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Tales from a Bomb Shelter
I really thought I knew.
I mean, I had written about it, raised hell, and described it to the world. During Operation Pillar of Defense, I held a rally in support of Israel and gave a passionate speech: “15 seconds,” I said, ’15 seconds to make sure that you and the people you love are safe”. Imagine the terror, imagine the fear, and imagine not knowing the outcome. And I thought I knew — because I had seen it on YouTube, because I had read about it, and because I had spoken to those who lived it. How much more could there be to it? Turns out quite a lot more.
A week ago, I boarded a plane to Israel with my two sons. It was their first visit, and the excitement was palpable. We had rented a small house in TLV, just between the beach and Shuk HaCarmel, and for five straight days my kids called every day the best of their lives.
I was preparing dinner on the eve of the sixth day, waiting for my friends to arrive for one last night of food, wine, and talking all night. My children were sitting at the table watching a movie. Then I heard the sound — like the entire city was wailing with pain. The loudness of it is so frightening that it takes a few seconds before I even understand what I am hearing.
My first thought is that I have no idea what to do. I throw a bottle of water and a bag of chips in my purse and tell the kids we have to leave. They ask why but I can’t answer. I just keep saying “we have to leave, we have to leave, we have to leave’. We run into the street and I see hordes of people running in the same direction. A group of men from the shul down the street, an old woman carrying a pink bag heavy with vegetables, a small family just coming back from a day at the beach. They disappear into the building across the street, so I grab the kids by the hand and I follow them.
The room is cool — or maybe it’s just me shaking with chills. Children are sitting on the floor. A young man is on the phone with his mother. My own children are quiet and the oldest is fighting back tears, watching my face as to see how scared he is supposed to be. I am just about to try and tell them something when I hear the boom. It’s so much louder than I had expected. I feel it in the floor, the impact traveling through my entire body. There’s a young man nervously laughing. He’s one of those guys I’ve seen at the beach, flirting with girls and wrestling his friends in some ancient macho display. I watch his face and see that this is still someone’s child. He is scared but he can’t show it. I am too — and I can’t either. I know I have to keep it together for my children. I know I need to have a plan. We leave the shelter after about 15 minutes. My children are talking, but I can’t hear them. I am trying so hard to figure out what has just happened and what it means for the hours to come. Fortunately, I’m not allowed to indulge that neurosis for too long. Soon my garden is full of friends. We hug and laugh and go on with our lives just as too many in Israel have to do all too often.
It’s one of the strangest nights I have ever experienced. Now and then we hear blasts, stop to check our phones, and relay our position and status via various forms of social media — then we grab another drink and tell another story. My friend gets a phone call. Her son is being called into service. There’s a shadow running across her face and I want to hug her but I am not sure that I should. She knows this life — and her son does too. She is the strongest woman I know. She is a fighter and a survivor and she chose the life that her son is now being sent to defend. She must hurt, but she doesn’t show it. So I don’t hug her, but I let her finish her story, pretending that this was somehow normal in any imaginable way. There was no sleep that night. I stayed up, watching my children sleep next to me, frantically checking the news. We’re supposed to get on a plane back to Sweden the next day, but at this point I just don’t know anything apart from the fact that we’re safe right here, right now.
At 8 AM the next morning, I was fully packed and ready to leave. The kids and I were having breakfast, waiting for the cab when the siren went off again. We ran into the shelter across the street. The boys were weirdly ready for it that time. I was too, with the bag ready to go, standing by the door. The kids found a dog to play with and somehow they made it into playtime while I flinched at every loud boom that followed. We went straight from the bomb shelter to the airport. I was upside down and inside out and all I could think was that I shouldn’t be leaving. Not now, not ever. This is my home and leaving in the midst of crisis felt like ripping my heart out piece by piece.
I thought I knew but I didn’t. I thought I had felt fear but I hadn’t. I had 15 seconds to grab my children and get to safety. I felt the fear, I knew the terror — and I didn’t know the outcome. When I got back to Sweden and put my kids to bed I went out to the balcony, sipping on a glass of wine. Suddenly there’s a boom, and I flinch, spilling the wine all over myself. A child across the courtyard had thrown a box of toys from her balcony and now she was looking at me, startled by my reaction.
And for the first time since all of this happened, I cried.
I cried for my children having to go through that. I cried for having left my true home in its time of need. I cried for my brothers and sisters, still there, still grabbing their kids by the hand to find safety in less than 15 seconds.
When we got off the flight to Sweden the first words out of my youngest son’s mouth was, “Mom, I miss Israel, when can we go back?’ And I knew we would be ok. Their memory of the first trip to our homeland would not be the shelter or the siren. It would be how they walked around feeling normal and accepted as Jewish kids; it would be the smoothies at the shuk; playing in the waves in Tel Aviv and petting a cute dog in what happened to be a bomb shelter on Daniel Street. We will all be ok. Because the strength of Israel is not only its army, it’s the people, making a life and building a world where others would surely crumble. It’s the love and the strength and the will to survive, embedded in our very core.
I thought I knew, but I didn’t — and now I know so much more. Yes, I know the fear and the panic, but I also know that, while I was scared for a while in Israel, I am frightened in Sweden all the time. Israel is home, and it is the only place I want to be now, in good times and bad times and in all the times in between. In its darkest time, it showed me and my sons more love, humor, and compassion than they have ever seen in their “peaceful” place of birth.
So yeah, I know now. Not just the terror and panic part, but also that there is no way my people are not going to be OK.
My children in the bomb shelter, Wednesday morning.
Published in General
Yes we are doing well, and the boys insist I get them a dog..
Just don’t name it Qassam. Kellev should do. ;-)
Don’t forget that if you should have to relocate in a hurry, it will be harder with a pet. There are many people with service dogs, who are refused service by muslim taxi drivers, and other muslim workers. Dogs are hated right on par with Jews and Christians.
Pets complicate international moving too as there is usually a quarantine period of anywhere from weeks to months.
There are those that fight to die, and there are those that fight to live. Israel fights to live. My heart belongs to Israel.
I was shocked and deeply saddened by the video. I see the same thing happening here, though not on the same issue. I see why you would rather live in Israel with all its dangers.
Did you see that this article is linked on Powerline today? I was happy to see it–richly deserved.
What a beautiful thing to say, and so true.
Thank you, and no- i didn’t see that?
Annika, “It’s the love and the strength and the will to survive, embedded in our very core.”
Have you read, “The Will to Live On: This Is Our Heritage” by Herman Wouk? Published Nov. 2010. Part of a review from Border’s Books: “After a lifetime of study, Herman Wouk examines the changes affecting the Jewish world, especially the troubled wonder of Israel, and the remarkable, though dwindling, American Jewry. The book is peppered with wonderful stories of the author’s encounters with such luminaries as Ben Gurion, Isidor Rabi, Yitzhak Rabin, Saul Bellow, and Richard Feynan.”
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/will-to-live-on-herman-wouk/1100616751?ean=9780062036926
He is probably my favorite author. The man is now 99 years old and still claims to have more books to write.
Oh, I need to read that, thank you!
If you haven’t read Herman Wouk before, you will find him wonderfully readable. Most of his works are either fiction, or historical fiction, but 3 of his non-fictions I cherish: “This Is My G-d” – “The Language G-d Talks” on science and religion; and of course, “The Will To Live On.” Herman Wouk is an observing, Orthodox Jew. According to him and others, over the past 2,000-4,000 years we should have long since died out, but while other civilizations have come and gone, we are still here, with our G-d, fighting for life. Not only for ourselves, but for all humanity, to live free and in peace.
I will pick it up and read it on my trip back to Israel next week.I have decided to go back,I cannot stand being here when my people is hurting and the media-coverage here is just making me sick. Yesterday 1300 people gathered in stockholm to spew hate over Israel and the Jews. Time to go home to Israel and huddle with family :)
Bless your heart! I would give my eye teeth to go with you. Being as old as I am, I couldn’t do much, but hold and calm the babies and little ones in the shelters. Give some of the mothers a little reprieve.
Powerful post. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
I wish the Israelis would blow up the Dome of the Rock and say that a Hamas rocket hit it. I wish even more that they would have blown it up in June of 1967.
For ET and any others who may have missed it first time around, there was a Ricochet post about that topic way back in Feb 2013 titled: Muslim Rape Epidemic Puts Sweden at Top of Euro Rape Statistics.
You can find that most excellent post at:
http://ricochet.com/archives/muslim-rape-epidemic-puts-sweden-at-top-of-euro-rape-statistics/
Sorry but I would have linked to it if we still had Rico 1.0. With the new and improved 2.0, I no longer know how to do it.
Thank you. We always think we know, just by reading, or by seeing a video.
Thank you for reliving this tumultuous experience and allowing us to learn from it…a true mitzvah; bless you for it!