My husband woke me up with urgency in his voice early Saturday morning, grasping his phone in his hand.
“They’re starting again” he whispered to me, our 8-year-old curled up in our bed beside us, “There are red alerts all over Israel. Get dressed, it’s only a matter of time till…” he didn’t get to finish his sentence. The alarms started blaring and within seconds we were all rushing to our bomb shelter, which we use as a collective one for all the neighbors in our building (6 families altogether).
By now all the neighbors are used to these spontaneous meetings in the shelter that occur about once a year at all hours of the day when rockets are launched at us. You’ve got the neighbor who likes to lighten the mood with wit and humor, and we’re all grateful for him because he manages to calm the kids down. You have the reporter-type neighbor who reads the news aloud from his phone and lets everyone know where the rockets are aimed at and we’re all happy to get the basic info. You have the neighbor who has already formed an opinion about what’s going down, it usually involves worst-case scenarios, and his words are usually met with disapproving glances and shushing from the mothers beside him, who are afraid his pessimistic commentary will scare the children.

Some of the smaller kids cry while the older ones try to act like nothing is bothering them, but the worry in their eyes and their fidgeting hands say otherwise. Older siblings comfort their younger brothers and sisters.  After all, they’ve been through this, countless times, some as young as 7, and they comfort their younger siblings with all the wisdom and experience they’ve accumulated during their short years living in Israel. Moms hug their babies; dads are in pajamas with messy hair.  Almost everyone is barefoot or in socks.

For Holon residents, who are targeted at times by missiles but not on a day-to-day basis like in the south, these images are familiar and reoccurring. You never get used to being scared but you do get accustomed to this routine. If a conflict breaks out at Al Aqsa or if the IDF issues arrests, we anticipate and prepare for missile launches to come in the following days. We usually stay in the shelter for a few short minutes and go back to our lives till the next alarm occurs.
This time, it wasn’t the same. This time we stayed in that bomb shelter for a long time while hundreds of missiles flew above us. As we heard dozens of explosions and felt the whole building above us shudder, even the neighbor who makes us all laugh and the one who likes to talk grew more and more quiet. Anxious and panicked faces replaced the once confident and brave expressions the adults wore just a minute ago. The energy in the shelter changed instantly. Nobody understood why this was happening NOW, and why so many missiles were simultaneously being launched at us. Nothing had happened the days before, everything was, so-called, “fine”.  Siren after siren, explosion after explosion, for ten minutes straight, is unprecedented in Holon, a city in the center of Israel located a good many miles away from the border.

We left the shelter, still tired and confused. Those of us with kids couldn’t turn the TV on to catch up on the news so we turned on our devices as discreetly as possible. The atrocities began to unfold before our eyes, little by little, more and more.
That Saturday morning as we were rushing to the shelter was, ironically, the last time I felt safe and certain about things. Looking back, we didn’t know then the things that we know now. And even though I still have my house and my family, Thank God, and I am grateful for that, I am left with dozens of incidents, concepts, and beliefs that I no longer know where to place in my mind. My brain cannot compartmentalize all the images and things I heard the last few days from friends, family and community members.

The people around me split into two main groups. Those who are frozen with grief and shock are glued to the news and, like me, still can’t comprehend what’s going on. How can they?

There are those who fled what was left of their homes to be safe and those who joined the fight (flights to Israel are packed with Israelis leaving their homes in the diaspora and coming to join the Reserve Corps voluntarily). Basic freeze, flight or fight syndrome, as to be expected.

In Kodesh VeChol, we are fighting the best way we know how. By being active. By volunteering, by helping others. The following is a list of the different ways we are doing this:

1. Community Relations – a dedicated task force of volunteers was immediately set up to call each and every community member to inquire how they are doing at this time; Do they have quick access to a bomb shelter? Do they have family and friends in the south affected directly by the Hamas attacks? Were they or any family members drafted? Do they want to join the task force to call other congregation members? All communication was then followed up by a head volunteer.
2. Boutique Gurion, the congregation’s thrift shop, continues to cater to customers in need of clothes and is run solely by volunteers. All clothing items are organized and given away for free to our customers at no charge. Packages of essential items and clothes are donated to soldiers and families in the South who fled their homes.
3. Community Zoom Channel – Schools, stores, and places of business are mostly closed. We created a Zoom activity schedule for every day of the week to entertain adults, teens, and children in our community who are. Congregation members of all ages choose activities they would like to teach others in the community such as baking, origami, travel, books and more. Their activities, via zoom, have an entertainment value much needed at times like this and also help us all stay connected.
4. Crochet Club – Our congregation’s crochet club crochets kippahs for soldiers and send them to the front line, as well as little dolls and handmade items to children from the south of Israel whose houses were ruined.
5. Support for women whose partners have been drafted – this is a grassroots project that was started in Jerusalem in the aftermath of the attacks and has since widely spread in other cities. Our congregation organizes it in Holon. Women whose partners have been drafted and are in need of homecooked food, a handyman to fix something in their house, or help in babysitting their kids are connected to community members who want to help them.
6. Documentation and Creative Writing – we are gathering essays and content written by community members on how the war has affected them personally. This offers them a way to gather their thoughts and put the words down on paper. It also helps us connect with our friends overseas by bringing you the news on our congregation members directly and firsthand.
7. Organizing and sorting through incoming requests – in the aftermath of the attacks there was an influx of incoming requests by grassroot organizations and volunteers seeking help and assistance in their emergency support efforts. This created a situation where messages were being forward from one group to another without checking credibility and also, by the time the request was forwarded to us, some of them turned out to be irrelevant. Yafit, a congregant member, volunteered to manage all incoming requests for assistance as they come in, check their credibility and follow through to make sure that our assistance is still needed at the time of receiving the request. She then connects those seeking assistance with key congregant members who are capable in helping as needed.

As I was writing all this down, another alarm siren sounded, and I rushed to the shelter again. Pray for peace in Israel, for all the families and loved ones.