Tag Archives: compassion

But Nobody Died!

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Our youngest son, Rafael, moved with his family to New Jersey last night. We don’t know how long they’ll be there. We don’t know why they moved.

Neither of their excellent jobs requires the move. They have a beautiful house here that they renovated just 5 years ago to their exact specification. Their garden is flourishing, as are their kids. All four kids have many friends and are happy here. They have an active social life with friends and with their siblings/cousins. The other grandparents live a 15-minute walk away, are retired, and are always happy to have the kids over, pick them up, and take them places.

The given reason is that they get itchy when they’re in one place too long. They seek adventure (in New Jersey? 😂) They seek a challenge when things are too settled and smooth. Our son fears getting stodgy (he’s 42). At 40, having made partner at the most prestigious law firm here, he quit to do something else. He didn’t want to get stuck in a rut.

I sort of get it. I was that way myself. But once we had kids, I reframed my need for change into something more compatible with having first one and then, within 7 years, five kids. I changed professions six times; just about every 2 or 3 years. I wrote a few books. Once the kids were a bit older we traveled…a lot.

And, of course, the biggie – we moved from the US to Israel.

Rafael and his family moved to the US once already. They spent 5 years in Silicone Valley. He’s a hi-tech lawyer so that made sense. It provided him with the lift he needed to become one of the younger partners in his law firm. We missed him. The 10-hour time difference and 16-hour flight were brutal. But it made sense. And once was enough.

This move makes less sense to us.

Of course, we’re ten years older.

My in-laws were devastated when we moved our own young family to Israel. My mother-in-law literally keened and wailed when we parted at the airport. But, we felt, we were moving toward something. It was an ideological move. It was living our dedication to Zionism. We still feel that way.

What kind of ideology could possibly warrant a move to New Jersey – the state Americans love to mock? Clearly (to us) they are moving away from something and not toward something.

I get that, too. Living in Israel is not for the faint of heart.

Although it has one of the strongest, most stable economies in the world, wages are relatively low, real estate is ridiculously priced out of most young families’ reach, and many families struggle to get through the month. None of this applies to Rafael, who is blessed with financial stability.

Israel has been at war from the moment the state was established in 1948. Sometimes the war is more volatile and sometimes less, but it’s a constant threat. Our neighbors make no bones about hating us and have consistently made clear their goal of destroying our state and killing us all. The past two years, since the atrocities of October 7th, have been traumatic for every single family in Israel, and continue to be so.

Hard times, however, seem to strengthen Israelis’ resolve, not weaken it.

The divisiveness in Israeli society over politics and religion seems to be more of a factor in people leaving Israel than the war. The exaggerations and fears on each side lead to a lack of tolerance that feeds on itself.

For those of us who left comfortable lives in the US (or other Western countries) to live in Israel, we take a dim view of those who leave. It would be more accurate to say that many of us look upon it as betrayal of an ideal; betrayal of the country. In addition, given the current ugly anti-Semitism in the world, we believe that Jews should be aware today more than ever that Israel is the place for Jews to live.

We worry about our children and grandchildren’s safety. We worry about our grandchildren being taken out of a place where they are like most everybody else – it’s not an issue – and put in a place where they are ‘the other’.

We believe that our son and daughter-in-law have a tremendous amount of talent and skills to give to our country, and that our country needs people exactly like them.

And, perhaps most of all, I’ll miss being able to drive an hour whenever the spirit moves me and enjoy a good cup of coffee and great conversation with my youngest son. He’s the best! I’ll miss all the many special things about each and every one of those four delicious children. And, yes, sometimes, of course, I feel that strong twinge of sadness and loss in my heart.

Tisha B’Av is the day that our first two holy temples were destroyed. The date is commemorated with a 25-hour fast and special prayers. When tragedy strikes and someone is very sad we might say she has on her Tisha B’Av face.

That’s the face I see on many of our friends lately when considering our son’s departure with his beautiful family.

And, ironically enough, I want to console them.

“But nobody died! They’re only going to New Jersey!”

As hard as it is for us to imagine, they’re off on what they see as an adventure for their family. We made our choices. Some of them were great and some not so great, but they were ours to make. And if they turned out to be not so great, we readjusted and reframed and began a new adventure. Or at least I hope you all did, because we sure did. Why be stuck when life is so fleeting?

I, personally, believe they’ll be back in a couple of years. After all…New Jersey. And in the meantime, how fortunate that in this day and age there’s Facetime and WhatsApp and convenient flights.

They’re a happy, successful, healthy couple with four amazing, funny, quirky, interesting, healthy kids. We’ve had them near us for five blessed years and, G-d willing, we’ll have them near us again one of these days.

So chin up, friends, no Tisha B’Av faces, please.

Do We Really Get It?

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All told, we’ve been in India almost a year. We’ve spent over two months in Kerala, four months in Rishikesh, and a week to ten days in Hampi, Meysore, Delhi, Goa, Mumbai, Varanasi, Darjeeling, Khajuraho yogashram, Kaziranga, Puri, Shimla, Dharamshala, Dalhousie, Chennai, Pondicherry, Auroville, Bandhavgargh, Rambagh, Jim Corbett, and the Andaman Islands.

My partner has been learning Hindi off and on for 7 years. Between his Hindi and Google audio translate we’ve had many conversations with people about their lives and their opinions about many issues – geopolitical, philosophical, sociological, religious, and how they view the future.

We’ve observed familial interactions, public and less public behaviors, hygiene and eating habits, changing clothing preferences, and acceptable and less acceptable commercial activities.

We’ve experienced the kindness, patience, and acceptance of Indians in many different situations from driving to waiting in line to communication difficulties to cultural misunderstandings.

When asked how many children an Indian has they will invariably give a number that reflects only male children. Mothers as well as fathers respond in this way. Sexist? I don’t think so. It seems that in traditional Indian families (and in spite of rapid and visible change it’s estimated that over 90% of Indian marriages are still arranged marriages) sons remain in the nuclear family home after they marry. Their wives become subservient to the matriarch who travels with them on vacations and sets the tone for parenting. Daughters move on to their spouse’s family. They are only temporarily part of their parents’ lives. I’ve come to believe that is why they’re not included in the natural spontaneous reply about the number of children in the nuclear family.

Is this belief accurate? Maybe. Maybe not. One thing I’ve learned is there’s no point in asking for clarification. Such requests are met with puzzled expressions followed by acceptance of my theory regardless of its accuracy or inaccuracy.

Here’s a much more prosaic, but much more day to day question I’ve been asking in vague euphemistic terminology since our very first visit in 2016. Why don’t Indians, especially women, use toilet paper? It’s excellent for the ecology of every country and certainly one with a billion and a half people, and yet… What’s the deal? It’s all well and good that our tushes and other intimate places are actually cleaner after that spritz from the bidet but what is it about walking around wet that doesn’t annoy them? And is it even hygienic?

They’ve learned that foreigners need toilet paper. Hotels provide small rolls of it and are happy to replenish it as frequently as their patrons allow themselves to make the request (we tend to buy our own to avoid the issue altogether). But when asked why they don’t require it themselves I’ve been met with puzzled expressions and literally no answers, They don’t understand why I do require it but accept it and I don’t understand why they don’t require it but still ask from time to time.

The nearest things I’ve received to an answer have been (1) the concept of the comfort of dry being preferable over damp is a Western concept (really?!?) and (2) you can carry a small towel to dry off, keep it in a small plastic bag all day and wash it in the evening (a nice solutionbut I doubt Indian women actually do that).

That may be similar to something an Indian friend of ours said recently. He owns an amazing guesthouse literally 50 meters from a pristine Arabian Sea beach. He’s made lots of improvements over the past few years. Indian tourists are accustomed to ordering their meals and eating in their rooms. They seem to prefer it. It might be a question of the chicken and the egg. Maybe at one time hotels didn’t have restaurants. So our friend didn’t have a restaurant but realized that the (mostly foreign) guests preferred not to eat in their rooms so he added a really nice place to eat.

His showers had no hot water. Granted it’s quite hot in Thumboly Beach and the locals see no need for hot water but others do. As a result, he decided to arrange hot water and told us he had done so. In most Indian showers there’s a shower head and also a faucet beneath it about a foot annd an half off the floor with a bucket and plastic cup below it. Turns out he set up water in the lower faucet and not in the shower head.

When we laughed about it with him he said something quite true and profound. He said that one of the differences between Israelis and Indians is that Israelis look at something and immediately start figuring out ways to improve upon it while Indians look at the same thing, accept it as is, and immediately figure out a way to live with it. There are pluses and minuses in both approaches.

And what about respect for personal space, acceptable noise levels in public places or in hotels late at night, what it means to be a couple, the relative merit of avoidance or honesty in confronting legitimate disagreement or misunderstanding; the cultural differences go in and on.

Even when we think we get it we have to keep asking ourselves if we really get it.

There’s no escaping the fact that part of the joy in being in India is the adventure of the Western shrug of shoulders or the Indian wag of the head. The humor in “I don’t know.” The puzzled expression followed by a smile.

You aren’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. And ain’t that grand?

Life in The Great Plains

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The Great Plains of the United States is a vast area with few people and beautiful vistas. You can drive on the open roads in Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas for hours and see only a handful of cars. The houses are few and far between and without exception have an American flag flying in front. Each town’s population sign boasts between 29 and 1500 residents.

On our way from the Battlefield of Little Bighorn to Cody, Wyoming, where we’d be spending the night before heading into Yellowstone Park, we stopped in for some lunch at a small diner in the town of Lovell, Wyoming, population 2320.

During our travels, we’ve come to expect quirky, odd people and sights, but so far in this part of America what’s stood out the most is the utter normalcy of the people and towns. The diner was quite ordinary. Plain tables and chairs. Around one table were four middle-aged women having a girls’ lunch. Otherwise, we were alone. The menu was also nothing special. Hamburgers, french fries, pizza, tuna salad sandwiches.

And then there was this sight –

No one seemed to think it strange. I guess man and bird are regulars.

Our teenage server was a fresh-faced, blonde girl. No tattoos. No piercings. No make-up. Just a few freckles and a friendly smile. I found myself wondering about her life. Being a teenager in a town of 2000 people in the Great Plains. The nearest city, Cody, boasting 10,000 residents, is an hour away.

After we’d eaten our sandwich and were waiting for coffee, I approached the girl and asked if she’d be open to talking about her life. She nodded with a respectful ‘yes’ and a shy smile. I started with an easy question.

“What do kids your age do for fun around here?”

She didn’t hesitate. She told me the obvious – there’s nothing to do in Lovell – but went on to say that, as a result, kids make their own fun. They sometimes build a campfire and sit around talking and telling stories. They go fishing. Most teenagers work in the summer and often after school during the school year.

I mentioned that I’d noticed the lack of tattoos, piercings, and make-up and asked if that was the norm. She replied that most families in Lovell are Mormon (she’s not), and have been brought up not to find those kinds of things attractive. There’s a strict dress code at her school, which is fine with her, but she wishes they were allowed to wear leggings. (that was her only objection)

I asked if she saw herself settling down in Lovell after school or moving to a bigger city. With a mischievous smile, she said that her dream was to go to New York City and become a cosmetologist but added that she’d likely get married and settle down in Lovell, or maybe as far away as Cody.

Interestingly enough, her parents divorced when she was 10 and after a year living with her mother in Denver, Colorado, she chose to move to Lovell to live with her father. Of course, the explanation may lie simply in a troubled relationship with her mother, but I wondered later if it was the siren call of a simpler life surrounded by stark natural beauty.

There are undoubtedly inconveniences living in a tiny town with limited options. But in the towns of the Great Plains states, there’s also the inspiration and peacefulness of being surrounded by natural beauty. The rush and tension that people love to hate in the big population centers are absent. There’s virtually unlimited space. Zero crowding on the roads, in the restaurants; no long lines in the grocery store or the post office (which each town has!). From our limited experience, no one is in a hurry. They have time for conversations with the neighbor ringing up their purchases and the customers in the diner.

At our server’s age, I was also a server in a restaurant. I worked in an Indian restaurant, wearing an elegant sari, where the choices on the menu were exotic and expensive. The restaurant was on the river that ran through the tourist area of San Antonio and was constantly packed with people. Without a reservation, people were out of luck. I saved my tip money to get the hell out of Dodge. San Antonio, a city of over a million people, was too familiar. I wanted nothing more than to strike out, on my own, for more interesting pastures.

It took me 50 years to reach the point that our server reached by 16. The point where I appreciate the empty open road, the farms where the closest neighbor is at least a kilometer away. When I can often think of nothing better than sitting in a wooden chair looking out at a calm lake for an hour or two with an unopened book on my lap.

Lubec, Maine

I used to think that living in the city provided more opportunity for connection to other people. I imagined living in rural areas to be isolating. Living in a small community of 5000 people created doubt in my mind and observing people and talking to people in The Great Plains sealed my recognition of my faulty reasoning. I now think that, while it clearly depends on the individual, living among fewer people may very well encourage kinder, more intimate connection than living in a city.

As the miles rolled by, we were finding the sheer size of the open, empty plains comforting. Neither my partner nor I being particularly stressed out or hyper people, we were, nevertheless, experiencing an inner loosening in our very souls.

I often thought of travel from Wisconsin, where I was at university for more years than I care to think about, to San Antonio, as boring. Lots of wheat fields. Lots of cornfields. they go on and one and…on.

The boredom of the 70s through the 90s is today’s meditation.

Deadly Clash of Cultures: the Sad History of the Native American

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The Z Bar Motel in Buffalo, Wyoming, is a great place for a family vacation. Yes, it’s in the middle of nowhere, but very convenient for our travels, halfway between Mt. Rushmore and the Battlefield of Little Bighorn. It’s a motel made up of small (and larger) cabins. The two men in the cabin next to ours were from North Carolina. They come every year to escape the heat. Very friendly, they sat on their front porch schmoozing for large parts of the day, happy to chat with other guests of the motel as they pass by.

Our cabin had a fridge and everything else we needed. Unfortunately, it also had a flooded bathroom later in the evening. Luckily, the water didn’t escape into the room proper. We debated whether we should ask for a discount upon check-out the next morning but decided against it. It can’t be easy trying to make a living from tourists there. There’s really not much around there for many miles in every direction.

The decision was taken out of our hands the next day when the owner told my partner that he would be refunding our payment in full. (I checked later and he had, indeed, issued a full refund) Only three cabins were affected by the plumbing problem, ours being one of them. When traveling – and in life in general – we’ve learned that the best attitude is one of kindness and flexibility. We also benefit – not always financially – but always in our hearts.

An hour and a half up the road we pulled into the Battle of Little Bighorn memorial.

Many years ago, on a whim, I purchased a $10 senior pass for life to all US National Parks for myself which included other passengers in my car. At the time one of our sons still lived in the States and I figured we might even get some use out of a lifetime pass. It was the ranger’s idea in the John Muir forest in California. It came in handy on this trip. We saved ourselves over $100 and had a feeling of satisfaction. It included the Little Bighorn memorial, though not Crazy Horse since that’s a private endeavor. It would be just too cynical for a monument to a warrior betrayed fatally by the US government to be a national park.

We’d been listening to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, anticipating our visit to Little Bighorn. The book is written primarily from the point of view of and in sympathy with the Native American Nation. Having been brought up on the opposite perspective, it was interesting to learn the history of Native American/settler relations from this point of view. What became clear was that aside from the excitement, enthusiasm, and greed of the settlers, and the often apparent disregard for Native Americans as human beings by the US Army, it was a tragic clash of cultures that led to cruelty on both sides and horrendous misunderstandings with terrible consequences.

Before the explorers and settlers invaded Native American lands, the primary conflict was between Mexicans and Native Americans. Mexicans often kidnapped Native American children for use as slaves and Native Americans retaliated by stealing horses. Odd perhaps but with none of the butchery and cruelty that was eventually representative of the settlers, the army, and the Native Americans. The Mexican and Native American cultures, while different from each other, had more in common.

It took years for Native Americans to grasp the concept of hunger for ownership of land that precluded the use of that land by others. They’d always had free access to vast tracts of land – virtually any land they wanted or needed for hunting or growing food for their needs – and considered all of the land as their home, belonging only to the holy spirits. They saw no reason not to share it with the settlers, though they were certainly territorial between tribes and there were consequences when tribes didn’t respect the non-verbal, non-contractual rights of one tribe to the land on which they hunted. The White settlers and army utilized these tribal conflicts to their advantage by allying themselves with one or more tribes against others. It would be years before Native Americans realized that the rules of the game had changed. As a result, they were slow in reacting.

Once they caught up they were no less cruel than their White counterparts. Taking the worst from their experience with the Mexicans, they kidnapped women and children. Taking the worst from their experience with US troops, they butchered their enemy with vehemence and carried out indiscriminate atrocities.

Beginning in the 17th century, settlers and soldiers came well-equipped with the weapons of their time; sidearms, shotguns, rifles, muskets, and infectious disease. The Native Americans initially had bows and arrows, tomahawks, and little resistance to the diseases of the Europeans. It would be years before Native Americans obtained rifles to arm themselves. By that time their numbers had been decimated by disease and warfare. It is estimated that 80% of Native Americans were dead by the 1he middle of the 19th century as a result of White colonization. It is estimated that no more than 2000 colonists, settlers, and US soldiers were killed during the so-called Indian Wars.

(As an aside, the so-called Vietnam War is known as the American War in Vietnam. I have no idea what Native Americans call the Indian Wars. I couldn’t find such a reference. But surely they have a different name for that part of their history.)

This violent and tragic history of Native American-European relations is littered with misunderstanding of cultural differences, broken promises and treaties, and the racism of those centuries when many Whites simply did not regard people of color as human beings. Whoever does not recognize that fact cannot possibly understand the murder of unarmed Native American women and children such as the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, ostensibly in retaliation for the murder of a family of White settlers. Verbal and written descriptions of Native Americans as being like savage dogs (Andrew Jackson), savage as the wolf (George Washington), and calls for the total extermination of all Native Americans abound (too many to list).

History has shown that the inability to see an entire population group, in this case Native Americans, as human beings, is always the precursor to insensitivity at the least and unspeakable cruelty at worst.

Which brings us to The Battlefield of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand.

In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal, one of many, led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River.

In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the army. A force of 1200 Native Americans turned back the first column. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered George Custer’s 7th Calvary to scout ahead for enemy troops. On June 25, in arrogant and reckless disregard for opposing opinions, including his Indigenous guide, Mitch Bouyer, Custer decided to press ahead rather than wait for reinforcements. Many historians believe he was more interested in increasing his reputation for a run for President of the United States than in the cautious advancement of his troops.

In any case, by mid-day on June 25, Custer’s 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Word had quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head-on. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3000 Native Americans. Within an hour, Custer and all of his soldiers were dead. According to Cheyenne oral history, Custer himself was killed by Buffalo Calf Road Woman.

Standing at the many marked locations above the Little Bighorn Valley, reading descriptions of the battle that happened 50-100 meters away was an intense experience for me. I could smell the blood, feel the sweat, hear the war cries, sense the exuberance of the Native American warriors and the terror of the soldiers. I don’t know why it affected me so strongly, just that it was one of the fiercest reactions I’ve ever had in a historical location. Standing on the steep bluffs, I could feel the thrill of the Native American warriors – finally, finally, reigning victorious. After just one hour, 268 US soldiers lay dead, and no more than 100 Native Americans.

The feeling of accomplishment, justified revenge, and taking back control, was short-lived.

The battle at Little Bighorn reinforced popular opinion as to the savagery of the Native American Nation and served as a rallying point for the United States to increase the efforts to force native peoples onto the reservation lands. Within one year of the battle, most Native Americans surrendered and the Black Hills were taken by the US government without compensation to the Lakota.

Sitting Bull was later killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement. He was 58 or 59 at his death.

Crazy Horse was killed by a bayonet-wielding military guard after surrendering to U.S. troops at Camp Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. He was 37 when killed.

A trail of broken treaties and US government promises, Christianity meeting Spiritualism, tribal life and nomadic life versus settlement life, differing social structure, and visions of authority all led to the tragedy of Native American/settler clashes. It might have served as a cautionary tale for other disastrous clashes of culture in far-flung locations but as George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Humankind has shown repeatedly that we do not learn from history.

Today there are approximately 326 Native American land areas in the U.S. administered as federal Indian reservations (i.e. reservations, pueblos, rancherias, missions, villages, communities, and others). The largest is the 16 million-acre Navajo Nation Reservation located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. While there are an estimated 9.7 million Native Americans, only about a quarter live on reservations or other trust lands. The others are scattered to the winds.

On to new adventures in Cody, Wyoming.

Before and After

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Thirty-two years ago, on one of those magnificent autumn days when the sun is out and the air is crisp, I sat on the small hill at the back of our property which overlooks the road. I don’t remember what I was doing; just that it had something to do with the garden. I heard our thirteen-year-old son calling out a greeting to me and looked up to see him crossing to our side of the road on his way home. I remember smiling and thinking that seeing him made the day perfect.

Then a shot rang out – or what sounded like a shot – and I heard our son let out a yelp. He grabbed one hand with the other and blood began streaming between his fingers.

It took me a few seconds to grasp that somehow there was a connection between the sound I’d heard and my son’s bleeding hand. But very quickly I tumbled down the hill to him, looking around furtively to assess any danger that might still be lurking. His face was white; his mouth slack. I grabbed him to me and pulled him into a dead run back to the house.

After a harrowing drive to the nearest hospital emergency room, x-rays, a very kind doctor extracting what was left of a small part of a bullet I don’t remember the name of, we checked into a nearby hotel because it was too close to Shabbat to drive home. Miraculously the bullet hadn’t damaged a nerve. The wound was painful but that would pass.

You may be familiar with that odd phenomenon of a parent being scared to death because of a danger a child has been in and the anger that comes with the relief of the passing of the danger. Like when a small child goes missing in a mall and then suddenly appears. That’s how I remember the time we spent in that hotel. Miserable for both of us.

Though there was no long-lasting damage to my son’s hand, there was definitely long-lasting damage to me.

I lost something very essential and dear to me – my basic innocent and naive belief that I could keep my children safe.

He’d been so close to me – maybe 20 yards away – and, yet, a nearby teenager’s wreckless play, putting fire to a bullet from his father’s personal weapon, wounded, and could’ve permanently damaged, or even killed, my son before my eyes.

In the thirty-two years from that day to this, I’ve made peace with that reality. Our five kids have made it into middle age, surviving whatever craziness they got themselves into. (And there was a bit.) These days I worry sometimes about our grandchildren, but I realize that they, too, will live their lives without my being able to control the dangers through which they’ll pass, hopefully successfully.

Life has been good to us.

We live in a house we love. We have a garden with gloriously large trees we’ve nurtured for over thirty-five years and a back porch on which we eat breakfast when weather permits, looking out at flowers, birds who come to eat and bathe in our yard, and the occasional fox. We travel to amazing places, celebrate many happy family occasions, cherish thirty-year-old friendships, do things we love, enjoy our relationship with each other, and are in relatively good health.

And then October 7th happened.

On another peaceful autumn day, the sun shining and the air crisp, thousands of Arabs – Hamas soldiers and regular residents of Gaza – men, women, and teenagers – stormed the flimsy gate separating Gaza from the Jewish kibbutzes, moshavs, and other small communities close by. They carried out the worst, cruelest atrocities perpetuated on Jews since the Holocaust.

Parents were brutally murdered in front of their children’s eyes, Women were violently and repeatedly raped while their incapacitated husbands and young children witnessed their degradation and murder. Babies were burned in microwave ovens. Adults and children were dismembered and beheaded. At an international music festival, over 250 young people were slaughtered, some shot to death as they ran for their lives, and others (not so lucky) caught and tortured before being killed.

For six and seven hours, or longer, people hid in their “safe rooms” or, in the case of the music festival, under bushes, behind trees, or under cars, praying for rescue. A few were able to hold out until family members from far away or army forces were able to reach them. Many were murdered or kidnapped into Gaza before help could reach them.

By the end the October 7th massacre over 1200 Jews had been brutally raped, tortured, mutilated, and/or killed. Over 200 Jews had been dragged into captivity in Gaza.

Since that day, when the true face of evil was revealed, my reality has once again shifted.

It took a couple of weeks for Jews around the world to come out in active support of Israel. At first we heard mostly of their fear for themselves – taking mezuzahs down and taking Jewish star necklaces off.

It took anti-semites of every order and in every country only hours to begin to demonstrate in the streets around the world in loud support of Hamas and against Israel.

University professors and administrators defended the anti-Israel, anti-semitic protests and posters as being protected by freedom of speech. One university professor even declared from a loudspeaker to a group of pro-Hamas supporters that she felt “empowered” by the events of October 7th. Administrators at Cornell, Harvard, and Penn shamelessly defended the call for the genocide of Jews as not being against campus rules, depending on the context.

I still remember well the United States of my childhood and young adulthood when no one could express anti-semitism out loud, no matter what they thought or felt in their hearts.

Women’s groups were totally silent concerning the gang rapes of Jewish women, the mutilation of women’s breasts, and the humiliation of parading Jewish women’s naked bodies through the streets of Gaza as residents there – men, women, and children – spat on them.

“#MeToo Unless You’re a Jew” went viral.

Those of us who were active in the women’s rights movement of the 60s and 70s were angry and ashamed.

Today I often catch myself looking at a beautiful young woman crossing the street in front of my car with the words of witnesses of gang rapes echoing in my head and thinking – “It could have been this young woman.”

It was so random. It could have been any woman.

I’m torn between reading yet another witness’s account and clicking on by without stopping. How many stories of such brutality can a soul bear? But what right do I have, as one who was spared the atrocities on that day, to ignore the testimony of those who lived through it?

I don’t know how anyone who survived the evil carried out so joyfully on October 7th will be able to find happiness in their life. To be able to trust other people again. To have a happy relationship with a partner. To fall asleep at night and find peace in slumber. How can they listen to people around the world defending their attackers and feel safe in this world? What effect does the deafening silence of women’s organizations have on their feeling of solidarity with other women?

I live my life in a pastoral setting, far removed from rockets and Gaza. And yet I wake up every morning and read the names of the fallen soldiers from the previous day and look at the photos of their beautiful, young, smiling faces. I believe fiercely that we must keep fighting until the evil has been wiped out, at the same time my heart aches for the loss of the lives of Israelis fighting for our right to live peacefully within our borders.

My hope of peaceful co-existence with Arabs in my Homeland has been shattered. I’m suspect of all.

Most of the communities in which the atrocities were carried out were politically left-wing; their residents believed in co-existence to the point of driving their Gazan neighbors to Jewish hospitals when they were ill, and to work inside Israel. In a shocking turn of events, the specific Gazan Arabs who were helped by their Jewish neighbors were exactly those who carried out their murder and directed others to the more vulnerable homes.

I look back on the unbounded optimism and basic joyfulness of my pre-October 7th life and wish I could have all that back. Maybe someday I’ll make peace with the reality of horrific evil in the world and be able to move on.

For now, there is a background of sadness omnipresent within me. A constant low-level mourning for those murdered, for the orphans, those who lost the most loved person or people in their lives – what a euphemism “lost” is for what happened to them – for those whose memories and dreams are forever tainted by horror.

I don’t forgive the world for its insensitivity to what happened to us on October 7th; for the minuscule attention span, the insistence on proclaiming moral equivalency, the legitimization of the rape, torture, dismemberment, and murder of Jews in any way, and for any reason, the silence of women’s organizations all over the world – they are no longer my sisters!.

If before October 7th I found the whole “Woke Movement” a bit ridiculous but temporary and basically harmless, today I know better.

My entire view of the world has changed.

We recently spent several days in Rome. One of those days was spent on a tour of The Colosseum and The Forum with an excellent guide. We had a basic, sketchy knowledge of both places but our eyes were opened that day. During those three hours, we learned of the cruelty of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. Far from romantic, people were pitted against each other, exotic animals against each other, and criminals were executed during the intermissions, as 50,000-80,000 spectators watched: men women, and children – yes, families came to “enjoy” the bloody battles to the death. For four hundred years this form of entertainment went on. Citizens of Rome were gifted with free tickets twice a year.

While shocked at this knowledge of the Rome we’d thought of as bestowing great culture and development upon the world, we found ourselves thinking that not much has changed since then. Hamas and the general population of Gaza, have proven humanity is still cruel, violent, jealous, and hateful. The residents of Gaza, have shown that simple citizens still get pleasure out of watching other human beings humiliated, tortured, raped, and murdered.

Where do we go from here? You tell me.

The Insidious Stress of Evil

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Trigger Warning: War is not for the faint of heart. Atrocities even less so. There will be no photos or clips in this post of the Arab atrocities perpetrated against Israeli civilians. Yes, Arab atrocities. Thousands of regular Gaza residents rushed through the fence alongside Hamas terrorists on October 7th; not Palestinians as that’s a political statement and not based on historical reality and not only Hamas militants. Regular Arab residents of Gaza. There will be, however, heartwrenching stories. The world needs to know these stories. You need to know these stories. Please don’t turn away.

It’s been over two weeks since we all woke up to a different world than the one in which we went to sleep on October 6th.

A world where thousands of young people, whose only crimes were being Jewish and wanting to join each other in dance and music, ran for their lives, chased by gunfire, many of them falling dead or, worse, alive, to be raped and dismembered or taken captive.

A world where entire families crouched in terror in a locked room in their homes, listening to terrorists inside their homes destroying all their belongings and trying to get into the locked rooms. Some succeeded. They went on to torture, and burn alive, fathers, mothers, grandparents, and children of all ages.

A world where boyfriends threw themselves on grenades to save their girlfriends.

Where grandparents jumped into their private vehicles to drive into the line of fire to rescue their grandchildren.

Where middle-aged lawyers and other non-combatants drove back and forth through the fields where the Nova music festival took place, under fire, in order to rescue wounded young people.

A world where Arabs joked, laughed, and ate a family’s Shabbat meal in front of them as the family, including young children, sat with their hands tied behind their backs and were repeatedly beaten by other Arabs.

Where infants were beheaded in front of their mothers’ eyes.

Where a heavily pregnant woman’s belly was torn open, and the fully formed fetus stabbed to death before the woman was shot and killed.

To call the perpetrators of such atrocities animals is a grave insult to animals. The word ‘inhuman’ falls way short of this reality.

At least 1400 people were murdered on October 7th, most of them Jews, but also foreign workers from Thailand, India, and other countries. Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been mercilessly and horrifically killed in one day.

A five-year-old boy buried his parents and all his siblings. A fifteen-year-old boy, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who went out for an early morning run that day, buried his entire family. Many entire families were buried side by side with no one left alive to say Kaddish (the Jewish prayer of mourning) for them or to sit shiva for them. Parents buried two daughters, their only children, and others their two sons.

And then there are those held captive by Hamas inside Gaza – over two hundred of them; men, women, children, babies, the elderly, those with special needs. One can only imagine the conditions they are enduring. It literally keeps me up at night. It should keep us all up at night.

Shockingly we are seeing demonstrations in the United States and other places supporting Hamas. It’s unfathomable but true.

The biggest difference between the Arab atrocities carried out on October 7th and the evil carried out by the Nazis is that today Jews have a strong army and a country of our own.

Yes, our army was caught unaware.

We were fooled into complacency by our own hope for co-existence and the belief that the Arabs could abandon their age-old hatred and join us in creating a utopia in the Middle East. But the army has rallied and reorganized in dedication to put an end to Hamas once and for all.

We’re already seeing cries of sympathy for the “innocent Palestinians” and warnings to Israel not to carry out the incursion into Gaza which is necessary to uproot and destroy the Hamas. Social media has begun to tip from shock at the atrocities perpetrated on Jewish civilians to crocodile tears for the Arab residents of Gaza who have sheltered Hamas rockets in their basements and on their roofs, in their schools, hospitals, and mosques. celebrated the murder of Jews in the streets, and trained their children in summer camps and schools to kill Jews.

What other army in the world has given adequate time for civilians to evacuate the area to be decimated by bombs? Did the Allies exhibit such humanity to the citizens of Dresden? Were British civilians treated so humanly before the blitz?

What other country delivered humanitarian aid to their enemy in time of war?

As Golda Meir said, “If we have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have a bad image.”

Every person living In Israel today carries huge sadness, immense anger, deep grief, and destructive stress around every day. Every single person wants to be useful to others. Wonderful initiatives crop up daily and immediately there are more volunteers than each project can handle. We each cope with the horror and tragedy in our own ways – mostly in positive ways.

Our people are so strong. Even the evil to which we have been witness cannot defeat us.

You have an important choice. To stand on the side of Western values – human values – or to stand on the side of atrocities and terror.

It’s never been clearer.

Where will you stand?

Resilience: Rising fom the Ashes of Disillusionment

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This morning, as I prepare food for guests who will join us for a Shabbat meal, I listen to the wistful optimistic music of one of my favorite Israeli performance artists, Idan Reichel, and feel a choking sadness rise in my throat.

I’m constantly reminded these days of the deep belief of the primarily Left-wing residents of the communities near Gazan in the desire for peace shared by the Arabs living close by. In the face of years of rockets flying overhead from Gaza into Israel, voices of terrorists coming from below their floorboards, and violent demonstrations along the fence separating them from Gaza, still they remained steadfast in their conviction that ultimately, at the depths of their souls, if left alone to express their true selves, their neighbors would show their humanity and good hearts.

On Saturday, October 7, just one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas terrorists infiltrated into Southern Israel after hacking into the observation equipment in the army bases closest to the border with Gaza and slaughtering the young women soldiers in the observation room.

Thousands of Gaza residents joined Hamas forces in a concerted attack from the air with hang gliders, from the sea, and on land with jeeps, small trucks, and on foot.

They caught Israel mostly unaware and unprepared.

Inexplicably, residents of the infiltrated communities called repeatedly for help from the army and police while locked in their safe rooms, but the first troops started to arrive only six-seven hours later.

By then it was too late for many people who were literally slaughtered – men, women, and children – many as they fought with whatever they had at hand to save their children.

Homes were burned to the ground, burning those inside alive.

Over two hundred people were taken captive into Gaza, including many infants, young children, Holocaust survivors, and other elderly.

The stories of the atrocities committed continue to surface, some with photos, videos, or heartwrenching phone recordings of those begging their relatives to come save them.

Scenes of thousands of young people, whose crimes were being Jewish and wanting to dance at a music festival, running for their lives, being chased by gunfire, caught by laughing terrorists who did unspeakable things to many of them.

Scenes burned into the memories of all who saw them.

Entire families in those communities, many of whom adopted a lifestyle combining John Lennon’s Imagine philosophy with the back to the earth movement of the late 60s, were wiped out. Many were slaughtered as they hugged each other on beds, on couches, or on the floor.

I never understood how they could believe in the basic goodness of people who sheltered murderers, celebrated terror in the streets, and expressed pride and joy in the deaths of their suicide bomber family members. I never agreed with their political views, believing them to be naive and with no foundation.

And yet for the past ten days every time I think of them, when I can see past the horrific pictures in my head, I mostly feel a sadness so deep that it knows no limits. The bursting of their dream, the disillusionment of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who have spent their lives committed to building a peaceful future with their neighbors.

I so wish they had been right.

Grief for 1300 people brutally murdered in one terrifying day. Grief for a way of life. Grief for a dream destroyed. Grief for humanity that we share our world with people who revel in cruelty beyond words and those who glorify them.

There’s a story told about a small African Blackwood tree uprooted by strong winds in Senegal which, separated from its family, fell to the ground on a rocky mountainside in Eritrea.

Somehow, over time, it managed to force roots into the rocks and began to grow. A pair of birds flying by noticed the little tree struggling to survive on its own and decided to make their nest on the fragile limbs of the tree. Over several years they raised several families of birds on the growing limbs which grew progressively stronger.

One day, the Blackwood asked the birds if, in their travels, they saw others of her kind, and was told that they had, indeed, seen a small forest of Blackwoods but it was several thousands of miles away.

One day a huge storm came to the Simien Mountains and once again the tree was uprooted. She fell to the depths of the valley beneath her mountain peak.

When the birds saw what had happened, they rescued their friend the African Blackwood. But before they could return her to her spot, she asked that they take her to her family in far away Senegal. They told her how hard the trip would be and how long it would take. They told her there was little chance she would survive such an undertaking.

The trip was in fact grueling. Though the birds made every effort to accommodate their friend’s needs, her roots began to dry out, her leaves to wither, and her spirit to falter. But after many days and weeks, they saw the African Blackwood forest below.

The birds lay her down gently on the forest floor. As they flew off, they looked down to see her embraced by several of the large Blackwoods and knew she would flourish.

The Enormity of Small Acts of Kindness

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A long time ago, during our second trip to the Peruvian Amazon forest, I had one of those eye opening experiences. You know the kind when all of a sudden one conversation makes you awaken to a different reality?

A bunch of us were sitting around the breakfast table and I don’t even remember what I said but a middle aged plus guy from California, former hippie type who made a bunch of money, said to me, “Wait. So I don’t get it. Every morning you wake up with the thought that you’ll try to be a better person that day?”

He was genuinely perplexed and I had one of those ah ha moments when I realized that what I had assumed to be a given for most everybody just…wasn’t. Sort of like when I realized that not everyone takes the skin off chicken before cooking it. But a little more disconcerting.

So I don’t know how you’ll take what I’m about to write. Maybe you’ll think it’s weird. Maybe it IS weird. I’ve certainly thought, said, and done much weirder stuff, though, so here goes.

One of the places high on our list of places to go in India has always been Amritsar in the Punjab region. We almost made it last trip but Covid pushed us in a different direction – homeward. Most people go to Amritsar to see The Golden Temple, as did we. Perhaps the only difference is that we weren’t interested in going into the temple itself. Aside from the 90 minute wait in line in 40 degrees (104 degrees Fahrenheit), my partner doesn’t go into temples for religious reasons so I choose the temples I go to carefully as he waits outside.

No, we wanted to volunteer in the langar hall which serves food for free to between 50,000-100,000 people every day. Open 24/7, food is served to whoever shows up, no questions asked, no judgement. Each “sitting” lasts 15 minutes. The food is simple but healthy – lentils, rice, chapatti (Indian flatbread), and water.

People wait on the long porch outside until they’re waved inside to collect their plates and cups and continue on to the hall where food is served. Women volunteers at various wash points sit in groups of six or seven washing the metal plates and cups

We told the Sikh at the entrance that we wanted to volunteer. It took a few tries before he understood. He directed us to Langar Hall. We got there, barefoot and after two foot baths, with our heads appropriately covered with orange material. The Sikh workers there tried repeatedly to push a plate and cup into our hands so we could join the others to eat.

What to do with these foreigners??

Each one pointed us up the next couple of stairs for the next Sikh worker to deal with us. The fourth or fifth turbaned guy realized what we intended and called a younger worker over who knew a few words in English. He beckoned us to follow him, which we did, up three flights of stone stairs at a very fast pace.


On the third floor he led us on a circuitous route which ended in a large room with 2 machines churning out chapattis and a low table where about eight women and a very stern Sikh man sat on low stools.

The room was stifling hot.

I was pointed to a designated stool and joined the women.

For the next two hours I schmeered hot oil on chapattis with a piece of cloth wound around and attached to a stick. A young man dumped the chappatis out of a basket onto the table straight out of the ovens. They were burning hot. I think the FBI will have a hard time finger printing me should they need to – my finger tips were scorched.

The chappatis came relatively slowly at first and I learned the routine and got into the rhythm. Then the lunch rush hour must’ve started because they started coming fast and furious. Remember Mickey Mouse carrying buckets of water in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice or Lucille Ball working in the bakery?

At first the other women were wary of the foreigner in their midst. But, like any group of women anywhere, it wasn’t too long before they were trying to communicate with me. At first the two women in charge of quality control, making piles of good chapattis and throwing misshapen or overly burnt ones in a bin, only sent a few chapatti my way. After 15 minutes or so they were throwing big stacks my way. Yep, I was one of the gang.

A young woman from The Netherlands joined us after about an hour, and then we were two.

The second day my partner decided to join in. He’d only watched the first day, feeling odd about the whole Sikh thing. We’d talked the evening after our first visit about how the Sikhs’ generosity of heart knows no bounds and makes no differentiation between foreigners, Hindus, Christians, or anyone else. I think he came out of the conversation feeling the beauty of the universality of it all.

In any case, we were already part of the work party by the second day, directed to stools and given our sticks and bowls of hot oil.

An Ayurvedic doctor joined us that day. My partner gained insight into the sad reality of many Indian families whose children emigrate and become Westernized and upwardly mobile and basically estranged from their families.

Before we’d found Langar Hall the first day we’d gone into the Sikh museum also within the temple complex. Sikhism has only been around for about 500 years. Their history is bloody and filled with martyrs killed in cruel and blood curdling ways.

To this day they carry a sword and are actually permitted to do so in public places, like banks and airports, by law.

It’s hard to reconcile their history of brutality with their unprecedented compassion and kindness shown in the Langar Halls in Delhi and Amritsar. Another if life’s inconsistencies.

We left after redeeming our shoes, passing by hundreds of people resting or, unbelievably, sleeping on the hard granite floors. Another unique Indian experience.

As for our Californian Amazon traveling companion, “Yes, Paul, I do in fact wake up every morning with the thought of how I can be a better person.” It’s not a burden or a hardship. It brings me joy and fills me with gratitude that I’ve been blessed with a life which allows me to open my eyes and my heart to other people who share this often challenging world with me.

The heat of the chapatti room, the loud music, the scorching chapattis, the shy smiles of the other women, the knowledge that those oil schmeered chapattis would help fill the bellies of people who might otherwise go hungry…as my delightful yogi in Rishikesh would say…and that.

Traveling with Family – Part 2

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Families are complicated. Large families are largely complicated. I used to think my own dysfunctional family – bipolar mother and clergyman father – was more complicated than most. Then I grew up.

My partner and I have five adult children and sixteen grandchildren. It goes without saying that each of the twenty-eight people in our family is a multi-faceted, quirky, fascinating person in her own right (we are 17 females and 11 males but I’ll be using all sorts of pronouns).

Just the fact that, to my mother-in-law’s great anger, we “turned our backs on the great country which gave us so much” and moved to Israel already sets us apart from mainstream USA. Add to that oh so many others of our personal traits and decisions and it becomes easy to see why I add the word ‘quirky’ to a list that otherwise applies to one and all.

But this isn’t about our family in entirety, just Tsippy’s family of 4 (not counting her soon-to-be ex-husband), and us.

As you read in Part 1, Tsippy is a successful career woman who has been raising her three children virtually on her own for the past two years. Her kids are 14, almost-12, and almost-8. Not particularly easy ages, but are there really easy ages? I think that might be a myth.

One of the things you didn’t read in Part 1 is that her oldest is a trans boy. There’s so much that entails. Heartache and joy, difficult challenges, serious crises and decisions, celebrated achievements, lots of introspection, acceptance, juggling, tears, eye-rolling, embarrassment, laughter, and, finally, and most importantly, love.

He and I are very close.

He doesn’t like a lot of people. He has no patience for bullsxxt.

He can take social situations like school (because he has to) and family gatherings (because he’s learned they’re theoretically healthy and relatives’ intentions toward him are good) but only in limited doses. After 3-4 hours he’s emotionally exhausted and needs alone time,

For whatever reason, he’s chosen me as “his person”. If his Mom is his coping strategy, as he’s told me, I’m his #2 (At least most days).

He agreed to come to India because I’d be there. I was flattered.

His almost-12 year old sister is the exact opposite socially. She has a gajillion friends, is a talented dancer, and a good student. She’s cheerful, physically affectionate (a great hugger), and has a killer smile. She drives her brother crazy and, at the same time, idolizes him. She’s ridiculously understanding of how hard his life is and the attention he requires from their Mom. She reminds her Mom that she requires attention, too…a lot.

The youngest is the kind of boy who wakes his Mom up every morning with “I love you, Mommy.” An amazing soccer player. Give him a soccer ball, pizza with lots of tomato sauce, and his Mom, and he’s good to go.

Add doughnuts to the list of things he loves

Tsippy herself is an inspiration. Many single Moms are. She’s learned the importance of balance the hard way – each of her kids’ needs, her own needs, work, home, friends, extended family, keeping up appearances and also not giving a crap, asking for help from the right people, accepting that she’s not in control of how a lot of stuff turns out – even the stuff she cares about the most.

So that’s the constellation, other than me and my partner. You’ve met us and gotten to know us here over the past umpteen posts. If you haven’t, you can go back and do your homework.

We met up with them after their 5 hour cab ride from the Delhi airport to Rishikesh. They’d slept in the car and were on a high. Excited about the cows wandering the streets, the kiosks with colorful clothes, jewelry, and bags of all sizes, and the diversity of dress and skin color of the people passing by.

They wanted to taste all the street food we saw and tell us all about their flights. Preferably at the same time. They tried on scarves and checked out the saris and salwar kameez. They only very reluctantly agreed to go to their hotel.

Food became an issue. We’d discussed it before the trip and prepared for it as well as we could. We chose restaurants with varied menus; Indian food but also pizza, chips (French fries), and cornflakes. The pizza and chips were a bit different than what they were used to so we often left 3/4 of every dish behind. They ate pringles, chocolates, rice, cornflakes, and doughnuts. Not a great way to sustain human life but it was only for two weeks.

They didn’t complain.

Not about the food, or the endless shopping, or the loud craziness on the streets, horns blaring, or the cow sxxt which required diligent attention, or the limitations we set on how much money they could each give to the ubiquitous (and deserving) kids and adults with their hands out and a sad look in their eyes.

There was very little bickering – much less than at home – and not many flare ups.

When the henna drawing on the oldest’s leg didn’t come out like he hoped, he took it out on his sister. Big time. Why? (what silly person asks a 14 year old why?)

So far so good…until it wasn’t

We all saw how much of an effort the oldest made to participate in all our activities. He really wanted to be a part of it all. Even the activities that strained his coping skills to the max. When his perfectionism ruined his pleasure in his miniature painting of a peacock during our 3-hour workshop, he barely mentioned it. He just set it down, wandered off, and found a place to sit with his phone.

When he chose to remain in the hotel in Agra, Tsippy and the others went to the Taj Mahal on their own and had a great time taking goofy photos. No guilt tripping. Everybody was happy.

The youngest was patient (long suffering) as we shopped. He had his grandfather to hang out with. He got compensation with a long dip in the (very cold) Ganges. The oldest was happy to hand out candies to all the village children in compensation for what he defined as the day from hell (4 hours of extreme heat). The sandwich kid who has a VERY hard time making decisions was allowed all the time she needed, even when (inevitably) she decided not to decide.

There was a lot of give and take. A lot of mutually respecting personal boundaries and foibles. A lot of appreciation for our time together; even if it required taking a few deep breaths from time to time. Even when the oldest said at one point, admirably, “You know, I’m totally restraining myself from yelling at you for that very annoying comment.”

Another shop???

And it wasn’t only an amazing bonding experience for the grandkids.

My partner is quite religious. He observes all the rituals; keeps all the restrictions. Our kids aren’t religious and have always had a strained relationship with their father around these issues. They see him as inflexible and putting religion before his relationship with them.

He feels that because he’s “the religious one” and none of the kids observe the rituals and restrictions, if he doesn’t make a point of observing them when he’s with our kids and grandkids there won’t be any room for those observances there. No one will make sure there’s a space for him to do what he needs to do.

I see both sides and understand the behaviors but it’s mostly not my story to rewrite. I know that he puts his family above and before everything else in his life.

Of course if no one felt threatened the kids would make a respectful place for my partner’s religious observances in their homes, and he would be more flexible and make space for them not to observe while he does.

Easier said than done.

Our time in India with Tsippy and her family coincided with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Lots of restrictions and observances.

Tsippy and the grandkids were positive and respectful at the Seder and my partner was understanding and encouraging when they’d had enough and asked to be excused.

We found out which of the many Indian bread options are not made with wheat, and made the decision to eat kitniyot (legumes and rice) which are not considered “not kosher for Passover” but are, for the most part, not eaten by Ashkenazi Jews (which we are). That made it possible for us to eat with our family, and for Tsippy to say towards the end of the trip that his flexibility made her very happy and feel very embraced by him.

No words were ever more welcome.

It was two weeks of grace; of kindness, love, acceptance, and gratitude. It wasn’t without its sad moments; realizing (not for the first time) that we can’t create a bubble of perfection and ease for the people we love. But it was two weeks we’ll all remember for the bonds we made.

There’s talk of a trip together to the Serengeti.

Thoughts from Corona India

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Disclaimer: My thoughts are just that…MY thoughts. Based on my limited experience in India over the past week. India is a huge country and things may be very different in places other than those we’ve been. I’ve heard lots of stories from others, especially in two of my FaceBook groups specifically for people traveling in India, and they’re included in this post. Still – these thoughts only reflect my reality.

There are many wonderful things about India. That’s why so many people get bitten by the India bug and keep coming back.

Before the first trip there’s a feeling of trepidation. More so than a trip to South America or Canada. The names – of people and places – are ridiculously long and unpronounceable. They fly out of your head immediately, making it hard to figure out where to go and who to speak with. The food is spicy, fragrant (smelly), and unrecognizable, with names that don’t tell you anything. Driving is beyond conceivable. Rumored (and real) poverty and garbage everywhere doesn’t entice.

But a week into your first trip, you either want to beg to go home or you know you’ve found a place which will always occupy a part of your heart.

The country is full of color. The houses and the people’s clothing. It’s filled with people who radiate kindness in their smiles and in their eyes. They’re curious about you, open up their homes, their lives and their hearts to you. The natural wonders show the hand of God in a way that never ceases to be awe-inspiring. People are helpful beyond words. They love to help you navigate their food, their customs, and their railway system.

About a week ago, the background of positive curiosity and kindness began to change.

We were in a lovely hill station called Darjeeling. Neither of us knew why we wanted so much to go there – it’s way off the beaten track – but we felt a magnet drawing us there. The people there look very different from Indians in any of the other places we visited. Sort of Mongolian mixed with Chinese. The shops sell the types of mountain village items we’d seen in Mussoorie – another town in the foothills of the Himalayas but much, much further west.

The staff at the hotel were as kind and welcoming as every other place we stayed – which is to say super kind and welcoming. We wandered up and down the steep streets daily, drank tea (Darjeeling, as its name suggests, is a center for excellent tea), took the World Heritage Toy Train, ate wonderful food, and took in the awesome mountain views daily.

And then things began to change.

We’d been following the Corona situation along with the rest of the world. Things didn’t look good but they didn’t look frightening…until they did.

One afternoon our very attentive guesthouse manager showed us something he posted in his group of hoteliers which mentioned the increasing incidence of guest houses refusing to accept foreigners and cabs refusing to allow foreigners into their cars and his own comment that this was not good behavior and he, for one, planned to welcome foreigners as Indians have always opened their hearts to them before.

Wait. What?!

Very quickly we began to see online discussions about whether or not to grab the first plane home. Some people were panicky; while others were still posting lovely photos of where they were and recommending guides in various towns. The pressure mounted until we spent at least a couple of hours every day deliberating our plans.

We were reluctant to cancel our time in Shimla, a place we both really wanted to go, and our return to Rishikesh, a place we spent three weeks and loved it so much we were planning another ten days there.

Finally, the morning we were to fly to Shimla we decided we were in denial.

We were spending so much time worrying about our decision, and asking each other if we were fiddling while Rome burned, that what were the chances we’d enjoy Shimla?

With a flurry of activity, we canceled two flights (and were refunded 1/3 of each), canceled our Airbnb in Shimla (Airbnb, btw, was wonderful and refunded the entire amount of our stay), and reserved a hotel in Delhi near the airport to be ready to hop on any plane we could find.

We had already shortened our trip to the end of March (originally we were due to fly home at the end of April), optimistically thinking it would be okay to still go to Shimla, but decided that we could smell the fires of Rome creeping closer.

Decided to stay in a super pampering hotel (Radisson Blu Plaza) as compensation for our sadness in leaving India. Forget the fact that we’d already learned that the price of the food in these hotels is more than a 3-night stay in the level of places we mostly stayed.

The posts in my FaceBook group started changing dramatically. The panic was far more widespread. Entire regions of India closed off to foreigners. People being asked to leave their lodgings. More and more flights canceled. More and more countries closing their borders.

We’d reserved a flight on Ukraine Air only to hear the very next day that they closed their borders…and subsequently canceled our flight with no refund.

With the help of others in our FB group we found other options and eventually reserved tickets on Aeroflot (who closed their borders the next day) and Ethiopian Air (with a 17 hour layover in Addis Ababa – yikes!).

There’s no end to the getting home story yet, but we have boarding passes for Ethiopian Air for 02:40 which is 10 hours from now, so it’s looking hopeful. Aeroflot hasn’t canceled the connecting flight (Moscow to Tel Aviv), but we’ve heard rumors that some agents have said it won’t be happening. We’re not taking that chance. They’d advertised that because of Corona they’d give full refunds but now say that they won’t give any refund at all…and aren’t answering their telephones in India or Israel.

I don’t even want to start calculating the cost of all this. Money comes and money goes (as they say); and mostly goes. We want to get home, even though it means 2 weeks in quarantine in our home. Maybe that’ll be a good de-pressurizing time to gradually get back into our lives…in their new shape with this ongoing crisis.

One of the major points here, though, is the change in the social climate in India. There seems to be a natural desire to circle the wagons in face of fearful times, as can surely be seen in our crazed attempts to get home to a country which is in almost total lockdown. Many Indians have begun to fear foreigners as the source of Corona, in spite of the statistics which show that there are about 7 foreigners in India with Corona; all the others are Indians who came in contact with Indians returning from abroad. They want to distance themselves from the “other” and surround themselves with the familiar.

In our hotel there are mostly foreigners who are waiting to get a flight home. I keep imagining that this is how it must feel to be a foreign national fortressed in luxurious surroundings after a revolution, waiting to be evacuated home. The feeling is one of unpleasant desperation. The lower members of the staff are still helpful and kind; the upper levels not so much.

It’s impossible not to think of families in lockdown in small apartments, or people who are on forced leave from work (or fired) and have no income, or the elderly who are now isolated from everyone because of the danger to their health.

It’s important to keep our own experience in perspective. We’ve learned an important lesson about community, but we’re healthy and safe…and together.

When we all leave our bunkers once the danger passes, the world we find will be changed one. Entire sectors of the economy will have disappeared or altered drastically (air travel, hotels, tourism in general); debts will have incurred which may take years to tackle; styles of personal interaction will have to be rebuilt.

But as my oldest daughter said – maybe the changed world we find will be a better world.

From her mouth to God’s ear.