Dear friends, I have no hope of being eloquent, and I apologize for that. I am going for coherent. After our first real escape to the the safe room I feel I must/ should write. The news that you are seeing, or not seeing is not 100% on target, as you may know by now. I am not a news reporter, but I thought I might share some ideas from this side of the world. Of course there is so much more to say and feel... The past three and a half weeks have brought on so many emotions personally and nationally- outstanding highs, but many different and very low lows. Alot of sadness, anger, frustration, more sadness, and more. And then a certain numbness. We went to pay the shiva calls by the mourning families (all stories in their own right), meeting there, in the homes,a mourning nation. By the last day of the shiva the roads were getting too dangerous to travel, so they said. Buses were organized to visit the mourning Abu Khadeir family, but were advised not to make the journey. Being occupied. Being under attack. Civilians lives at risk. Soldiers being sent into Gaza at night. No one wants their son in Gaza, even during the day. A lot of hard things. A new reality to face. This is for real. We live here. I remember when we heard about the brutal murder of the five members of the Fogel family, infant and children in their beds, in March 2011. I remember feeling I need to be there. I need to be with my People in their pain. We made Aliyah that August. We are here. We are with the people in our pain. It is a lot. Tuly is in Poland now leading an Israel365 tour of concentration camps and communities destroyed during the Holocaust. We were whatsapping and he tells me he has to go, they are entering a gas chamber. It finally put alot of my feelings into perspective. It does not make anything that is going on in Israel and the world now clear but at least we know we are not in that horrible place as a people. One idea Tuly shared from the camps is that we are most definitely looking at a very small piece of a huge mural very up close. We can not understand why this is happening nor will we in this lifetime. But there is a greater picture. So as I scrambled around my upstairs trying to hold as many kids as I could in one trip, I felt I was facing a reality Jewish mothers have faced for generations. And it was horrifying. My only solace to myself is that we are doing it here in the Homeland. A homeland that we need to maintain and keep for our kids, grandkids and our People. Does that sounds militant or radical? In these weeks I have learned that I am neither. I want peace more than anything. And for all children to be safe playing in the streets and parks of this great country forever. May that happen speedily and in our days. Thinking of you all. thank you for your support from afar- means alot. Abby
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:52:01 +0000
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