Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of pain around a similar theme.

People here in Israel feel like others don’t really understand what life looks like right now. And that lack of understanding can feel isolating.

I’ve also heard the frustration that can come with that, especially toward those outside of Israel who seem distant from it all.

At the same time, I don’t think distance always means indifference. And I don’t think understanding is something that can be expected without being shown.

So instead of trying to explain why others should understand, I’ve been wondering if there’s a quieter way to bridge that gap: Just telling our stories.

Not to convince. Not to make anyone feel bad. Just to let people see.

We have a newborn at home.

Over the last three weeks, we’ve gone into our mamad over 50 times. When you do the math, that’s about two or three times a day. These sirens can happen during the day and often during the night. 

There’s a particular kind of disorientation that comes with being woken up at 2 a.m. by an alert sound that your body now recognizes before your mind does. You’re moving before you’re thinking.

We live in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Recently, eight people were tragically killed in Beit Shemesh. We’ve also had two direct hits within 5 kilometers of our community that shook our entire apartment upon impact. 

When we made aliyah, people used to joke that Beit Shemesh was basically America, putting down the holiness and specialness of the land. These days, it feels like most of the world, and the Iranians, would disagree.

Even when there isn’t a siren, there are still booms. Sometimes they are distant, sometimes close, and sometimes louder than others.

There was a thunderstorm recently, and people were texting each other trying to figure out what they were hearing. It’s a strange way to live, when every noise feels like it needs to be interpreted.

There’s also the phone.

Not just the sirens, but the phone.

That alert sound cuts through everything. If you have ever received a flash flood warning or AMBER Alert on your phone, it’s that noise. It’s jarring. It wakes you up. It interrupts conversations. It pulls your attention instantly. It runs your life. 

My daughter hears any phone buzz now and asks, “Is that an alert? Do we need to go to the mamad?”

She used to shake when we went in. Now she doesn’t.

In some ways, that’s a relief. In other ways, I’m not sure what it means that she’s gotten used to it.

Tonight, she cried before going to bed. Not because of a siren and not because of a boom.

Because she misses school. She misses her friends.

And she knows she can’t go right now because of the azakot (sirens). She told me, simply, that she doesn’t like azakot and that “azakot are so stinky”.

There isn’t really a way to answer that.

Our world has shrunk. We don’t really go places more than ten minutes away.

Because if we’re within the first five minutes of a drive, we can turn around and get back home if there’s an alert. And if we’re within the last five minutes, we can get to where we’re going, assuming there’s a mamad there. 

So we live in this quiet geometry of distance and time, always calculating where we are in relation to safety.

Our kids are home all day with no school, no real structure, and they’re too young for Zoom to mean anything.

So we are constantly trying to keep them occupied, regulated, and distracted, all while also trying to work, to function, and to live.

There’s no clean separation anymore. It all blends together.

I know this isn’t everyone’s experience.

Some families have children in miluim. Some are dealing with things far more difficult than what I’m describing here. Some children are older, or younger, or reacting differently. Some are in parts of the country where life looks completely different right now.

I’ve heard people say that those outside of Israel don’t understand what this is like.

But I don’t think not understanding is the same as not caring.

And I don’t think caring always looks the way we expect it to.

So I’m not writing this to ask anyone to feel bad for us. And I’m not writing this to suggest that anyone is doing something wrong.

Sometimes the gap between people isn’t about disagreement, it’s just about not seeing.

This is what it looks like, at least for us.

A newborn. Fifty trips to the mamad. A child who listens for alerts in every sound. A life measured in five-minute increments. Booms of varying intensity throughout the day. Days without school. A child crying at night because she misses her friends.

And in between all of that, life is still happening.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)