What a Ceasefire Really Means

What does a ceasefire mean to the average Israeli? 

For some it means not getting caught in the shower when missiles are headed their way. 

For me it means I meet a neighbor on the street, a kid that I had sheltered with regularly for 12 days, and we take a moment to talk for the first time, exchange words of hope, some of them in French! 

We both hope the ceasefire lasts forever. 

You know, right, that there's an 8-hour time difference between Chicago and Tel Aviv. Israel is 8 hours ahead but it does not get in the way of love, talking to the people we love with FaceTime or WhatsApp. It all works. Not as great as being physically together, but the next best thing.

My brother and sister-in-law (sister, really) talk and I feel their anxiety, the anxiety of the entire extended family back home.*

Sometimes they call and I'm working because of that time zone thing. I write:

With a patient, will call later.

When I call back I'm under the false assumption that we will be celebrating the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. But no, the reports in the US have successfully polluted my family's interpretation of events. There is pervasive worry that the American bombs did not 'do the job.' The explosion did not take out the uranium, is what I am hearing, appalled. Iranians can still develop their bombs, and worse, they may even have a few nuclear weapons stashed away somewhere in them thar' hills. 

Maxar photo, B2-bombers, 6 holes on the nuclear reactor site

Being a doctor, I am quick to respond. The problem is that you caught a virus, I say.

Iranian propaganda is virulent. What do you guess Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is telling his people? Is he going to tell them that the Americans obliterated their nuclear program? Is he going to say that Iran has effectively lost the war? 

Uh, no. That is not how dictators communicate. Honesty is not their strongpoint. What Khamenei tells his people goes something more like this:

We won! We brought the Israelis to their knees! They begged for a ceasefire. 

LOL. 

Adorable. 

This as Israeli planes fly overhead in Iran, booming jets piercing their atmosphere. The IAF, the Israel Air Force, still proudly owns Iranian airspace ya' see. Although I hear they left with the ceasefire. So there's that. Victory for Iran, right?

IAF over Iran

The truth is that the mishigas (mish-ih-gahs, craziness, nonsense, Yiddish but also Hebrew) about how American bombs failed their mission is poppycock (come on, people, the USAF unleashed 30 tons of warheads made out of steel, aluminum, radar absorbent metal, tritonal, all kinds of alloys to make things go boom at  that nuclear site). The protest, the lie, is to save face, it is political. Tell the Iranian people that they won. that there is no substantial damage, no set back. Even if they don't believe it, the Americans surely will. 

I tell my family that it is all good, too, because Iran will not want to break the ceasefire, the lie in place. Breaking the ceasefire would mean that they did not win, that they have to keep fighting. But they won, so everyone in the Middle East can shower in peace now.  

They want you to be afraid, I tell D and T. 

In Israel the cultural spirit is courage, not fear. We respect fear but look it in the eye. This is a Zen idea,  too, honor your fear but be ready to pull out your light saber. 

Israelis have done and continue to do what our forefather Jacob (Yacov) did over 3000 years ago. 

Yacov is about to meet up with his brother Esau (Genesis 32:21). Esau a powerful, violent guy most likely intent upon revenge, wanting to kill his younger brother for having grabbed the birthright, finding the nearest camel, and hitting the sand dunes. 

Yacov is afforded lots of time to come up with a three-pronged plan for when he meets up with his brother again. When faced with annihilation, a powerful enemy:

(1) don't forget to placate him with gifts, first,  to soften him up. Everyone likes presents.

(2) but prepare for war

(3) and pray  

We pray, as should everyone, that the war is over, that no more lives are lost (7 Israeli soldiers, only yesterday in Gaza). So no, we are not celebrating, we mourn and we pray for the return of those still in captivity in Gaza, the hostages.

Our dear hostages, you are not forgotten, 22 Israeli, 1 Thai, 1 Nepali

7 gone in Gaza yesterday 

* home for a Jew is Israel, that is our tradition. But we all have second homes, right? Jews are all rich, aren't they? 

Namaste,

therapydoc

The Ceasefire

Where Iranian missiles are headed, not where they land necessarily

 I didn't even know about this agreement when I woke up to an alarm this morning, that's how fast things happen. I slip on my terrycloth robe and crocs, knock on my mother-in-law's door, wave to FD who is staring into his phone, then I head downstairs to the miklat. 

'The ceasefire doesn't start until 7, they are all saying.  

Oh! There is a ceasefire.

The Iranians are getting in their last licks. 

That makes sense. But there are four more of these alarms, maybe more, so we have to wonder if we should simply set up shop down there. What's the sense of running up and down the stairs? It is good exercise, yes, my muscles have never been stronger, thanks to this leader they have in Iran, whatever his name is. 

Between the sirens I go outside to get a little fresh air. A few of my neighbors are there, some vaping. One says to me, It will be okay. My neighbors see this new American and assume that I must be afraid. There is some truth to that. I tell her: 

I heard that three people died this morning. 

I know, she says, patting my arm. We all grieve every time. It never gets better.

It's been an hour and forty minutes, however, so maybe this one will stick. Maybe there really is a ceasefire. Maybe the Iranians, when they shot off missiles at 7:05 didn't read their clocks correctly. Maybe this is really over.

Please the Old Mighty.

Hugs and kisses, 

therapydoc

Shelter Fatigue

The Rolling Stones song, Gimme Shelter, says it all, ironically

We just got out of the miklat, that bomb shelter I've been writing about, and our friend Josh mentioned he's tired of this. 

I said, You have shelter fatigue. It's a new term I'm using on my blog. Anyway, he reminds FD of The Rolling Stones song, Gimme Shelter from way back when. 

Shelter fatigue, the syndrome our friend Josh is suffering lately, in and of itself is not new. But it is relatively new in Israel where our wars, and we have had many, tend to be over relatively quickly. Israel has been under attack before. This one is going on a little long.

In our day, Josh goes on, there were no big screens, no pyrotechnics.

Did you see Tommy? I ask. It feels like there might have been pyrotechnics but who can remember? 

On that terrible pun let us give honor to Mick Jagger. Because according to Josh and his wife who are here with us under shelter to tell the story, Mick performed in 100 degree heat in Israel without complaint. 

So. Maybe we are a bit tired of our miklatim, our macadam, our shelters, maybe we even have shelter fatigue.  But there isn't an Israeli in the country who isn't glad to have one nearby. 

Because war, children, is just a shot away, as Congress told Donald Trump before he took it upon himself to do something about the one nobody wants to name.

To an end to all of them,

therapydoc 

Proud to be an American in Israel

 

The Western Wall, Jerusalem

As we age we find life full of ironies. FD and I often note the parallels between sheltering from Iranian missiles, and sheltering from bombs from the USSR. albeit these were drills. We live the precautionary tale of the fifties, hardly warmed over. 

In the US in the fifties elementary schools held them, these drills. Little kids scrunched under desks when the alarm sounded, hardly knowing  why. The two of us, 500 miles away from one another participated in these, thinking that worst case scenario, hiding under a desk isn't going to protect anyone.. 

That was the Cold War. We're in a hot one. Maybe it is over.

You wonder what to wear to go down to a bomb shelter. I open my tee-shirt drawer and spot it, the blue tee with white stars, the one that screams Fourth of July.  Perfect. Because today, for the first time in quite awhile, I’m proud to be an American. 

Proud to be an American

In Ulpan (arduous intense, dreaded Hebrew language classes intended to integrate new immigrants into the culture and language of the country) students are routinely asked on the first day, where they hail from. 

People from all over the world nod admiringly when we tell them, the United States

Side bar: The Hebrew words for the United States translate to States of the Covenant. I've always liked that. 

When we identify ourselves as Americans it is without grandiosity or pride. We are new here, like everyone else in the class, proud to be Israeli, lucky to have duo-citizenship. We are property owners in the USA, we pay taxes. It will always be a home of the free and the brave, if not the only home of freedom and bravery. 

Yesterday President Trump gave all Israeli-Americans a huge injection of Proud to be an American. 

We needed the shot. Our fears for the future of America have troubled us of late, an undercurrent stretching over the pond from the country of origin, from what patients tell me. 

Patriotism, however, is back, big time, as is gratitude for American intervention, primarily the president, our hero, President Donald Trump. He is on the right side of history, G-d bless him. 

Personally, this optimism, this positive vibe, is not me drinking the KoolAid, caught up in the wave of relief that comes with the reprieve of  nuclear war. What raises the serotonin is thinking the war will be over soon, even if another will begin in time. Jews, Israel, will always be under attack in one way or another, a fate that will not change without Divine intervention (make it happen Old Mighty!). 

Last night we were up at three, bleary-eyed in a miklat, a bomb shelter, despite President Trump's intervention. We hum or sing when we're down there, sometimes, albeit quietly. Our neighbors, some thirty others, can't hear with all the chatter and the whirring of the fans, the static of a transistor radio. Last night we were too tired to sing. 

This morning however, donning that tee-shirt with the silver stars on a blue background, I can't help but hum this song: 

 Proud to be an American.

God bless America, God bless Donald Trump. I'm ready for a peaceful 4th of July.

With love,  

therapydoc

Donald Trump is a Hero-Iran-Israel War

He did it! We're all shouting this at the news. We wake up to a nuclear-free Iran. What a sound, that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szryzvau3IU

Of course there have been consequences. Iran will respond, we assume. Israelis are encouraged to stay home, shelter when ordered to shelter. 

Don't be a wise guy. 

My mother-in-law, in the shower, hears me knock on the bathroom door: We have to shelter, I shout. There's an alarm. 

I can't now, she yells. 

I leave her to her own devices and go, try to save her a seat. Someone takes it anyway. FD is off to morning prayers. There's a miklat where he is, I'm not worried about him.

The crowd in the miklat is standing room only but most of us have seats. Cookies are passed around, cups of water.  Someone plays a radio news station. It is 730 am.

A knock on the heavy door. A young man gets up to open it. My m-i-l joins us. The man next to me gives her his seat. We sit, waiting for the all clear sign. She brought her brush, brushes her wet hair. After a few minutes I lean over and shout in her ear, 

'Trump did it! Did you hear?'  

She couldn't have, this I know, she has yet to turn on her computer, hasn't even had her morning coffee.

She asks me to repeat this, not because she didn't hear me, but because she doesn't believe me. I repeat: Trump did it! with a big smile. She bursts into tears. The entire room is watching. They have been listening, heard the shout into her right ear, the only one that catches anything at all.

Someone offers her water, she takes the cup. She is 100 years old, a living testimony to Israel's iron will. 

We get the all clear, go upstairs, turn on the television. Missiles from Iran did some damage, several are injured, many buildings will need facelifts. 

Here's to a good week friends. Peace. 

therapydoc

The Lion and the Lamb Idea

 'We slept through,' FD mumbles. It is 515am. We're up. 

At first I think he means we slept through an alarm to shelter downstairs in our miklat (mick-laht) then realized that is impossible. There is no sleeping through an azakah (ah-zah-kah). We slept through only because there was no alarm last night. 

'And the Cubs won,' I mumble back. 

I checked the score after thanking the Old Mighty for returning me to life, the first thing a Jew does each day, Modeh ani (moe-deh-ah-ni). Other cultures might do this, too, but it has extra meaning for Jews, is my guess.  

Last night we watched some of the ballgame on television. What a feeling, mastering the technology of streaming from an iPad to a television. Two doctors figuring out what had previously evaded them. 

This is like getting the Wordle in two. You rise from feeling incompetent and a loser (Wordle in four to six) to brilliant. 

But I'm not feeling great, despite the Cub win, too much news about the war being far from over, too many soundbites about Iran's nuclear capability. 

Last November when patients in the US panicked after Donald Trump's election I prescribed a moratorium on the news. If it upsets you don't listen, don't engage. Don't read. I've followed my own advice for the greater part of this year and I live in Israel! News about fighting a war on multiple fronts has been highly disturbing, gut wrenching, sad. It is existential and surreal that our soldiers, children, are in danger. The Israel Defense Forces are us. They are our relatives, the children of nieces and nephews, grandchildren of cousins, children of friends. 

Now, as civilians we are in danger, too, and it is more and more clear the obscenity of war.  I think of October 11, how Hamas started it with their invasion from Gaza, decapitating, mutilating, raping women, stealing humans. This is so ugly, all of it.

So I take my own advice, only read the headlines. Reading headlines is like reading the title of a graphic comic book, the gravity doesn't sink in. 

זאב עם כלב ירבץ ונמר עם עגל ירבץ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the calf

To an end to the war, may there be no lives lost today or tomorrow or evermore from war. . 

therapydoc

Bugs in Israel

There's a war going on, if you haven't noticed, and my job is the job of the average Israeli, to listen to the orders of the Home Front Command when the phone goes off to warn that a missile is heading toward Israel. Get into a miklat or a mamad, get to one of these two bomb shelters. 

A miklat is a large shelter in the basement or lobby of a multi-unit building. FD and I share ours with thirty others, cheerful Israelis, many of them from France originally. When the alarm on our phones go off, or when we hear a siren we meet down there. 

A mamad is in one’s apartment or home, a sealed off room—iron clad, steel-locked. Bomb proof.

But wait. We are talking about a different war, one more personal to me, the war against a particular bug.

No, I am not talking about a recording device that a spy might plant inside a telephone, a pager, or a flower pot. I'm talking about . . . the cockroach. I didn't want to shout it to the world, that could be an invitation of sorts. Irrational? Yes, of course. But best not to give them power by naming them.

We may have discussed these creatures in a previous post, or was that spiders? Whatever, the post was about phobias, pretty sure. Not that I have a phobia. Let's just say that beneath this calm Zen exterior is a terrific dislike for bugs. I just don't want to share my space with them. Is this selfish? I guess so. 

Seeing the creature, and it is large, okay, after my obligatory eek FD says to me, 'It's just a bug.' 

'Come on,' I cry. 'The thing is up there, almost at the ceiling. It's creepy!'

My hero gets a bucket and a broom, sweeps away the feared SOB and lets it go outside. 

'Really? You didn't kill it?! He knows where we live!'

'You can't just kill things.'

Oh but I can.

When we first moved into our apartment in Israel I happened to mentioned to my daughter that I had seen one in my bedroom, a dead one. She remarked. 'Get used to it. They are a part of living here. Didn't want to mention it, sorry.' 

Sheez. Just looking at that guy in that picture makes me want to murder him even more. And the opportunity is lost. 

But I guess FD is correct. Killing a bug is murder, premeditated, too.  It is snuffing out a life. I have murderous instincts, not exactly a surprise, but a scary thought.

These are the moments one asks oneself: What would my mom have done? 

I'm pretty sure she would have used a shoe. 

I've often asked myself, too, what she would think of this war, that we are here in the middle of the conflict,  as is her granddaughter and her family, as is her grandson and his, and another on the way, all of us running into bomb shelters when the missiles fly in our direction. Would she be proud? Or angry?

My parents were Zionists. They knew all there is to know about antisemitism, how the world really needs someone to kick, to blame, and that somebody is always the Jews. They were firm Zionists but never considered moving here. They felt safe in the USA. Would they still feel safe today? Probably. 

They would also probably have said, 'Come home.'

And I would have said no. I am home. 

I wouldn't have mentioned the cockroach thing.

To a speedy, peaceful ending to the conflict.  

Shabbat shalom,

therapydoc

 

An Ugly America

Eddie Redmayne-Caberet, not pretty

As anyone who knows me knows, I've been a little out of it when it comes to what is happening in the United States. When I left in August to become an Israeli citizen (not giving up my American citizenship!) things did not feel great in the great in the USA. My country felt a little ill, frankly. Abuse and exploitation everywhere.  Name it, humans abused it, exploited it. Children even. Violence, so much.

When I was a child we played outside until dark. When I raised my children neighbors relied upon neighbors to keep an eye out. I left a country where kidnapping is a serious concern as are snipers, terrorists.

When I left in August, 2024, just five months ago, I had quit my news addiction. The news pinged my brain, not in a good way. I felt too reactive to the negativity, to the sadness and pain. Violence had become a cultural norm, endemic. Mass murder. How? Why? 

When I left America the country lacked the unity, the pride, the hope, the love of decades past. Despite the successes of civil rights activists, human rights activism, lip-service to equal rights, democratic egalitarianism felt dead to me, the rich richer, the poor, well, the Bible says there will always be poor people and poverty is more than a comparison we make with others who are better off, if only in a monetary sense. Making more meaning is nothing to sniff at. 

As a child of the 50's being an American, well, one couldn't do any better. A child couldn't have been born to a more hopeful, prosperous, positive culture. Take my fifth grade class, for example. We had a subject called patriotism. It was a subject. Learn the word. Love of country. We hated the Russians! We feared the Russians! We had nuclear drills that required hiding under our desks! 

America, my G-d, did we sing that song. Heartfelt. America. G-d shed her grace on thee.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed Her grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

Crazy times. But good. Positive. Upbeat. Strong. Communal. Loving. 

Eddie Redmayne-Caberet, not pretty

More than you need to know, but FD is starting work as a doctor in Israel and I have a day with no classes. I took some time to catch up on the news in the US, only news that doesn't depress the hell out of me, and Peggy Noonan's old articles. Most felt dated, but one in particular rang true, depressing or not. And I had to talk about it to someone for I've been feeling it for years. 

Peggy Noonan

Ms Noonan, also an idealist like myself, probably not much younger or older than me, nails it by telling us that art glorifies all that is ugly, sad, dark, painful, grimy, gloomy, grim, lonely.  'The uglification of everything' it is called and it is very American today. No one is kind, people are vengeful, emotionally incapable and dumb. Nobody laughs anymore. She sees it in the movies. 

Just last night I scrolled through Netflix searching for something light, sweet (but not too sweet) and couldn't find anything. I settled on Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside which really is way, way too sweet but when a person is starving and all there is in the house is ice cream, well, what can one do? 

Ted Danson, so charming if too sweet, Man on the Inside

This is not what Ms Noonan is seeing in America. 

It is not what we see in Israel, just saying, but at least we get a little closer over here. 

Maybe America will change with Trump's presidency, but his denial of sexual harassment as a problem makes me doubt it.  

Not like there isn't any of that here in Israel, but the attitude in general is not ugly, it is not depressed. Israel is a strong nation hopeful for an era of peace, an end to exploitation of citizens living under strong armed dictators.

Here the songs are positive, wistful, speak to a better life, allude to there being more to life than. . . this. That particular message is a natural response to the deaths of 800 young men lost in the current war, Swords of Iron. 

Other songs, however, are related to unity and love, to the hope of our children, to art and creativity, anything that lifts the serotonin. I know because the first thing I did after hanging my hat in the new country, was put it back on and find a choir and in choir the new songs are in addition to the old songs, as if folk is a tradition, history is current. Song in Israel is  more popular than ever, it is a fusion of prayer and pop culture, speaks to love, to being in good company, to singing and creation that lifts the heart, the soul. The United States is diverse, sure, but in Israel the neighborhoods are diverse and yet everyone speaks the same language, aspires to the same humanitarian goals.  

I pray that the culture in the US turns itself around. We therapists have always worked with the ugly, the depressed, the pained and the lonely. A living, sure, but also a calling. 

We couldn't do this work if we didn't believe that happy is better. 

therapydoc