. Hearing one just means it’s 12 p.m. on Wednesday, time to get up from my desk and make lunch.

Noah: I think it means there are rockets in the air, but I’m not 100% sure.

I had to look away from my phone. But there was my laptop screen, covered with the headlines about exclusive vacations.  

I couldn’t think, so I shut the lid the way I turn off the radio when I’m driving through a white-out. 

Behind my laptop sat a mug with the cold dregs of hibiscus tea and a pile of bills. I could hear the dogs snoring on the couch behind me, my husband on the phone in the next room. 

Most days, and for most of each day, this was my whole little world. My grown kids pop in and out of it, but they rarely transport me from it. Not like this.

Noah was barely one day into his trip and my stomach was braided like challah. Later, a friend who travels to Israel often mentioned that there’s an app that lets you know when and where sirens are going off. “I mean, I don’t have it,” she said, “but you can get it—if you want to know.”

I thought of my college roommate who moved to Israel and raised three kids in Tel Aviv. We lost touch years ago, but whenever I saw headlines about unrest there, I wondered how it affected her life. Was she still cooking dinner, asking her kids about school, reminding them to pick their clothes up off the floor like I was? Or was she holding onto them in a bomb shelter?

Me: Yes, please keep me posted about your safety ❤️

The rest of Noah’s week seemed to go well. Mid-way through, he casually mentioned a second incident with sirens, but glossed over it with stories about the courageous people he met and how it felt to walk through one of the kibbutzim that was attacked, seeing the scars and devastation, but also the hope.

After heavier days he’d send pics from feasts in quaint cafes or videos from the poets and musicians they met. He FaceTimed me once to show me the stray cats running around the roof of his hostel in Jerusalem and the sun rising over the Old City.

Right before his flight out of Tel Aviv, sirens went off for the third time. It was Friday night here when I started seeing Noah’s texts come through—first that he was sheltering in the airport bathroom, then that he got the all-clear.

Noah: I’m a little shaken just because I was asleep at the gate when the sirens first went off, but I’m fine. Met a nice Danish woman in the shelter. 

Noah (cont’d): Experiencing the sirens gave me a fuller grasp of all the emotions and feelings that are out there. I wanted to be in the center of the action and it comes with stuff like this.

Once he got back to his gate, he shared more. 

Noah: The most intense part was everyone running, like watching an entire terminal of people scatter, looking for shelters. I’ve seen it 3 times now, but it’s the look in people’s eyes when they realize oh, this is not a drill, we gotta start running.

Later that night I was better able to take stock of things. Noah was fine. His flight out of Tel Aviv had taken off as scheduled and he was likely stretched out across three seats in the back of the darkened plane, two-melatonin deep into a transcontinental nap. Relieved as I was that the drama of the week was over, I was thankful to be present for it, for him—even just via Wi-Fi. Now that he’s grown up and out on his own, I consider witnessing the events that continue to shape his life a real gift.

A few days later, Noah was sitting next to me on the couch, giving me the full download from his trip. He confirmed that not only did those sirens mean rockets were in the air, but once you hear them, you have 90 seconds to find shelter. Saving that last detail until he was within arm’s reach of me was a kindness.

“But I never really felt I was in danger,” he said. “And it’s going to sound weird, but hearing sirens right after I got there almost helped me get into the right headspace.”

“Everywhere we went, all week,” he added, “the first thing they did was show us where to go if the sirens go off. But that first day, in the taxi, I had no idea. The driver made eye contact with me in the rearview then floored it to an overpass. We sprinted to the bridge then stayed there with other motorists until we heard the all-clear.” 

The visual tore through me. I knew instantly that it would run on a loop in my head like a maddening jingle—the boy who I watched run up and down soccer fields for 14 years, running from a car to find safety in case a rocket broke through the Iron Dome. But I tried to hide it, because just like him, I want to be in the center of the action—his action—even when it’s scary—and it comes with stuff like this.

He must have sensed it, because Noah knew exactly where to end his story. “The weirdest part,” he said, “was getting back into the cab and seeing that the meter was still running.”

Karen Scholl has spent the last 25 years working as a copywriter and creative director. In between crafting web copy about laundry detergent, writing video scripts for financial institutions, and creating leadership articles for executives, she started writing about the relatable—and often humorous—moments of everyday life. Karen is the author of Surviving Soccer: A Chill Parent’s Guide to Carpools, Calendars, Coaches, Clubs, and Corner Kicks. Visit her website for more info: https://www.karenschollwriter.com

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January 19, 2026 · 7:30 am

On Rambam Street

by Lillian Farzan-Kashani (Santa Monica, CA)

That’s where we fell in love

Clutching each other closer 

Up until the very last moment 

Beneath a blanket of stars in Herzliya

Our very own magic carpet ride 

Insatiable no matter how much we embraced 

Lit by the glow of the moon on the water

I saw it on his face 

As he peered into my heart 

Lillian Farzan-Kashani is an Iranian American and Jewish therapist, poet, and speaker based in Los Angeles, CA. Much of her work is rooted in being a child of immigrants and is reflective of her intersectionality. Read more about her professional and creative pursuits at https://www.lillianfarzan.com/

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November 24, 2025 · 7:30 am

Chana and Rafa

by Helene Berton (Centereach, NY)

Flipping over the tape, I clicked the play button and smiled when “Modern Love” came through my headphones. David Bowie was the best flying music, I decided. 

After finding the pack of gum in my overstuffed bag, I offered a stick to my mother and then unwrapped one for myself. While chewing exuberantly, I waited for my ears to snap, crackle and pop as we started our descent. Reluctantly, I clicked the stop button as the Sony Walkman couldn’t compete with the noise of the plane. “China Girl” would have to wait. China, my thoughts wandered, was the other side of the world. But then again, so was Israel, and that’s where we landed.

I looked at my mother. Even after the overnight flight, she was brimming with excitement. Why was this trip so important to her? 

*  *  * 

The girls with their machine guns slung across their backs startled me, gave me pause. I snapped a picture of them, lost in thought, winding to advance the film before taking another. 

Like a tourist, I was gaping at them as if an attraction. “Are they in the army?” I whispered to my mother.

“Yes, the IDF,” she replied as we walked down the bustling Tel Aviv street.

“I’m surprised so many girls want to join.”

“It’s mandatory. Everyone goes directly from high school into the military,” she explained to me.

Mandatory? I thought of myself after high school graduation planning my great escape to college. All the stress and drama of roommates, meal plans, and boyfriends dominated my life that summer before I left. I heard my voice complaining that I had to take the bus when most of my friends had cars of their own. Meanwhile, these girls were nonchalantly strolling along with their machine guns, chatting in the sunshine with their cups of coffee. I suddenly felt small.

*  *  * 

“Tell me again who they are?” I asked my mother as we sat down at the round table. The ceiling fan above us did little to cool the restaurant.

“My cousins.”

“How are they related to us?”

My mother looked at me for a moment longer than necessary. Maybe she had explained it already or assumed that I knew. “Your grandfather came to the United States from Latvia when the war broke out. His brother, Uncle Max, went to Israel. These are his daughters.”

I digested this information, trying to form the family tree in my mind. Having no first cousins of my own, I couldn’t relate very well. I felt disconnected, distracted by the heat. I squirmed in my seat, tempted to ask the waiter to turn up the AC. Looking around at the open windows and archways leading into the garden, I realized there was no air conditioning at all.

“That must be them.” My mother stood up as two older women entered the restaurant. 

I was surprised by their age, having pictured them younger. How were these women my mother’s cousins? Realizing that my grandparents had my mother late in life, I put it together. It was as if a generation was missing, but it did add up.

The introductions were made, complete with hugs and kisses which left me feeling awkward, bringing out the shyness I had battled since childhood. I did not know these women, after all. 

I sat quietly as the conversation swirled around me, looking at the food that the cousins had ordered for us. I picked at the unfamiliar meat and sauces presented to me, wishing for a slice of pizza and chips. My mind drifted to the shops we had passed in Tel Aviv as I made my mental list of who would be getting which souvenir. Maybe I would indulge in the boots I saw in the window display or even the leather jacket. I had some money saved from my new job.

Noticing my mother’s sudden look of sadness, I listened in, hoping to catch onto the conversation without embarrassment. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said, as I tried to pull up the dialogue that might still be hanging in the air or my recent memory. 

“Yes, he was killed in the war,” Chana said, looking serious. “He was my youngest.”

Her son? Killed in the war? I brushed aside all thoughts of shopping and started listening. I felt like I should say something.

“I’m so sorry,” I quietly offered condolences to my cousin. 

She looked at me then, and I couldn’t quite figure out the expression. Was it distaste or was I taking on a feeling of inadequacy? I felt like a spoiled child, and I didn’t like it.

After lunch we stepped out to the garden to take some photographs under the archways. I placed my hands on the cool limestone, letting my sense of touch help me file away the moment into my memory. My mother wrapped up the conversation with more hugs and kisses while I took in the views of the rolling countryside. It was quite beautiful just a short drive from Tel Aviv. I hadn’t expected such green lushness. But then again, I didn’t know what to expect, as I really hadn’t done any of the research.

*  *  * 

“Did you enjoy meeting the cousins?” my mother asked me in the cab as we rode back to the hotel.

“I did,” I forced out, with an overly high pitch to my voice. I hoped my mother didn’t notice. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the get together other than it gave me a lot to think about. I was ignorant on too many topics, falling short on contributing to the conversation. 

Looking down at my brightly polished nails and fringed boots despite the heat, I felt foolish. I looked at my mother who carried on a one-sided conversation with me and I started listening. For real.

*  *  * 

Present day…

I bring the photo album and carefully balance it on my mother’s lap as she sits in her wheelchair. My two sons sit on either side of her, their cell phones on their laps but remaining untouched for the moment. I see a glimpse into the future, the day when they both have children, possibly daughters, who would be cousins. How heartbreaking if they never know each other. I finally understand the dynamic of cousins.

They look onto the photos covered in sheets of plastic with their undivided attention. 

My mother points from face to face, announcing names questioningly. 

“Cousin Chana?” she asks. 

“Yes,” I smile encouragingly. 

“And Rafa?” 

“Yes, Rafa.” 

“And this lady?” She places a long fingernail on her own image. “Who is she?”

“That’s you,” I say, not for the first time that day.

Native New Yorker Helene Berton has returned to her love of writing after a long hiatus.  She has two short story collections, Away from Home ( https://a.co/d/czXOPef) and Beyond the Parallel (https://a.co/d/1SViCZj), available on Amazon. Currently, Helene is working on her first novella, Red Means Stop, and a children’s picture book, The Big Race. If you’d like to learn more about Helene and her work, visit https://heleneberton.wordpress.com .

Author’s Note: My story explores the dynamics between mother and daughter, a common theme in my writing.  It was inspired by and takes place during my first trip to Israel in 1987.  There is a bit of a naivety portrayed, which is how I felt as a young American girl visiting Israel (somewhat immature and self centered), but it was a wake-up call.  The trip changed my outlook, inspiring me to fall in love with the country.  I was fortunate enough to visit a second time several years later, and both my sons experienced Israel through Birthright.  It is my hope to return once again.

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August 18, 2025 · 7:30 am

August in Galilee

by David Allard (London, UK)

 We went stone-gathering at dawn,

Thinking ourselves young pioneers

Redeeming the land,

Ungainly in old boots,

Still sticky-eyed and dry-mouthed,

To gather the rocky crop

Risen like dragons’ teeth

From the newly ploughed earth.

My heart awoke first, and

I forgot to breathe for a moment

When I saw you – once more

As if it was for the first time.

Your long black hair curtained your face

As you stooped to gather jagged chunks,

Then slid back when you rose, 

Loose-limbed and lambent, 

To cast your harvest, 

Clanging, echoing,

Into the rusting, dented tractor-drawn trailer.

“ He’s dreaming again,”

 You said to Bernice,

“ Hey you, wake up.”

You might have smiled, 

A muse then and now, 

Unknowingly holding

My fragile heart.

Why wake? Soon enough, 

The red sun risen from the distant ridge

Will turn a fierce yellow-white

And these last floating moments

Bathed in the night’s warmth

Of a faraway summer 

Will be gone, 

But never lost.

David Allard, now retired, lives in London, UK. He lived in Israel through the seventies. He writes poems and short stories, and has been published in the USA, UK and Israel. A detective novel, The Last Resort, set in a sleepy seaside town, has been published under the pseudonym David Strauss and is available on Amazon.

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April 28, 2025 · 7:30 am

6:00 am Call from Israel

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

My younger brother, David, and I

have had our differences over

women, religion, and politics,

but the thread that has held us together

is our shared love for the Mets

and deep hatred for the Yankees.

We would get together regularly

over beer and baseball out at City Field

and would scream our heads off

when the Mets dramatically won.

Those were the best times with him.

But he suddenly found religion 

and moved himself, family, and work

to a suburb of Tel Aviv where

he quickly found a job in technology

and developed a quick ear for Hebrew.

We would talk on the phone once a week

but it wasn’t the same thing.

Then the bombs began to fall.

I was constantly worried and scanned

the news for reports of damages.

Exhausted one recent night after a tense 

Mets game, I fell asleep at 11, early for me.

The phone suddenly flooded in light.

“David?”

“What happened?” he asked frantically.

“What happened where?” I said, my voice equally raised.

 “Do you know what time it is?” I shouted. 

“Are you all right? Sarah and the kids?”

I pictured him bleeding on some hospital gurney.

“The game, man, tell me the score. 

The Israeli sports feed went out in the 9th.

I was up all night. Did they win?”

“The Mets won, David. Calm down. They’re in 

the series against Philly. If they win, they

get the Dodgers, tough team.”

It felt as if we were back together at Citi Field,

just like in the old days.

“Good night, David, glad you’re all right.”

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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September 30, 2024 · 7:30 am

Hatikvah

by Dennis Gura (Santa Monica, CA)

Back behind the school, under a corrugated

tin awning, propping ourselves up against

the half-filled bike rack, the late spring days

already too hot for most to ride bikes to school,

A.V. and I practice singing Hatikvah off

a transliterated sheet.

We had carefully chosen the place, distant

from the hubbub of our lunchtime recess. 

For the other kids — A.V. was in fifth grade,

me in fourth — would likely have razzed us

practicing a Hebrew song.  We two were the only

Jews in the school, and we kept it on the QT.

We lived on egg ranches with parents

who did not fit the mold of either farmers nor

So Cal rural residents in the 1950’s.  My folks,

Manhattanites, came post-war to California, my 

mother to escape the cold, my father dutiful.

A.V.’s folks, on the other hand, had the more

dramatic story. His mother, elegant and French, 

his father, a Litvak, off to Zion, then to fight in Spain,

barely surviving and repatriated to the Proletarian

Homeland, later air-dropped into Poland.

The two met in, and survived, Auschwitz.  And ended

up in the San Gabriel Valley (LA’s other one!). 

Raising chickens and two kids, and, like my

folks in the ’50’s, keeping their politics —

Left, more Left, yet even more Left — under

wraps in a town whose most famous boast of

the day was as the headquarters of 

America’s only homegrown Fascist group.

Some old Israel contact of A.V.’s dad placed a kibbutznik,

sent to California to help out a local

Zionist-Marxist group, on their ranch. He corralled

as many Jewish children as he could find locally for 

membership.  As the parents were often close to,

or members of, the Party, Zionism was viewed

with suspicion, but, on the other hand (always another

hand), even the most reluctant nationalist Jew in 1960 

was hollowed out by the oh-so recent events, and

thus was scintillated by the stories of pioneers and

survivors creating a state and refuge.  So the 

emissary kibbutznik worked the farm, organized

the kids for the youth group, and encouraged the romance

of redeeming the land and people with discipline and

song.  To earn our membership and the coveted

blue shirt — hultza khula — A.V. and I needed to 

sing Hatikva.  We neither knew nor read

Hebrew, so we worked off the transliteration.

We spent a week at the bike rack, managing 

to memorize a foreign song which only had

a distant meaning, if that.  Years later, I finally 

figured out the meaning of the line that 

cracked us up: Our Hope Is Two Thousand Years 

Old.  The word “Years” was transliterated as

“Shnot.” What’s this song about “shnot”?

What else does a nine year-old think?

That Friday night at our meeting, A.V. and I

sang, likely off-key, from memory, the

words, and didn’t even start laughing

when we got to the “shnot.”

The leaders, only teenagers themselves,

loosely supervised by the kibbutznik emissary,

who could not have been more than in his twenties,

presented us with the blue shirt, signifying

our membership in the youth movement to

build the Zionist future.

Neither A.V. nor I made it to kibbutz life, although

some of our friends did for longer and shorter

durations.  And we’ve lost track of each other,

more or less.  But I learned the words to the song,

and eventually even the meaning, and,

now, especially now, I’m glad I have it

imprinted in my heart.

Dennis Gura is a father, husband, and an engaged and serious Jew who tries to understand a complex and confusing world as best as possible. A native Angeleno, he has been deeply engaged in Jewish thought and experiences his entire life–the ethnic, the ethical, the secular, and the religious.  He was privileged to study at Machon Pardes in 1982-83, and has since bounced around various LA synagogues and Jewish groups.

If you’d like to read more of his work, visit his Substack page:https://dennisgura.substack.com

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September 23, 2024 · 7:18 am

My Father’s Name is Israel

by Talya Jankovits (Chicago, IL)

I have only been to Israel once. 

Ten days when I was eighteen,

a program that assured me 

it was my birthright to visit

this land that so many feel

holy connections to. 

The other attendees sped through

customs with generic Jewish names

or secular ones like Dusk or Dawn,

but my father’s name is Israel

and I carry a name that could

sound Israeli; Talya Shulamit.

They thought I was Israeli. 

They asked question after question. 

My father’s name is Israel. 

His name made them wonder

at my American passport. 

Whom did I belong to with a name 

like Talya Shulamit Bat Israel.

To whom did I belong?

To whom do I belong?

Where do I, bat Israel 

belong if not to Israel? 

They tell me I don’t belong there. 

They tell me I don’t belong here. 

Tell me, where do you want me?

Oh, hear Israel. Let us listen.

Let us hear where they want us. 

Talya Jankovits, a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, has been featured in numerous magazines, some of which she has received the Editor’s Choice Award and first place ranking.  Her poetry collection, girl woman wife mother, is forthcoming from Keslay Books in 2024. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and resides in Chicago with her husband and four daughters. To read more of her work you can visit her at www.talyajankovits.com, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @talyajankovits.

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July 8, 2024 · 7:30 am

Safety for Jews

by Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)

For the challah baking event at my synagogue,

a gathering to bring us together during these terrible times,

I carry in two extra bags of flour, four jars of honey,

sesame and poppy seeds we need at the last moment.

I am stopped at the gate of our building, a police cruiser

parked at the entrance, the two, armed guards,

glocks ready at their waists, know me, I am here often,

but still say, “We need to check your bags.”

They poke the grocery bags with a long stick,

find flour, honey, sesame and poppy seeds, scour

my purse for any hidden weapons, then wand me

in search of anything dangerous they might have missed.

I thank the two young guards, too young for such weapons,

tell them how grateful I am for their thoroughness

in protecting us, try not to think of the thugs

with AK-47’s that these innocents might have to face.

How did it come to this? Swastikas painted in the bathrooms

of my sons’ high school.  Friends tell me

they are removing mezuzahs from their front doors.

Do we need to hide all over again, here in America?

A parent tells me her daughter who wears a Jewish star

on her college campus was surrounded by a vicious group,

fellow students, yelling for her to leave, a dirty Jew, she no longer

belonged, shades of Nazi Germany.

We Jews are damned when we are weak, maligned as sheep

led to slaughter, but also damned when we fight back

and told we should take the high road, forgive and forget.

Just make peace.  What hostages?  What massacre of innocents?

As Jews, we thought if there comes a day when we need

to run, there is finally a safe place to take us in, the land of Israel,

our own Jewish state, our homeland.  Now Israel herself cries

for her captives, her dead.  

Safety for Jews is always an elusive dream.

Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.

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June 17, 2024 · 7:30 am

My People

by Marcie Geffner (Ventura, CA)

I lay on the narrow exam table with “everything off” except the blue-and-white hospital gown tied at my neck and open to the back.

It was early morning in Los Angeles and I was hungry—empty, really—and tired from the clear liquid diet—apple juice, vegetable broth, ten lemon JELLOs—and the routine colonoscopy “prep” I’d endured the day before.

A surgical assistant approached me with a wristband.

Inwardly, I moaned. Did I have to do this? Answer: yes.

“Hold out your arm,” the assistant instructed. “Just think of this like you’re at a music concert.”

At my side, the stocky, dyed-blond nurse stiffened.

As did I.

It had been only four days since Hamas militants massacred two hundred and sixty people at a dance party in Israel’s Negev Desert. Israeli soldiers now stood guard at the site, strewn with mattresses, tents, food, clothing, and one militant’s dead body, left there as a warning. In Israel, 1,200 people were dead with another 2,800 wounded. In Gaza, the death toll surpassed 1,500. The war had only just begun.

Could anyone be as clueless as this surgical assistant seemed to be? Apparently so.

“That’s…maybe not the best comment right now,” I said.

The nurse murmured, “I am half-Russian, half-Ukrainian.” Her thickly accented voice came low, as if for my ears only.

She sounded like my grandmother. Born in Kishinev, my father’s mother immigrated first to Panama, then to Los Angeles as a young woman.

I was born Jewish and brought up Jewish. As a teenager, I’d spent one glorious, fearless summer in Israel, studying Hebrew, harvesting potatoes, traveling throughout the state and visiting my great-aunt and great-uncle, who lived part-time in Netanya.

Later, though, my feelings toward my religious heritage changed. As an atheist, I had no interest in prayer. As an adult without children, I felt marginalized, even unwelcome, in synagogue life. But I don’t celebrate Christmas, either. No Christmas tree. No Christmas lights. No Christmas cards. I’m an outsider in almost any religious space.

So why did this Hamas massacre in Eretz Yisrael feel so personal?

Because even without formal religion, I’m still a member of the tribe. I’m not always sure what that means, but I’ve never denied it and can’t imagine that I ever would. Jewish values, history and culture are visible threads woven through the fabric of my life. I don’t know whether I still have distant relatives in Israel, but really, everyone who lives there feels to me like my family. Those vicious attacks? Those people murdered? They could’ve been my loved ones. Or me.

I extended my arm toward the surgical assistant.

“I don’t watch all that stuff happening on the news,” she declared, as if “all that stuff” could not have been of less interest to her. Or to anyone.

She snapped the band around my wrist.

I withdrew my arm.

“It’s easy to look away,” I said, “when it’s not your people.”

Marcie Geffner is a writer, editor and book critic in Ventura, Calif. If you’d like to learn more about her and her work, visit her website: www.marciegeffner.com

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February 12, 2024 · 7:30 am

Waiting for the cracks to fill

By Molly Ritvo (Burlington, VT)

I’ve noticed so much pain in the past months since October 7–that terrible, terrible date.

It was a date when hope was shattered.

When my sense of safety in the world suddenly caved open.

When hate for Jews bubbled to the surface.

Recently, at Target, my mom said I shouldn’t buy a Hanukkah-themed dress for my daughter. 

I’ve read so many social media posts about pro-Palestinian rallies and cries for stopping aid to Israel. 

There is so much vitriol directed at Israel.

The recent city council meeting in Burlington after a Palestinian man was shot was so painful to witness. 

Many DEI emails I have subscribed to over the years have been sharing anti-Zionist messages.

So many writers who I admire are sharing messages that don’t mention the hostages. Just the blame on Israel.

They all sting. They all hurt. Like a gut punch.

My cousin (who I adore) is part of a progressive Jewish group that is actively anti-Zionist. 

The ADL said this group is antisemitic.

It feels as if these words are losing some meaning. 

I stopped going on Instagram because all I saw were anti-Israel sentiments. Some say that anti-Zionist isn’t antisemitic. But they still hurt just the same.

After visiting Yad Vashem for the first time after college, I remember seeing the window at the end of the museum looking out into Israel and thinking: It’s a hope. A blessing. A refuge.

Is it still?

I have heard from Israelis that they feel more connected to other Israelis now. Maybe that’s a trauma response. 

In America, it’s not the case. There are more sides and splits than ever.

Left. Right. Pro. Anti. Blue flags. Red flags. What are they all doing to us? Scarves. Stars.

So far my daughter doesn’t know there is a war or that being Jewish means knowing that antisemitism exists.

Someday I will have to tell her.

Someday I will have to tell her that being Jewish means carrying trauma in our bodies. 

Someday she will sit in a class and learn about the Holocaust and she will feel anguish and I won’t be able to stop it.

I wish I could say that I feel optimistic and hopeful about a two-state solution.

I don’t.

I wish I could say that Israel wasn’t harming innocent lives. 

It is.

I wish I could say that terrorists don’t exist. They do. They definitely do. They’ve left wounds and raw despair and death in their footsteps.

I wish I could say things will get better soon. 

I am afraid they can’t. 

Too many lives have been lost. 

Too many young people danced in nature at a concert that turned into a nightmare.

My synagogue hired additional security recently. They carry additional weapons now.

The Israelis I know are committed to peace work.

It feels that the American Jewish community is so torn apart.

We are all so tired and wary.

In these cold Vermont winter nights I wonder how we find that still, small light inside of us that doesn’t flicker out.

Where do we find that still, small part that somehow has hope despite the messages telling us over and over again that we’re wrong?

I had a thought one day that maybe we did something wrong, for just living.

And then I realized that is what the terrorists want. For us to not have the right to live.

We do have the right to live.

Diaspora Jews have a right to live. Israel has a right to live.

There’s a split at my home synagogue. There’s a split everywhere, with cracks growing wider and wider. 

I worry that my daughter will someday ask about the war that started when she was in kindergarten, when she liked chocolate ice cream and crispy wafers and playing in the snow and going to the library after school on Wednesdays.

I worry that I will need to tell her that it was just the beginning. I worry that I will need to tell her that the cracks kept widening until we found the courage to fill them with small ounces of hope. 

Molly Ritvo is a writer and author living in Burlington, VT. She has been writing for her whole life, beginning when she was selected as the class poet in the 1st grade. Her work has been published by Upstreet Literary Magazine, Tiny Buddha, Elephant Journal, Mother.ly, PJ Library, At the Well, and more.  She holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Molly has worked as a freelance writer, a communications specialist for many different organizations, and a journalist. She is currently writing her debut novel, a collection of poetry, and working as a communications’ consultant and grant writer. Her most important role is being a mom to her daughter, Jimi. Find out more about Molly and read more of her writing at mollyritvo.com.

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