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. We live the precautionary tale of the fifties, hardly warmed over. 

In the US in the fifties elementary schools held 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, blue with white stars, the one that screams Fourth of July.  Perfect. 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 identified ourselves as Americans it was 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 the home of the free and the brave, if not the only home of freedom, bravery. 

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

We needed the shot. Our fear for the future of America has troubled us of late, that fear an undercurrent not only here, but there, too, from what patients tell me. 

Patriotism, however, is back, and it feels we are not alone. Not only Americans in Israel, but the entire nation of Israel is grateful to President Trump. He's on the right side of history, G-d bless him. 

Personally, I don't think it is me drinking the KoolAid, caught up in the wave of relief that comes with the reprieve of  nuclear war that is raising the serotonin, or even thinking the war will be over soon. 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. despite President Trump's intervention. We hum or sing when we're down there, sometimes, 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. 

This morning however, donning that tee-shirt, 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..  

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 opens 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 didn'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. 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

 

Journal-1

BringThemHome-the hostages in Gaza-NOW

Journals tend to begin with a journey, like a vacation, or maybe a change in life circumstance. A move, becoming a citizen of Israel would be one of those. 

Subtext: Now I have the right to wonder if voting matters in two countries, not just one! 

An old time blogging colleague writes Life in Israel, and that is totally worth checking out. But everyone's life is different. Here's one therapist's point of view. 

Journal 1, October 7

Actually, today is October 8, 2024 

Today marks a year plus one day since the most obscene, most unimaginable chapter in the history of the State of Israel. I can't even begin to put the details of the October 7, 2023 to the page, suffice it to say that what you have read, if the details are exceedingly grotesque and inhumane, well, it all of that is true.  

Why should we be surprised. Jewish history is punctuated with massacres. Crusaders out to slaughter. Murderous Cossacks roving into towns hunting Jews. My own grandmother, her soul should rest in Heaven, once told me that Polish marauders, Cossacks, barged into her village, her home, and seeing her in a rocker nursing my father, spared her life. She didn't say much other than that. The czar let the Jews of the village leave that day, assuming they had money for passage, the day a fast day. We celebrate that fast at the end of this week, Yom Kippur.

As a rule, the sparing of Jewish suffering has never been a thing. Witness events in France, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, South Africa, you name it. The streets in North America aren't safe, there's mayhem on college campuses. Having suffered pogroms and a holocaust, a surge of antisemitism is foreboding. And then, October 7, 2023. And it happened on holy land.   

G-d's Country

Another version of God's country

That attack defiled a holy land. 

Israel is the real G-d's country, Jews and Christians believe, as opposed to Wisconsin, where Heileman's Old Style is brewed. Holiness is in Eretz Yisrael, Israel, if it is anywhere. 

G-d's presence is what makes the land holy, Her/His holiness, not ours. We may aspire but most of us don't come close.  

And Hamas had the chutzpah to defile it, suspending wartime norms: rampant rape, decapitation and the severing of other body parts, mutilation, wholesale slaughter of 1200 innocents at a music festival. And then joy, the celebration of perpetrators. Nasty, very not holy stuff.

Yes, I'm still working it out.  

Difficult to digest, this hatred towards Jewish people disguised as a hatred Zionism. News flash, they are one and the same. Difficult to note the many videos and programs that remind us of what happened. 

But that is what we all did yesterday from sun up to sun down. An entire nation grieved their dead their stolen — kidnapped hostages still in harm's way. We grieved between sirens, jarring warnings that missiles approach. Get to a safe place. You have a minute and a half.

For some, sirens are triggering, as they are meant to be, unresolved PTSD of October 7 and the weeks, now month, a year that followed. Not a good year. Traumatizing for some but for others a way of life, how one lives, lived prior to this war. Missiles from Lebanon in the north, missiles from Gaza in the south, going on thirty years. 

For Israelis at the borders sirens are not something new.  

But to the average new immigrant (me) and to perhaps millions of Israelis, the sounds of missiles are new, as is the fear. When our defenses are down, the sound of sirens screaming, the booms bursting, despite the psychological defense of denial, despite living life as if there is no war, we feel fear.

It is how the enemy lives, too.

Blessings and Peace, 

 

therapydoc