{"id":42628,"date":"2023-11-10T01:53:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T09:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=42628"},"modified":"2023-11-09T14:52:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T22:52:02","slug":"tidbits-about-life-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/11\/10\/tidbits-about-life-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Tidbits about life now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Teenagers are filling in for drafted reservists at Jerusalem&#8217;s Machane Yehuda market. <\/em><em>(photo by Gil Zohar)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the horrors of Oct. 7 embedded in our minds, in our hearts and in our souls, Israel has come together in so many ways, including for war. The effects are so broad and deep. Here is a bird\u2019s-eye view from my narrow perch.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the booms in the air, coming from far-off (and not-so-far-off) mid-air missile collisions \u2013 bravo Iron Dome! The swoosh of our fighter jets overhead \u2013 bravo Israeli Air Force! And all those customized Red Alert apps buzzing away on everyone\u2019s cellphones \u2013 bravo Elad Nava, tech entrepreneur extraordinaire! It\u2019s starting to sound like an orchestra out there.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social media was calling for Israelis to sing, to go out on our patios at 9 p.m. and belt out Hatikvah. We did. And it felt great! So darn cathartic. What a sense of solidarity. As it turns out, on this particular evening, Hamas warned Tel Aviv of a missile barrage at 9 p.m. Guess our singing acted as type of musical Iron Dome, as no barrage arrived. Which is not to say Tel Aviv hasn\u2019t had its share of missiles, just not at this particular time.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Driving to work, traffic slowed down considerably due to some \u201cjackass\u201d up ahead. Turned out to be a convoy of military jeeps carrying weapons and personnel to our north. As I passed them \u2013 12 vehicles \u2013 I slowed down (in the left lane), gave a friendly honk and a thumbs up to each. Twelve times. Cars behind me did the same.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With 75 seconds to reach our safe room and with missile attacks being random with no real pattern, the stress and uncertainty prevents me from enjoying my private bathroom time, sitting down with a newspaper or book or my smartphone. But not under current circumstances. Just want to get in and out of there as quickly as I can..<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Same for showering. No more basking under a warm spray of fresh water. No more humming a few showtunes while lathering up. Nope. Just a quick soaping and get out of there. For shaving, I\u2019m getting use to a three-day growth cycle.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, getting really personal \u2026 in the bedroom with the wife, I am now suffering reverse performance anxiety. I just get it done and move on. Don\u2019t want to get caught with my pants down when the sirens sound.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bravo to McDonald\u2019s \u2013 giving McHappy meals free of charge to our soldiers. The restaurant stepped up, and many businesses are doing the same. From banks, to other restaurants, to retailers, providing goods or services at discounted prices to relieve some of the burden weighing on the country. Wonderful to see this coming together.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I miss my exercise routine. Was swimming a couple time a week. Now, not. The pool closed due to homeland security restrictions limiting gatherings at places of leisure. Who would categorize exercise as leisure? Anyway, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d hear the missile alert with my head bobbing in and out of the water while doing the breaststroke or front crawl. More so, there\u2019s no running along the poolside, so would not make the saferoom in time.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are not immune to panic buying. A few nights into the war, based on some rumour or other, I went grocery shopping to stock up on water, canned goods, candles, matches, toilet paper&#8230;. Didn\u2019t get out of there until almost 11 p.m. The checkout line snaked all the way to the meat section. It was long, the joke being that, by the time we reach the checkout counter, Netanyahu will have negotiated a <em>hudna<\/em> (truce in Arabic). Ha.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I keep saying I\u2019ll do it. Need to put more than just a half dozen bottled waters and a few inhalers in our safe room. Should stock it with canned goods, more medicine, flashlight, battery-powered radio and other survival aids. Maybe tomorrow.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If someone forgets their house key and knocks at our now always-locked door, they need to say a password before we\u2019ll open the door. The theory being, if a Hamas terrorist is holding a gun to their head, they won\u2019t say the password. Talk about paranoid. Probably run-of-the-mill war-related stress.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joe Biden. His Oct. 11 \u201cDon\u2019t\u201d speech was <em>amazing<\/em>! Talk about geopolitical alliances, commitments, pacts, and the such \u2013 I won\u2019t. I\u2019ll simply say I fell in love that evening.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joe Biden. His Oct. 18 \u201cWe\u2019ve got your back\u201d speech was TREMENDOUS! I fell in love with him. Again. With a lightning visit to Israel, he kind of reminded me of Clint Eastwood in his glory days. He had that \u201cmake my day\u201d squint in his eyes. Might have been him struggling to read the monitor, but he came across as a Dirty Harry kind of guy.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are still a handful of Israelis \u2013 OK, maybe more than a handful \u2013 who just don\u2019t get it. Now is not the time for divisiveness and finger pointing. There was utter failure. But the hard questions and difficult answers will come later. Now is the time for unity!<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My wife and daughter volunteered at a high-end event (my wife works in the industry) to help arrange 1,000+ meals for our soldiers. There will be some very satiated soldiers enjoying gourmet meals in cardboard boxes and with disposable utensils.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the sweet smell of my wife\u2019s chocolate chip cookies and brownies baking in the kitchen. She slaps my hand as I go for a cookie: \u201cNot for you! For our soldiers.\u201d It\u2019s that spirit of coming together.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My daughter left the house early the other morning and returned about an hour later with a huge orange garbage bag full of\u2026. \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I inquired. \u201cLaundry. From a family in the south who was evacuated to some hotel. Mom volunteered.\u201d As much as we get preoccupied with the war, with survival, sometimes it\u2019s the mundane that really makes a difference.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ouch. Our currency at its weakest since 2015. Pretty painful when you are sending US dollar instalments to your son studying in the States.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know the diaspora is busy raising money for Israel at speeds and amounts like never before. But don\u2019t stop once you give. Give more. This war will cost Israel billions. If you have given, please give again. Sderot is Israel\u2019s front line. Israel is the diaspora\u2019s front line.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Bruce Brown<\/strong><em> is a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah \u2026 a long time ago. He works in Israel\u2019s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is\u2026. Brown reflects on life in Israel \u2013 political, social, economic and personal.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teenagers are filling in for drafted reservists at Jerusalem&#8217;s Machane Yehuda market. (photo by Gil Zohar) With the horrors of Oct. 7 embedded in our minds, in our hearts and in our souls, Israel has come together in so many ways, including for war. The effects are so broad and deep. Here is a bird\u2019s-eye [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[8490,22729,22725,5807],"class_list":["post-42628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-civil-society","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-oct-7","tag-volunteering"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}