So Far and Yet so Near

Appeared in NY Jewish Press, Delaware Jewish Voice

At midday, my daughter called, telling me to turn on TV-- always a bad sign here in Israel. Two suicide bombers had just detonated themselves in the sleepy desert town of Beersheva, our hometown.

I was stunned. Normally I scan The Jerusalem Post and HaAretz every few minutes on the Internet, but, overly absorbed in a new project, time had slipped by peacefully. Sure enough, scenes of ambulances, victims, fire, blood, and death had replaced the usual midday soap operas and children’s programs. I was horrified to learn that the bombed buses are routed through our very neighborhood.

While I watched the TV images, my mind was whirling with visions of everyone I knew personally or by sight, my students and friends and neighbors being blown to bits. Then my thoughts flew to my son Etai, out of the army, out to see the world. Most of his friends, ex-soldiers too, gravitated to exotic Bolivia or Nepal or China in search of boundless freedom, but Etai had opted for something less adventuresome, living and working temporarily in New York City.

New York is seven hours behind Israel, so I did a quick-count backwards. It was still early there, so I hoped that Etai was asleep and had heard nothing yet. I wanted to postpone his suffering for a while longer. After all, what could anyone do while the bodies were still warm, while people lay bloody and nameless? Still, wouldn't it be best to hear the bad news from me, his mother? Hadn't it always been like that?

Etai’s army service was long and hard, and I know I should simply be grateful that he survived intact. Truthfully, my greatest fear was not that he would be killed or maimed, but that he would have to bury his friends. And so he did. His dearest friend, Etai Mizrachi, died in an ammunition-filled tank that exploded and burned in Gaza. In the months that followed, trying to be there for my Etai, I regularly called to check on his whereabouts. One day he reported that he was “going to Etai.” To Etai? Unspeakable thoughts swept through my mind. “To the cemetery," he explained, "to visit him."

And now, it was our turn. Our little neighborhood, a warm pocket of Iraqi, Hungarian, American, Tunisian, and Moroccan immigrants, was stricken. Etai knows every dusty corner, every kiosk, and every neighbor’s child. But he was in New York, a world away. It may seem strange, but often when disaster strikes, far-flung Israelis long to be back home. And so I knew that I really had no choice at all; I had to call Etai, both for his sake and mine. I dialed New York.

He answered immediately, surprised. And I was just as surprised to catch him at work, not asleep as I had expected. Briefly, I told him what had happened, sketching in what little detail I knew. Distraught, he begged me to keep him up to date, to relay the numbers, how many injured, how many dying, and how many dead. And, above all, he wanted to know names. With each suicide bombing we all want names, but from experience, we know that names are slow in coming. First children have to find parents and parents have to find children among the living or the dead. Then legs and arms have to be returned to their owners and an accurate body count taken. Then the dead have to be identified, either by sight, or, if that is no longer possible, by DNA testing. Then the family has to be notified, first parents and sisters and brothers and children, then aunts and cousins and grandparents. Only then are the names are announced and the victims stare out at us from our newspapers.

Because Etai was at work, he did not have access to radio, TV, or the Internet. But he did have his cell phone. An uncomfortable situation: with even the best of intentions, I simply could not call every half hour from Israel. Instead, I emailed updates to cousins in Boston and Brooklyn, and they filled him in. So as the numbers rose-- ten, twelve, fifteen, sixteen dead, he was with us all the way. And hours later, when I spoke to him myself, he assured me that he was fine, just fine, just worried sick about all his friends. And he added wistfully that he wanted to come home, to be with family. Somehow I found the right words to calm him down.

“You're in New York, but you're not alone. You are with family.” Etai guards the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan.