Heavy

Life here in Israel, in the sixth week of the war against Hamas that began on October 7, is something of an emotional roller coaster. Good news when something inspiring happens as people here continue to pull together day after day in all kinds of ways, helping each other. And then there are bad days, soldiers killed or little progress in getting, or even finding, hostages. But can be hard to remember is that life is simply heavy at this moment. Heavy is too imprecise, but it captures something of what I think almost every Israeli is feeling.

It feels like we are wearing an invisible lead cape, invisible because in most moments, we don't think about what is happening. We go about our lives. Walking from the botanical garden today, I saw a father home from reserves, his M-16 slung over his shoulder, watching his daughter—maybe six years old—navigate the monkey bars at a local park and my wife and I reminisce about our own daughter’s zeal when working at the same task when she was at that age. You smile, you laugh, you go about your life. It all seems pretty normal.

But the situation wears us down without our even being aware of it. On my walk to work every day, there are two empty strollers with pictures of kidnapped children. On a school I pass every day, there’s a huge hand-painted sign  that says in Hebrew "We are waiting for you," meaning the hostages. There are posters all over my walk with the faces of the abducted. No one tears them down here. You can't think about them every minute, you'd go crazy, but you can't ignore them. We carry them with us all day because they are our neighbors' children and family and friends. And when I see that young girl on the monkey bars, I think about parents whose six year old is in Gaza and you can’t help it, you’re in pain.

And everyone feels it, somewhere in their bones. Almost all of us has a relative or child or friend's child in harm's way, serving in the army now. So while the resolve is strong, amazing really, to get done what needs to get done, you can’t help but lose the bounce in your step and you just feel sad. And then something happens like happened this week, when we discovered that one of the hostages, Noa Marciano is dead. She was 19:

And then you see this cartoon from Uri Fink at Ma'ariv, an Israeli newspaper, and it breaks your heart anew. At the bottom, it says simply, Shalom, Noa:

Shalom Noa means, Goodbye Noa, but it also means Peace, Noa. Surely Noa deserves peace after whatever hell she endured at the hands of monsters. And you are forced to remember that for the family and friends of the hostages, they don't have the chances I find all day to think about something else. And your heart breaks yet again. And so you cry over a cartoon in the newspaper that only has two words and then you hear a poignant song and rather than getting goosebumps, you find yourself in tears.

I don't feel sorry for myself nor do I seek your pity. I have no children in Gaza, armed or unarmed. My life here is relatively easy, and right now, safe. I do not live in Gaza, which must be unimaginably hard in a different way. And there is something powerful about the intensity of life in this moment that is rich and meaningful because the sadness mingles with the love and the sense of belonging here that comes from all the work people are doing to help each other. You find somehow, your heart can still sing even when it’s broken. I am very glad to be here, in Israel, at this moment in history. It’s a roller coaster of ups and downs but a lot of people line up to ride the roller coaster. Living here, right now, I’ve never felt more alive.

But you should know that for those of us here in Israel, every day is still October 7th. We haven't turned the page. We can't. So forgive us if we are not so patient with the inevitable disinformation of war, the tired back and forth about international law, the sickening atrocity olympics where so many are eager to claim disproportionality or some other shortcoming of the Israeli army.

We’re tired of the world so often demanding a ceasefire without mentioning those who have been kidnapped. Tired of a world that does not demand to know at least if those who have been kidnapped are still alive and how they are being treated. Tired of a world that does not sit in pain alongside parents whose children are missing.

We are waiting. Waiting for them to come home, the hostages and the soldiers. And we're tired of waiting. Tired of our soldiers being killed and having to kill, to put out a fire that was lit on October 7 and that is still burning.