In plain sight: “I love you. I love you. I love you. ”

Thursday morning, January 30, on a kibbutz in the north of Israel.

There is a problem with the enormous steel door to the mamad – the protected space in the partly constructed house on the kibbutz where my friend A__ lives with his family, not far from Haifa. He is called away from his work by the builder, so we go see what’s happening.

The door to a shelter is the most critical component in the home they are building, the house his wife hopes will be ready to move into by Rosh Hashanah. The massive door must fit precisely into the concrete and iron walls to withstand blasts, and the seal must be airtight to protect against attacks with chemical agents. The shelter will double as his son’s bedroom. A problem with such a door is the last problem you want.

The builder uses his fingertips to assess why the door isn’t fitting as it must. He abrades a fraction of a centimeter from the doorframe with a die grinder and an abrasive disc with a screeching sound that hurt my ears. He repeatedly slams the door shut with a crashing jolt. This goes on for a long time. There’s nothing I can do to help them.

I walk through the concrete block walls studded with junctions where plumbing lines will connect. Electric boxes are cemented into the cold gray walls. The house is astride a furrowed field, ready for planting. Mustard greens seem haphazardly planted at the borders. Tasting one, it was bitter.

NEWS ALERT ONE

I sat down on the concrete sill of an opening that would eventually hold a window, looking out on the street. Only then, late morning, I opened the English-language Israeli news source on my phone, scrolling to “Latest Alerts.” The first alert headlined the incipient release of Agam Berger, a 19-year-old soldier, after 482 days during which she endured grim conditions in the hands of Hamas, with deficient access to food, medical care, and basic hygiene in the hands of Hamas.

Agam had been a field observer stationed on the Nahal Oz base, 800 meters from the Gaza border. On the morning of October 7, hundreds of terrorists invaded the command center and murdered 15 unarmed young women, along with about 45 armed men of the Golani brigade. Most were burned to death in the command center. Seven of the observers were kidnapped and held by Hamas. Agam Berger was the last of them to be released.

NEWS ALERT TWO

The second alert said that a catastrophic mid-air collision had occurred between a passenger jet and a US Army helicopter near the Washington DC airport. Many or all were feared dead. The headline leaped across my synapses and crystallized. I knew my son would likely be arriving on a plane to that airport on that night. Far away, in the north of Israel, it was late morning.

How does one handle news like that: a dagger encoded in a few words? I checked his WhatsApp. WhatsApp gave me his ‘last seen today’ time, which strongly suggested that he was alive and well. Then, I searched for details of the crash. Those facts also allayed my apprehension.

Three hours later my text reached my son and I received with relief, his response letting me know he was safe. His text went on to relate that his flight was with the same airline and was on the same plane model as the one that collided with the Army helicopter. The plane he had been on was 10 minutes from landing at the airport when the fatal crash occurred.

My almost a year in Israel has reinforced my ability to be calm in the face of threats. Looking back dispassionately at what I experienced that day, I remember a Zoom discussion I led as a guest speaker in a workshop for emergency medicine (EM) residents at a major New York City hospital in 2023. EM doctors and nurses work in chaotic, tenuous locations under extreme pressure. They have to utilize their medical knowledge as well as intuition that relies on real-time processing of everything in and around them – which is called deductive or logical inference. I also call it a leap of faith. That is how I avoided being unduly anxious during the three hours before hearing from my son, who had been sleeping, not to mention other times of great stress this year.

Later that day.

We had work to do at my friend’s home but were glued to the news. Understanding rapid commentary from Hebrew-speaking journalists is beyond me, but the live video stream spoke all too clearly. Gadi Moses, another of the hostages, is a tall, white-haired man of 80 years. He was being prodded, pushed, and violently manhandled by theatrically garbed terrorists as he walked through an ecstatic mob. As I watched this spectacle, another scene came to mind. It’s a scene from Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal, set in medieval Europe. In the film, monks flagellate themselves, surrounded by a mob of leering, illiterate villagers who live in a place and time in which Christians preached death. Hamas created a similar circus of death to let the world know they want Jews everywhere exterminated.

These two minutes of video were filmed from a television screen and show 80-year-old Gadi Moses heroically reaching the Red Cross vehicle as the mob celebrated. January 30, 2025

Friday, January 31, Haifa, waking from a dream

All at once, the plane hiccups. I see myself thrown outside the cabin as though tossed like a salad swept off a table by a toddler. Bewildered, I reached out with my right hand to the looming fuselage as we plummeted in tandem. The city's spires rocketed towards me, the skyscrapers that were my city. The shrieking sounds of metal on metal suddenly ceased. It was silent. I was calmed. The weightless journey I was making traced a parabola in the sky. I heard myself saying aloud over and over, “I love you.” I love you.” I love you.” I love you.”

Waking from the dream, Friday, January 31, 6:38 a.m.

Since then –

Frequently, I think about how Israelis, for the most part, are exceptionally resilient. How do they know when a moment demands action or when to breathe and have faith? During the long nights and days as a hostage, Agam Berger, a violinist, continued to be an observer while imprisoned, using deduction and logic. After she was restored to her family, Israelis learned that Agam had used her training in the army and also relied on her faith as an observant Jew. She pushed back against her captors, refusing to comply with orders they made on the Sabbaths despite threats and harsh conditions.

It has been my experience all this year that loss and trauma break your heart. I ache and pray for the safety of my cousins who have been and are still in uniform. My 27-year-old cousin, I___, a remarkable academic, was about to complete two doctoral degrees at Hebrew University in Jerusalem last year. Still, he was deployed as a reserve soldier for over 200 days in Gaza. He received his diplomas this month but was back in uniform the following day.

This past week, more hostages were on the Hamas stage. One of the skeletal hostages released was a soldier named Eli Sharabi, who survived the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre and was paraded on the stage in front of a seething crowd. He was prodded and forced to tell the crowd that he was excited to be reunited with his wife and daughter after 491 days in hell. The Hamas handlers laughed as he spoke because they knew what Eli Sharabi didn’t know – that his wife and daughters had been slaughtered at their kibbutz on the day he was captured.

Let alone the hostages, how do families, friends, and neighbors of the hostages bear the trauma of daily events that have oscillated wildly for over 17 months now? Somehow, even when everything seems lost, one witnesses hope and optimism. A surviving resident of the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre spoke with a journalist in the wake of the return of Eli Sharabi and another survivor of Kibbutz Be’eri, “We don’t know whether to celebrate or grieve.” We were evacuated to a hotel at the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, we can only rise.”

There are times I wonder about myself and the multiple occasions when I have had to find shelter in a mamad or a bomb shelter. There were instances when I felt a pang of fear in my chest, in particular when booms of the intercepted missiles were too loud and too close, and I was not yet behind the door of our mamad.

At Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, Thursday, February 13.

I biked to the sprawling hospital in the center of Tel Aviv to see my eye surgeon, Dr. Ron Ben Canaan, an extraordinarily skilled doctor. Last December, he successfully operated on my right eye. Last Thursday, as he examined my eyes and did some tests, we talked about Gadi Moses, the 80-year-old hostage who, just days before, had been flown by the army from the Gaza envelope to the roof of Ichilov Hospital for care. Like all doctors in public hospitals, he goes by his first name. If you want to hear how Ron Ben Canaan came to diagnose an uncommon problem with my eye and how he performed the surgery, ask me. I was wide awake while he narrated aloud in Hebrew and English to the nurse and me. Ron based his surgical exploration within my eyelid, relying on medical knowledge, previous experience, and intuition.

After seeing my surgeon, I waited for my coffee at the café in the hospital. A boy about seven years old, tired and fidgeting, was accompanied by a man who I am pretty sure was his grandfather. I had the feeling the morning may have been a difficult one for them. Were they visiting a close family member? I didn’t know. The man picked up a plastic coffee cup lid and playfully placed it on the boy’s head, saying (in Hebrew), ‘Now you have a kippah!’ The boy smiled, tolerating his grandfather’s joke.

Patients and families of patients at Ichilov Hospital are often elderly and speak Yiddish. Many patients and staff are olim who came from Russia. A significant percentage of the skilled, professional staff at the hospital are Arab Muslims. Hijabs are seen everywhere. One of the ophthalmologists I talked with during a past visit was an Arab Muslim.

After my coffee, I waited to purchase something at the pharmacy. People have to queue up at pharmacies based on numbers they receive from a machine. A man no more than 20 years old swooped towards the queue and balanced on two shiny prosthetic legs attached to Adidas shoes, propelling himself with trekking poles. It seemed that the other customers did not want him to have to wait but did not want to single him out because he lost his legs in the war. The queue was long, and I left.

Finally, outside in the sun again, I unlocked my bike and prepared to return home. Next to me, sitting on a concrete step, was a man about 35. Like many Israeli guys, his head was closely shaved. He rolled a skinny cigarette and inclined his head. Not for the first time this year, I saw a tell-tale circular scar where his skull had been penetrated by a shell, shrapnel, or God knows what else. His scar reminded me of the coffee cup lid placed with affection on the head of a beloved grandchild.