Israelis have cleaned up their bomb shelters; the streets have piles of junk

ANAT HOFFMAN shares a random collection of thoughts and actions which are a sign of the challenging times.

I visited a natural history museum that had an enormous sea lion on display. Next to the sea lion was a list of items found in its belly.  There was a bottle, a toy airplane, broken plyers and other bits and pieces. The items had nothing in common other than that the sea lion had swallowed them.  My thoughts today are a bit like that list.

“Dod Moshe” (Uncle Moshe) is a brand of gourmet potatoes sold in specialty stores in Israel.  They are better quality and more expensive than other potatoes. My Arab greengrocer Abu Yusef stocked these potatoes.  He told me there would be no more gourmet potatoes because Dod Moshe was killed and his wife kidnapped when Kibbutz Nir Oz was attacked on October 7. “We have to help each other, it's the only way,” Abu Yusef said. “You can do wonders with the regular potatoes. You’ll see”.

My friend Maurice was saved from starvation as a child in Poland by a stranger who left a small pot of soup for him every day. Now in his 90s, Maurice still begins every meal with a bowl of soup A bowl of soup is a symbol of normalcy. I have started making soup. It relaxes me. Pouring soup into bowls is helping me recover. The fragrance of soup in the house smells like home. My cooking has improved and tomorrow the soup will be even more delicious. It is giving me hope.

My sister has four sons, all of whom are serving in the Israeli military and are on active duty.  My youngest nephew is a sharpshooter on the northern border. She's extremely worried about him and has created a WhatsApp group to provide daily reports of his welfare. Today, he is OK.  To keep her mind off her worries, she volunteers every day – babysitting for young families whose fathers are now in the reserves. Yesterday, she spent nine hours caring for a two-year-old.  Worrying the toddler would fall and hurt herself kept her mind off her own child on the border. 

Israelis all over the country have been forced to clean up bomb shelters and safe rooms. As a result, every street corner has piles of discarded furniture and kitchenware. We had to get rid of the junk in our lives.  Everything is brought into question: does it have value? One should be very careful in choosing what still has value.

Fighting for social justice is the most valuable thing to do. 

Most of the trouble in the world can be traced to religious fanaticism. Women of The Wall (WOW) has struggled for equality, with enormous implications for Jewish people in general and Israelis in particular. This struggle gives value and purpose to our lives because we are not (just) liberating the wall, we are liberating Judaism. WOW is a strong antidote to fanaticism.

On October 8, I experienced “sudden hearing loss” which has baffled doctors. My ENT specialist suspects it may have been caused by Covid, which I had two months ago. But I am convinced it happened because I was unable to hear the news on Kol Yisrael radio. I am unwilling to hear the number 1300.I'm undergoing treatment but right now I am deaf in my left ear.

Photo: An Israeli man locks the door inside a public bomb shelter, where he and his family have lived since October 7. (October 23/EPA/Abir Sultan)