It was only recently, quite a few years after making aliyah, that I was finally able to put my finger on at least one aspect of what makes Israel the place it is: It is a country where things – big things – are always happening. There’s always something; you don’t really have a chance to catch your breath.
Those things are often very, very good. Indeed, the very existence of Israel is one of those very, very good things. And sometimes those good things are not so much events as things that just are: sites you see, for example. But sometimes, of course, those things are not quite as good. And we’ve seen a lot of those in the past year, even as we try – in all honesty, and often successfully – to move them into the positive column as well.
Why successfully? Well, because of the people here, of course. But also because, as I said, things are always on. Nothing stops. Things develop. But even as you try to put a positive spin on things, you still get those punches in the stomach.
Over the past year, public spaces – walls, pillars, billboards, and of course non-public spaces, like our refrigerator – have become covered with small stickers, bumper sticker-sized or smaller. Each bears the picture of a victim of last Simchat Torah, or a soldier fallen in the subsequent war (or wars, plural, G-d help us.) There is always something more on the sticker – a favorite saying, a lesson, the symbol of the soldier’s unit. Of course almost everyone pictured is very, very young. (Indeed, it seems to be that everyone is; for some reason the stickers seem to be limited to soldiers and Nova festival victims.) I pass these stickers all the time, most notably in the Tel Aviv train station near my office. And until recently, I never really looked at them. I wasn’t consciously trying to avoid them; I was just usually rushing past them, to the office or to the train.
And then, a month or so ago, I came across an article in an online Jewish magazine about the stickers. More specifically about a man, an American oleh, who has made it a project to collect every single sticker and put them on one central site. And the story began in the very station I use every day – on the very same platform, in fact – with the sister of a fallen soldier putting up his sticker on a pillar I stand next to as I wait for my train, at a bit above my eye level. (Yes, the article was very specific.)
Naturally I had to check it out. So that evening, getting to the station a few minutes early, I went up to the pillar in question and started looking for the sticker in question. I didn’t find it. But of course there were hundreds of others there already. I looked at one. And another. And another. Each a young life ended. A punch in the stomach, and another, and another.
Then, a few weeks later, an email went around my office. It turns out that my firm is actually representing the man behind this project. (Of course there are legal issues. Take it from a lawyer, there always are.) I had seen something in the original article, but without the firm being named, it went right by me. So I went back and read the magazine piece again. And it turns out that one particular lawyer, who works right down the hall from me, is spearheading the effort.
I could go on with many, many more such stories, some relating to this war, some from earlier periods. But I can’t leave you with the impression that that’s all there is. Far from it. So I’ll give you a story I posted last fall, shortly after the war broke out. Missiles were still flying in regularly back then. (We’re still getting them, but of a different kind now. One of those things that’s hard to grasp if you’re not here.) It is set, in fact, in the same train station as the previous story:
I left work a bit early and entered the Azrieli Mall, which I cross through to get to the train station, with a bit of time to spare. So I pondered doing some shopping, but had no sooner turned to the store when the air raid sirens went off. For one mad moment I considered making a run across the bridge to the station so as not to miss my train, but immediately realized how absolutely idiotic that would be and found myself being shepherded into the shelter, which is the mall stairwell, along with many others.
I found myself standing next to a big dude with a wacky haircut and many facial piercings. He checked the alerts app to see what was up, lifted his hands unto the heavens, and proclaimed a loud prayer on all our behalf. And then he saw the Chabadnik.
The speed with which it happened was uncanny. Barely a word spoken, and on went the kippah, and the tefillin over the dude’s arm, and he said the beracha so the whole stairwell could hear it, and we all said a loud “Amen!” as the Iron Dome let out a BOOM right over our heads. He said Shema and then, “Yalla, we all have trains to catch,” and the tefillin and kippah came off and out we went.
There’s nothing wrong with focusing on such things while never forgetting the others, especially as they both reflect the reality equally well.
Chag Sameach to us all!
