We returned to Israel as the first hostages released from Gaza were safe in Israeli hands. It was like becoming a part of one beating heart, a nation that pulsated with the emotions of the families receiving their loved ones and grief over those who will never come home. Just recently, Eli Sharabi, after 491 days, was released looking like the gaunt pictures of concentration camp survivors. Thin and downcast, he thought he was returning to his wife and children, only to learn that they were murdered on October 7th.
People were wearing orange shirts, flying orange balloons as a hope and a prayer that Yarden Bibas, released last week, will once again see his wife and two adorable, red haired children taken as hostages. Today, the nation was in mourning as they received their bodies. President Herzog shared our common grief. Their loss was all of our loss.
Such are the emotions in a country traumatized by the war, the deaths, the brutality, the rape of our young women and the barbarity of the Hamas attack.
The devastation in human terms with more than 1,600 killed and more than 8,000 wounded in such a small country means that everyone knows someone. The grief and tragedy are endemic. Beyond the rivers of tears is the ever-present tension over the remaining hostages. Only an hour and a half from a majority of the population (Tel Aviv/Jerusalem corridor), yet so far away, the frustration, anguish and anger pull at the country.
The ceasefires in the North and South are at best fragile, and there’s no hope for rebuilding until some major change happens, but don’t put it past the Master of the Universe to say enough is enough. We can almost feel it coming. With President Trump as Disrupter in Chief, shaker up of the world order, who knows. I went to my little Sefardi Shul today and one of my Israeli friends was sporting a red MAGA hat. Gotta love it!
At the same time, Israel’s military recovered swiftly and, as Trump is wont to say, “All Hell will break loose” on their enemies. Hamas has been systematically uprooted, decimated, demoralized and rendered ineffective as a fighting unit. Unfortunately, they’re using this ceasefire to re-establish their control of the streets. Hopefully it is short lived (hope, hope, hope!). In Lebanon, Israel so destroyed and demoralized Hezbollah that the Maronite Christians moved quickly to establish control in the government without Hezbollah running the show. When Israel pulled off their stunning show of force with the exploding pagers/cell phones, they seemed to have pulled the plug on Hezbollah as a threat.
The several failed missile attacks by Iran showed them to be if not a paper tiger, much weaker than expected. And with their air defenses open to attack, along with the change in government in Syria, they’ve lost not only prestige, but their title as the big boogeyman of the Middle East. Someone pulled back the curtain and we saw a big mouthed midget, who was embarrassed by his nakedness.
There are still plenty of problems. Not the least of them are the tensions between religious and secular, right and left, though they’re nowhere near as vitriolic as before October 7th. The army, the great melting pot, doesn’t care whether you’re religious or secular, right or left. You have allegiance to your team, your band of brothers, and it erases the differences.
There will need to be many years of rebuilding — physical property, physical lives and the trauma and grief the war has inflicted on us. Fortunately, we Jews have a habit of rising from the ashes. We did it after WWII and built the State of Israel, and with God’s help we will do it again after October 7th, and rebuild not only Israel, but the Jewish People.