You splashed a little turmeric on your yoga pants, FD tells me.
I’ve finished cooking and approach him while he relaxes in a chair in the living room. The kitchen is free.
Oh no! I cry and look down. A tiny spot. I think it will bleach out.
He disagrees. I don't think so.
Life, you see, is no different in Israel than anywhere else.
Nice try, you say!
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| Iran on fire |
Being a new immigrant
Here's something that happened last August.
Lost in a mall, no idea where the parking lot is, I ask an Israeli woman for help. She speaks English. Realizing we have just arrived she is very eager to help, even escorts us to the parking lot. We exchange hugs and kisses, so grateful, and she asks, she can't help it: You come now? During a war you come?
Like, are you psychotic?
We took our shot, we tell her, and we are so, so happy we did. But enough about us.
How are you?
Feeling like a foreign correspondent
It isn’t like we volunteered to be foreign correspondents, but our feet are here, our ears hear more.
So when talking to family and friends and patients in chutz (chutz, rhymes with toots, means outside of Israel) we are queried about what is going on, how we are doing. We tell all.
But when my patients in the US ask me the same questions on Zoom, it feels much harder to answer their questions.
The professional relationship
The love, the concern, it is palpable but presents an immediate treatment issue. Where I live is concerning, a source of anxiety, a trigger. Israel is at war. This is no joke, no laughing matter. My being here is a cause to worry. I can't just flip it back, Let's talk about you!
My move had been difficult but patients understood. Israel is my home, a second home, but home in a solid, spiritual-national way. I couldn't possibly grow old anywhere else, they know this. For people like us Israel is a magnet. FD and I grew tired of resisting the draw.
Out of respect I decide to share the Home Front Command procedures for citizens. The procedure saves lives. It lowers my anxiety (and raises it at the same time, you'll see why). But this is how the IDF protects us and it works as long as we follow instructions. We do.
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| This is some of us |
(1) When Home Front Command, Israeli intelligence, becomes aware that missiles have launched from Iran we get a message on our phones. The message alerts us that trouble is coming and we should get ready to get into a safe place, basically a bomb shelter, a miklat or mamad. These are rooms built into every apartment building, steel and iron, safe places, steel windows and a steel door. Maybe iron. I'm no architect, sorry.
So first there is that initial warning, something has left Iran, Israel unsure where it is going. We stop what we are doing and get ready to shelter. FD and I grab a bottle of water and a book, go downstairs to the miklat. Our neighbors trickle in, Israelis of all ages, toddlers, dogs. It can get crowded.
(2) Then we might hear a real siren within 15 minutes. We hear the siren through our phones or from outside. The siren always comes as a surprise, no matter how ready we are, a jolt to the nervous system. The siren, an ah-zah-kah, the word literally means a shout, is an indication that a missile might land nearby, maybe even in our city. It could be in a city half an hour away.
The door is closed. Tight. A late-comer knocks. We let him in. Lock it again.
We aren't noticeably afraid, not so much. We are safe in that room and we have been here dozens of times. This feels like a drill, even though it is not. The atmosphere is upbeat, WE GOT THIS.
No country has a defense like ours, no country has spent 100 years on the defense, had to refine, develope an iron dome. No other country ever needed one.
(3) In about 20 minutes, more or less, Home Front Command sends the text, All clear, return to your lives. Take off your seatbelt. You can move about the cabin.
(4) Soon thereafter our news sources report the damage, where the missiles fell, how many are injured, approximately, if any, how many lives, G-d forbid, are lost.
The war is almost over, dear friends. We are not afraid. Last night we had no alert, no warning, no siren, a hopeful sign for the future. When we are sheltered women bring along babies under shawls, toddlers dance, dogs sniff at our legs. Some of us sing. FD and I sing sometimes, softly. We sing songs we learned here in choir, the highlight of our week. Here's one of them. We sang it to a room full of Holocaust survivors on Holocaust Remembrance Day only weeks ago.
I Have No Other Country. אין לי ארץ אחרת
Note that the song is actually about political conflict from within, that Israelis are forever arguing with one another about how things should be in this country, idealists, all.
These days, however, when our enemies hope we will give up, leave, that we will tire of their threats to our right to be here, to live, we answer that we are not afraid of their bombs and warheads. We aren't going anwwhere. This is our home, we have no other.
Peace,
therapydoc
I Have No Other Country. אין לי ארץ אחרת
I have no other country
אין לי ארץ אחרת
Even if my land is on fire
גם אם אדמתי בוערת
Only a word in Hebrew penetrates
רק מילה בעברית חודרת
To my veins to my soul
אל עורקיי אל נשמתי
body aches
בגוף כואב
with a hungry heart
בלב רעב
Here is my home
כאן הוא ביתי
I will not be silent because my country has changed its face
לא אשתוק כי ארצי שינתה את פניה
לא אוותר לה, אזכיר לה
ואשיר כאן באוזניה
עד שתפקח את עיניה
I have no other country
אין לי ארץ אחרת
Even if my land is on fire
גם אם אדמתי בוערת
Only a word in Hebrew penetrates
רק מילה בעברית חודרת
To my veins to my soul
אל עורקיי אל נשמתי
body aches
בגוף כואב
with a hungry heart
בלב רעב
Here is my home
כאן הוא ביתי
לא אשתוק כי ארצי שינתה את פניה
לא אוותר לה, אזכיר לה
And sing here in her ears
ואשיר כאן באוזניה
עד שתפקח את עיניה
Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh
אוו אוו, אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו
Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh
אוו אוו, אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו אוו
I have no other country
אין לי ארץ אחרת
Until she renews her days
עד שתחדש ימיה
עד שתפקח את עיניה
