The other day I went on Google and typed: “Is the world going to be ok?”
Because seriously, whenever I check the news these days (not very often), I don’t want to know what’s happening anymore. I want to know when this is gonna end. The only difference is that this time, I just decided to be more straightforward about it.
Also, Yannai was sick and what I really wanted to know was ‘Is my child going to be ok?’ But that would be an oddly specific question to ask a search engine. What does it know about my life? Nothing.
The world is going to be ok, Google assured me. Humanity, on the other hand, might not be.
One of the best things about being exposed to more than one language is how a word in one language may mean something entirely different in another language. It’s especially great when it means something inappropriate.
The word ‘Nasralla’, for example, means ‘she shat herself’ in Russian. Imagine how hilarious it was to listen to the news when I just came to Israel in mid 90s and this was the only word I understood.
Then I started understanding other words and listening to the news became a lot less fun.
Except sometimes I feel guilty for not following the news very closely.
Except you don’t need to follow the news very closely in this country to know what’s going on.
If there is a demonstration against the government, I can hear it through my open windows.
If people in your WhatsApp groups suddenly end their texts with ‘hoping for a quieter day ahead,’ or if your kids’ teachers send messages like ‘we will have class discussions to let students share their feelings about what happened’ then you know there has been a terrorist attack.
And these days, there is just sadness in the air, everywhere you go.
Every time we go outside and see posters of the kidnapped people Maya wants to know who has been released and who hasn’t. Sometimes when she asks, “Have all the children been released?” I lie and say “I think so.”
A friend’s colleague’s son lost his arm in combat. He is 19. I’m trying to imagine what his mother must be feeling. Gratitude? That it’s *only* an arm, that he is alive, and now definitely won’t be going back?
Last Friday there was a ceremony in my neighborhood dedicated to naming a street after a girl who was murdered on October 7th. She was also 19 and was one of the group of soldiers who watched the border and had been warning the army for months that something terrible was about to happen but nobody listened to them.
I recognized her family’s dog.
I wonder what it’s like to walk every day past the street named after your murdered child.
For Tu biShvat school activity last week (Tu biShvat is a Jewish festival also known as ‘The New Year of the Trees’) the kids prepared Tu BiShvat packages (clay pot, bag of soil, seeds) for bereaved families from their school. There are too many bereaved families in their schools.
I have no idea how we can all still walk around and breathe and smile and talk and write and learn languages when our cities are filling up with streets named after our dead children.
Take courage from what happened in Northern Ireland. My wife and I lived there. I was a student and my wife was a nurse in accident and emergency in the main hospital in Belfast during the worst of the terrorist activities. After we moved to Scotland we avoided watching the news. There seemed to be no possibility of the fighting and bombing ever stopping so nobody was more surprised than we were when peace returned. It was like a miracle and it does happen. Take encouragement from people who work tirelessly for peace. People like Hind Aboud Kabawat. You will find her through any search engine. She is very inspiring.
Just beautiful Tanya, and terribly sad.