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My Father, My Son, And The Israel-Gaza War
My son Ari went to the Gaza border with his Israeli army unit a few weeks ago, as rocket attacks on Israel intensified. The army took away their cellphones, so when the casualty reports began, we didn’t know where he was. The one consolation — such as it is — is that families are notified before casualties are mentioned publicly. We cry for the families of the casualties, but our thoughts are on the next casualty report.
My son’s battalion, Golani 13, lost seven men in the early fighting. The Golani commander, who is Druze, inspired the nation by sustaining an eye injury and insisting to return to combat to lead his soldiers.
While my son is in Gaza, my father is in Ashkelon, where sirens went off in the supermarket. Everybody else rushed to the bomb shelter. My father kept choosing tomatoes, happy that his competition evacuated. A few minutes later, the others returned.
The sirens went off again, and this time the security guard told my father that he needed to go to the shelter.
“OK,” my father said as he started walking.
“Faster,” the security guard insisted.
“The odds of me getting hit by a rocket are about a million to one,” my father calmly replied. “The odds of me dying of a heart attack while running to the shelter? About fifty-fifty.”
Ari wishing his mom a happy birthday. She says it’s the best birthday gift she ever got.
Afterward — but before the war started — my father joked about sending Hamas a thank you card. “I’ve never gotten this much attention before. People I haven’t heard from in years are calling me. I feel like a Warsaw ghetto resistance fighter, all for ignoring the sirens! I’ll try to keep the enemy at bay.”
My father wasn’t a Warsaw resistance fighter. His parents escaped Poland into Russia in 1939. His father died in the Russian army, fighting the Germans. His grandparents and most of his uncles and aunts were killed in Poland. He and his mother eventually made it to the United States. We remain ever grateful to the world’s greatest country.
A few days after the fighting began, Ari finally got in touch with his fiancée and his mother, in that order; one more way we have to get accustomed to the fact that he’s a man now. A few days later, we heard from him again.
I was driving home from a softball game Sunday night when he called. Before that call, I had no idea how much I needed to hear his voice. Weeks of tension escaped my body as we talked.
They were out of Gaza. I hope the next time they see Gaza it’s as civilians living in peace. We got to see him for a few hours the next day. And we’re expecting him home for Shabbat, before he returns to his base near the relatively peaceful Syrian border.
He posted this to Facebook yesterday:
It looks like it’s over ..
Mixed feelings about the war,
On the one hand – a sense of pride, we were privileged to take part in something big, to join the history of Israeli fighters from the wars in the wilderness through today’s battles …
We went in, and we attacked – Gaza no longer looks the same. We hit those who hate us, and with God’s help may this give the people of Israel a few years of a quiet …
On the other hand, a painful feeling. For the heroes we lost along the way, the wounded warriors – and the blood of innocent children that we spilled out of necessity, the innocents that we killed because we had to do it. The efforts from both sides that were devoted to destruction and death instead of to building and living.
Of course, I believe in what we did – we were servants of God, and I believe we did our job as best we could. But I am aware that there was a very painful price. It’s dirty work.
War is one of God’s ugliest creations …
I wish for us and for the whole world that He who dwells above will bless the whole world with peace.
Pax Americana is waning, and parts of the world are returning to their natural, Hobbesian state. If there were more appreciation for all the good that America has done, and still tries to do, perhaps life in much of the Middle East would be less nasty, brutish and short.
Photo Credit: Flickr user Israel Defense Forces, “IDF soldiers operating in Gaza.”
Published in General
Your father sounds like a man who would be enjoyable to meet. May G-d bless all his generations, including your son.
Thank you very much, Arahant.
God bless you and your family Gil. I hope your son is correct and this brings them peace.
Israelis seem, more than any other people I can think of, to possess an amazing mixture of strength, humor and compassion and you’ve illustrated that very well here. I’m very glad that you and your family are safe.
Excellent first post, by the way.
“The odds of me getting hit by a rocket are about a million to one,” my father responds calmly. “The odds of me dying of a heart attack while running to the shelter? About fifty-fifty.”
The odds that a person saying such a thing is witty and wise? 100%.
This is a perspective that previous generations of Americans used to exhibit. I could hear my own grandfathers, or even my father, talking like this during a time of conflict. God bless your family, and glad to hear that your son made it out in one piece!
Moving and wonderfully written.
“The odds of me dying of a heart attack while running to the shelter? About fifty-fifty.”
What a great line and strong man.
Thank you, Gil.
I loved reading this and hope you will write more. There are many of us in America, and even in Europe, where I live, who are thinking of you and families like yours day and night.
Thank you, Gil, Annika, and Judith, as well…for bringing both hard and beautiful truths to our attention. Blessings on you and yours!
Your son sounds wise beyond his years. Lovely story.
Great to see someone speaking from Israel who is serious but not “wet”, as the British say.
Got into an argument with two of the young women at work. They are both young Israeli women in their mid-20s, married with a small child. Husbands, brothers, friends all serving in the military.
–“Whatever happens, we can’t have them going into Gaza! They’re just children! They’re children!”
As the mother of two combat soldiers in the IDF, I try to keep my blood pressure down and remember that young men are perfectly careful of putting themselves in grave danger even without active military service. I try to bear in mind that they have a basic drive to protect and defend things that are important to them, and that this instinct can be expressed in both positive and negative ways. I do not want to smother-mother.
Cautiously, I suggest that even though the soldiers are all “our boys”, and that every one of them is some mother’s baby, perhaps it is not healthy for society or for them to call them, or think of them overmuch, as “children”.
(cont)
(cont.)
My other co-worker said that intellectually, she agreed with me, but that emotionally, she agreed with the first girl.
I responded that of course, I agreed with her emotionally, except that we must not allow ourselves to make certain judgments with our hearts alone, but the point appeared to have been lost.
I added that there were some people down in the Negev who were actual literal children who needed to be protected even more than young men with weapons, training and professional military leadership. Children like their own toddlers.
Absolutely right. It’s also disrespectful and dismissive to infantilize soldiers. It implies that they don’t really know what they’re doing or why.
Your bit about the world returning to a Hobbesian state as America demurred is very profound.
God bless your family and God bless Israel.
My 17-year-old daughter is due to start her senior year down South at the end of September. The girls live on Kibbutz Sa’ad and attend the school in the nearby town of Netivot. Both places have been under frequent rocket attack during the last two months. I saw the overhead map showing how close two tunnels came to Kibbutz Sa’ad; I could tell you exactly the view from the surface.
Those “children” in the IDF who laid down or even just interrupted their lives to eliminate the Hamas tunnels, saved my daughter’s life, and the lives of the even younger ones in Sa’ad’s nursery school. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and their families’ loss smacks me full in the face, but this is our reality and responsibility.
Great contribution. Thanks so much for sharing. Kol haKavod to you and your son!
Thank you all so much for your supportive comments. It was a great welcome, I really appreciate it!
I add nothing but my own observation:
Israelis, and Jews more broadly, stand for something.
The Covenant, is how it was taught to me–and the word means something.
And, as a nation, you hold up your end.
God Bless and Keep You Safe.
“Pax American is waning” is right. We are a crumbling nation. Wish we had Netanyahu as our commander in chief. God bless you Israelis. You inspire me.
Thank you. But don’t give up on America so fast. It’s not her first stumble and I don’t think it will be it’s last. I think you guys will be coming back.
He is, thanks.
Rachel, I particularly appreciated this from you, following your excellent piece on the subject. It was one of the only pieces I’ve ever read that increased my sympathy with and and understanding of the people of Gaza. BTW I’m interested in your dreams regarding the people of the region. I’m sure we disagree on some core points, but it’s refreshing to engage on this issue from a point of mutual respect and consideration.
Thanks. I hope so. At least two more years of this bumbling fool.
I agree. BTW, here’s a nice piece by Yifat Erlich on the subject.
Very good article. Thanks for posting it.
Excellent. Was this in Makor Rishon before?
I am a very sentimental person, but I have gotten damn tired of the implication that I just don’t “care” enough if I do not go around weeping or falling apart. I seriously hope we in Israel are over this.
I don’t know if it was in Makor Rishon. And I agree. There is only so much one can be expected to sympathize with the enemy’s civilians during a defensive war.