Catastrophe: an Interlude
October 131st/February 14, 2024 
♥️

Valentine’s Day. I have so much to say. A whole lot of defending and explaining and clarifying. A whole lot of despair and hand wringing and letter writing and liking and uncoupling from former supposed allies. Massacres aside, it is Valentine’s Day and I want/need/must shift my energy. For today I want to think about connection, about peace, about love.

My first serious crush in Israel was on a career Israeli army officer. The night we met he drove us up to the top of the Mount of Olives. In the small parking lot, above the ancient burial ground, we sat on the hood of the car and stared across the Kidron Valley to the Old City walls and the Temple Mount. The Dome of the Rock glowed incandescent. Beside it the elegant Al-Aqsa Mosque its black dome almost lost in night. Below in the eastern wall the double arch of the Golden Gate. I was madly in love with all of it: the man, the view, the place (in Hebrew ‘macomb’ the word for place, is another name for Gd). The Stars. The Stone. The Quiet. Breathtaking. I managed to say. He answered. She is a harsh mistress.

In early December, Israel was a heady mixture of star anise, oranges, candles, and coffee. The trees had grown since my last visit. The buildings too. The initial #Ceasefire and the return of some 100+ hostages from Gaza, happened my first week there. No missiles were fired on Jerusalem the entire time. Much mazal in that. (All told 14,000, missiles have been fired at Israel from Gaza since October 7th. Oops I digress. But yes #Ceasefire please). I have never lived anywhere else that I felt actually loved me. I had time to breathe. I had time to mourn. I had time to regroup. It felt as it always had, even in the midst of the war, the safest place in the world to be a Jew. I saw beloved friends. Ate phenomenal food. And got to my favorite pilgrimage sites. It was beautiful. It was intense. One day walking back, after getting a ‘Love and Family’ tattoo from Wassim at Razzouk Tattoo in the Old City, I darted out of a light rain into the King David for tea. That afternoon I was the only guest in that magnificent lobby. I sensed that my grandparents were there with me. I cried. I remembered the mission.  

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either  – but right through every human heart  – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years.  

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Alongside the horrors of this time, are many beautiful things. There is the beauty of Shahar Dekel’s photographs. And the unbelievable work of Brothers and Sisters for Israel. There is Susan Weis Bohlen’s “Bad Boyfriends” post on Substack. And Leon Wieseltier article which begins: “There are facets of my being of which I am ashamed, but the love of my people is not one of them.” And there was the surprise rescue of two of the hostages, brothers-in-law. May we see the other 134 released #ASAP.

And we have Friends. 

None more informative, knowledgeable, and steadfast in trying to explain to the West, the realities of the MiddleEast, than Elica LeBon. As an Iranian Lawyer who cannot return to Iran she has understood fully what Israel faced on Oct 7th and said so, while still keeping our feet to the fire. Along with Yoseph Haddad, Lucy Aharish, and Mosab Hassanyousef and there are many others. Please support them all, they too are swimming against the tide! 

And to my extraordinary husband. Even when we do not see eye to eye, you are my greatest ally. I love you. ♥️ Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Next in this series, Catastrophe: Part 2, on the press and history…