the 6 o clock news - only for the surreal minded..

there i was at work fussing over last minute contracts for the financial quarter and the sirens kicked in.. as if by reflex i ported myself to the nearest security room (doubles as a common tea room) where i have already acquired a regular seat - just next to the microwave..

i placed the habitual call to my wife to see that everyone was fine and safe and my phone was already aflush with sms notifications of the danger from the national service that lets you know if youre at risk..

for the next 12 minutes i directed all overseas colleagues to call me back in 20 minutes and had the same security room chitchat as i always have with my co-refuge seekers..

when i got back to the office - as i was waiting to get on a call i took a look at ynet.co.il that instantly listed all areas affected by the rocket attack - apparently there were several concurrent attacks all over the country.. and listing the damage including the fact that a house was directly hit and its resident wounded..

how insane is that.. all thats missing is some monetised services like 1shekel for your favourite war song.. or 2 shekels for an expedited warning  ~5 seconds earlier.. or perhaps a nice cold beer to pass the time in the security room delivery service..

anyway the good news is that even under so many attacks - with everyone heeding the warnings - so little injury is caused..

many people are talking about the overwhelming sense of solidarity in this country right now.. i have to be honest.. i really struggle to celebrate it.. it really doesnt feel like the issue to me.. that everyone supposedly is getting along just because we're detonating gaza.. yet it is incredible how coordinated and oiled we are.. after decades of dealing with armed conflict.. i would like to wish that one day we lose the need for this skill of ours..

the horrors of paradise..

when i was a young surfing adventurer i heeded the call of the deep aqua waters of the maldives to hunt the mythological waves that every israeli surfer dreamed about.. the legend of crystal clear liquid expanses with reefs and tropical fish offering you company as you caught one perfect wave after another - the dolphins who you could swim right up to - the balmy weather - the blissful isolation were enough to drive us crazy and venture over there crossing deserts and oceans (by planes of course)..

i completed this mandatory right of passage trip quite a few years ago and it was incredible..

which is not what a bunch of israeli surfers said after being attacked there this week by a boat ferried mob of anti israeli rioters who violently confronted them and even opened a few israeli surfer heads.. following which they were reportedly rushed to the airport by speedboats and immediately left  the country.. these are mostly young israeli guys and girls who evidently arent busy in gaza.. so clearly its not them doing whatever is happening..

i remember talking to locals when i was there about there views.. being a muslim country they tended to lean towards their coreligionist palestinians but some were quite happy living off israeli tourism and warmly welcomed us.. and some israelis had really blended in to the local scene - living near the best spots and enjoying the swell when the crowds thinned.. i cant imagine many will go there now..

disappointed..

i hope we never become like that.. i hope we never heckle them and harass them in countries all around the world.. like hate is a transferable license and can be cast against interchangeable targets..

disgusting..

night is supposed to enable rest..

relatives of ours from france have come to visit us in israel.. now.. during the war.. they have taken an apartment near us for themselves and their 3 kids and it doesnt have a security room.. the lessor told them that we dont get sirens at night.. he was mostly right.. but not entirely..

they are thinking of moving here.. along with the extended family.. to israel.. even though we are at war.. because as jews in france they have become afraid.. afraid to be known as jews.. with the recent attacks on synagogues and schools france has failed to ensure that its law abiding economy pumping jewish citizens feel that they are as deserving as others to exist without fear.. we heard that the recent rules limiting anti israel protests in paris due to the mania that accompanies them and the blood thirsty frenzy in which jews (not israelis) have been attacked have not been enforced.. or at least not enough.. and we heard how nasty it feels to have to go to synagogues with a police entourage facilitating your way in and out of the doors..

so they are thinking of imminently moving here..

i feel compelled to share this given the vast number of friends of mine who have urged me to leave for my family's personal security.. go see what jewish schools look like in sydney australia with their multi-tiered fences and security staff and cameras.. then go see what a school looks like in israel and tell me where your kid (if they were jewish) would feel less under threat..

in any event - as we gradually started getting used to the threat of rockets - i decided to go back to my pre-war habit of cycling to work.. its so beautiful.. i get to do the whole telaviv coastline and then the whole river and park area.. it is calming and fun and one of the reasons i stopped was because of the absence of places to take cover.. so anyway yesterday was my second day of cycling..

after i got home and the little ones were put to sleep my wife picked up some yummies from our local sushi bar and we sat down for a meal.. just the two of us.. watched some episode of an overseas show and retired to bed early.. windows open to enjoy the breeze/hear the sirens clearly..

at a viciously deep hour of the morning the sirens kicked in and we scrambled into the kids' room trying feverishly to close the door and suffering from poor mid dream coordination just couldnt.. so we huddled.. my wife fought off tears.. she gets emotional.. and i could feel that the floor was unusually warm.. our eldest must have been sleeping on the floor again.. suddenly we felt her small arms wrapping our legs as she sobbed.. she was afraid.. we picked her up and hugged her.. but it didnt help.. she kept on crying for quite a while and even when she'd clam down we repeatedly heard her from our room and had to reattempt to relax her..

going back to kindergarden has been nice for her but it has also clarified her understanding of the sirens to a certain extent and taught her to fear them..

i lay in bed wondering how my mother and grandmother were both coping.. hoping they managed to safely run down the stairs as neither of them have security rooms.. i didnt want to call in case they were already back in bed and asleep..

all night i had war dreams.. sirens.. infiltrations.. snipers shooting at me.. i knew the dreams would appear.. at some stage..

we woke up to reports of another 10 soldiers dead.. again slip streaming into grief mode - scanning for familiar names to determine the extent of the grief.. i hate how my coping mechanism includes attempting to be mechanical about this whole thing..

what a crappy ending for ramadan.. in past years i would be invited by muslim friends to their ritual feast..

living beings shouldnt be treating other living beings this way..

i want to take this opportunity to share a poem by a palestinian.. of course i feel for her and the gazans.. she is very talented.. this conflict has numerous narratives.. all should be heard..

and this is why we live for now..

the ceasefire appears to have held up and now both sides are considering extending it..

who knows..

no matter how things end up - hamas is already reaping the benefits of its war against us.. the arab street is looking at these inglorious cowards and the audacity of shooting at telaviv as some sort of victory..

soon it will all be over and the attempts by the Israeli army to uproot the daily threat to hundreds of thousands of Israelis will be inevitably condemned as disproportionate and whatever other buzz words the NGOs can come up with.. ultimately commissions and inquiries will be set up (including by us - because 70 years after the holocaust we're still apologising that hitler's work was never completed) and invariably the reports will determine that it wasn't just our fault but the world opinion will remain largely that we viciously and maliciously brutalised gaza for no good reason or alternatively as part of a broader scheme that we have to embezzle gazan offshore gas reserves..

over here we don't know what tomorrow is likely to hold and these days we sometimes don't even know what the next minute will be like.. so we make the most of what we have and we try to live the now..

my wife discovered over the course of the weekend that she has three first cousins who have been posted by the military in gaza due to this war - that she didn't know were there.. one of them is newly married and his wife is pregnant - she reacted badly and is now confined to bed rest as she was experiencing grossly immature contractions..

i decided today to take my daughter to the beach.. the closest one to our house.. she loves it so much.. the water the sand the people the dogs the icy pole man the vibe the air.. don't we all?

at some point a group of hipsters arrived with their balloons and sound system and fed our ears bob marley as they swayed with their beers and bright coloured clothes.. the guys' unshaven faces and the girls' defiantly maintained tans.. vast tattoos channelling fantasy worlds and the odd waft of joint.. my little girl was delighted and ran up to them and stood metres from them in fascination clearly deliberating whether or not it was ok for her dance to their tunes and edge her way into their affection.. her musings conveniently punctuated by the distraction of a small dog running by or another kid with a delightful spade.. she loved running around and splashing and dancing and screaming.. she devoured her siren-cleansing freedom..

i had agreed with my wife that if a siren went off while we were at the beach - after taking shelter - we'd go straight back home.. i wondered what arrangements if any the guys and girls celebrating had made with their loved ones.. and i admired their commitment to life..

naturally any Palestinian friends of mine will instantly think of the little boys who were mistaken for operatives and killed on the beach by the Israeli air force.. a tragedy to every stretch of the imagination.. they naturally will not think about the attempted infiltration to an Israeli beach that happened in tandem by hamas marine commandos that was thwarted and protected countless civilians from slaughter in cold blood..

despite what my Palestinian fiends might think  - we actually haven't been busy planning to attack you - we have been busy practising our defence whether reactive or proactive.. this discipline has allowed us to reach a level of preparedness that is so ridiculously high that every home has become a defence system.. every citizen is ready for your aggression and instantly knows what to do once it escalates because it never really stops..

i know that Israeli politicians have abused your position within our region and also within the context of broader arab politics.. i myself don't agree with a lot of what goes on and i want a two state solution to ultimately take effect - but please don't try to hide behind our defence achievements in order to accuse us of being the aggressor.. the fact that we know how to avert your damage doesn't wash your hands clean.. and doesn't mean that you can attack us unabated for as long as you want with impunity.. i read some of my Palestinian friends' posts on facebook and i want to vomit.. i have had no choice but to defriend a stack of them.. and yet others have shown me responses that the word noble would not suffice to describe..

what id like to hope for this new week is of course that a peaceful resolution be found for this war and that the killing end.. id like for our spirit as jews and Israelis in general to rebound.. i don't want to see shenkin street empty.. i want people partying at the beach.. i want people letting go of fear and appreciating every moment.. and i of course as always wish the same for all people suffering from this violence - including on the gazan side.. may we go back to focusing on living and not on the fear of dying..

fiery friday..

 

shenkin street is normally packed - but even moreso on friday.. not so this last friday.. many boutiques didn't even bother opening.. nahalat binyamin had only half of its normal current of people as well..

we went to kindergarden to pick up our daughter with the baby and some shopping and as we sat in the garden part the sirens started blaring.. we grabbed the baby out of the stroller and ran up the steep stairs.. the stroller fell back from the weight of our bags.. we left everything there.. our keys and wallet and whatever else..

i grabbed my wife and daughter and took cover in an old thick doorway - the sirens didn't stop so we quickly ducked into the main building and found all the kids huddled against the walls in the central hall.. we smiled to conceal the stress.. a few other parents had gathered there too.. a couple of kids were hugging.. we stayed inside afterwards even though normally the kids have kabbalat Shabbat and parents are not included..

the booms were close.. the missiles were intercepted several hundred metres away from the kindergarden.. the owners of the kindergarden seemed very stressed..

we left to go home shortly after.. 

 

 

 

it had been such a nice morning.. except for the strange atmosphere you could almost forget the war for a moment.. we spent hours walking outside the house..

 

there is a ceasefire now for 12 hours.. partly in honour of the final feast of ramadan.. its very controversial.. because its obvious that the now heavily weakened hamas will make use of this humanitarian breather to prepare some fatal surprises for our soldiers.. tonight more mothers will cry the loss of their sons..

 

hoping this ends soon and all of hamas' tunnels and arsenall are removed with no more casualties on either side for that matter..

im sick of my family running to safety rooms..

hopeless town..

i have no always agreed with the ideas of heartbeat's founder or members but i have always agreed 100% with the project and its purpose.. this clip is but one of the amazing gems that have come out of heartbeat.. rasha and noemi are incredible musicians! and show nothing but the finest of what each side has to offer.. wise enchanting beautiful and talented.. thank you!

the paradox