Josh's War Journal - Week #4

This week has been long and intense, so here’s the summary of Josh’s War – Week Four:

My involvement with foreign press grinds to a halt.

Why?

My assessment: The world isn’t interested in truth. In values. In justice.

People want drama and that’s what the media provides.

The drama, pain and suffering of Israel can only last so long on a news channel. The media’s focus is now on Gaza. Therefore I am not useful to media crews.

This week my role is to accompany a three-day solidarity mission of Orthodox rabbis representing 30 American communities.

The dual focus of the mission: to strengthen and support Israelis, and to forge connections with individuals in order to continue to provide for them.

I can tell you that they succeeded in both. And I can also tell you that they came to strengthen Israelis but they left strengthened by them (as did I).

I cannot put all of the experiences down in words, but I will attempt to summarize my experiences and understandings from the mission in a thematic format.

I know that my dear readers are used to my guiding them around sites in Israel and connecting them to places, people and ideas. And so, here are the places, people and ideas of this week:

Places

I would like to take you on a tour of Sderot.

Sderot was founded in 1951. Most of its 36,000 residents are immigrants from North African Jewish communities (expelled from their Islamic host countries in 1948), Russian immigrants (fleeing the FSU in the 1990s) and Ethiopian Jews (rescued in early 1990s).

It is a low-income, but proud city.

It happens to be half a mile from the Gazan border and the recipient of tens of thousands of deadly rockets for over twenty years.

Every bus stop is a bomb shelter. Every home as a safe room. Every kindergarten and school has a reinforced roof. Every playground has equipment constructed of reinforced concrete.

Today it is a ghost town. Less than %10 of the residents are still here. Mostly essential workers and those who refuse to leave. Or maybe it is a ghost town because the ghosts of the 45 murdered Sderot residents refuse to leave too...

We stop at the police station. Only there's no police station.

Hamas terrorists conquered it on October 7th. In order to retake the station the commander gave the order to destroy it. In the middle of an Israeli town, an Israeli tank fires into an Israeli police station.

By the time we get there there's absolutely nothing left. No walls. No infrastructure. Just a plot of plowed earth.

I would love to take you next on a tour of Kibbutz Be’eri. Or Holit. Or Shlomit. The glory of Israel's iconic "making the desert bloom!" Or… but they too are ghost towns, and are closed military zones.

If you want to meet the Sderot residents, you will have to go to the hotels of Jerusalem, Eilat and Tel Aviv.

If you want to meet the residents of Shlomit, you will have to visit the field school of Kfar Etzion.

What does a community of IDPs (internally displaced people) look like? It looks like organized chaos. As a guide, I’ve seen these people in their home communities, and I’ve seen the hotels and places of accommodation filled with tourists and vacationers. I have the images of comparison. The group members do not. Everything I see, hear and smell screams to me. At a glance it seems normal. But I can see through it.

It is best described as taking the world, shaking it up, and watching how everything settles. The same applies to people’s emotions and psyche. They seem normal at first, but they too are truly shaken. Unsettled in more ways than one.

People

How do I describe meeting (randomly) the widowed Sderot policewoman whose husband was the first police officer to be murdered at the station? Her three little children are safely far away. But she is back in uniform and on duty in Sderot.

How can I tell you about hearing from the Kiryat Arba mayor about his son who was abducted from Re’im nature party?

Or the rabbi whose two sons raced to the south to protect Israel's civilians and who fought, were killed and were buried side by side?

Or the parents whose son always saw himself as a fighter. He was only two months in the army. He first went to fight off the terrorists with stones. He then managed to upgrade to a knife, and then a rifle. They found him shot dead. Exactly as he lived: with a huge smile on his face.

Or the mayor of Sderot. He needs to govern a people without a city; and a city without any people. He says that the physical harm is done. But how will he ever be able to bring his people back to town? (I suggest to him: remove all of the bus stop bunkers. It forces the authorities to understand that as long as these bunkers are needed people will not return. It can no longer be about living in the shadow of threat. It's about removing the threat that causes the shadow.)

Or should I tell you about the chance meeting that for me, personally, was the most emotional of the week? We visited a wounded civilian who happens to be an old friend and neighbor. His sister happened to be there too. I recognize her from 30 years ago! A one-time activity for 15-year-old girls about Jewish values grew into a year-long highlight of my week. I remember the conversations and arguments as if yesterday. Sometimes, Hashem lets us educators see the rippling long-term effect of our efforts. This was one such moment.

I still have the laminated poem they gave me. It reads: (In Hebrew it rhymes)

Those concerned with days - sow wheat.

Those concerned with years - plant trees.

Those concerned with generations - educate souls.

Last week I cried at experiencing losses.

This week I cried at experiencing connections.

Ideas

#1 Unity.

I have been speaking to dozens of people. Mourners who are not regular mourners. Victims who defy what a victim looks like.

You want the common denominator? Unity. A sense of Oneness.

When people raise their children with a sense of belonging to the Jewish people, the ego is diminished. Self-worth grows from connecting to the collective.

The rabbi-father who lost two sons, begins by telling us that he serves on the conversion committee that oversees the voluntary conversion of Israeli soldiers who are not Jewish by traditional law. He happened to be spending that Shabbat with 200 such individuals. Within an hour, all had gone to battle.

“What is the more significant question to ask these people at their final conversion?” he asks and challenges himself, and us. “To ask if they can recite a blessing by heart? Or to ask if they were willing to sacrifice their lives for the Jewish people…?” I wholeheartedly agree. Which of those two questions highlights the desire to be a part of the people of Israel? Proves it through action?

I have been sensing tectonic shifts starting to occur on so many national and societal levels. This could be one of them.

I also think, maybe we should not only be asking this question to converts, but asking ourselves as well…

Imagine being in the presence of a bereaved father who tells us of his 20-year-old son who was only a newly recruited soldier. He speaks about how he doesn't see this as an event but rather as the most recent event in a process of his son's growth and spiritual development. Every time his son was ready to advance to a new stage, God made sure to provide an opportunity enabling him to do so.

This was an opportunity. Such words of power. Unbelievable.

Picture it. The widow of a fallen civilian emergency responder. She tells us that her loss is worth… if it brings unity to a nation ripped apart.

...

#2 Am Yisrael Chai!

Imagine. You visit the military casualty identification base. You hear about their holy mission. You viscerally feel the pain of war. You see the coffins. Hoping we will not have to use them. Knowing that being unprepared is even worse.

And yet... rabbis and soldiers, rabbis who are soldiers, all enjoy a celebratory BBQ lunch. They deserve it. The chief rabbi of Tzfat comes. We pray. We dance. Such a prayer for the welfare of our soldiers you never heard before! When Jews pray for soldiers, it is a plea. When soldiers pray for soldiers, it is a command!

So yes, even at the military mortuary, Am Yisrael Chai!

Think about being in Hebron – an area avoided by Jews and Israelis, even during more peaceful times. We happen to walk by the Hebron army base manned with reservists. One of their soldiers got married two days before. His unit organized a surprise celebratory Sheva Brachot.

Jewish law indeed does stipulate: “When Israel goes to war, even a groom from the hupa goes.” We witness this with our eyes. We feel it in our hearts as we join in singing and dancing!

Such an “Am Yisrael Chai” you’ve never heard!

Shabbat Shalom to all of AM YISRAEL and all those who pray for our welfare!