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It's late-afternoon, almost 17:00. Tzippi is in Gan Yavne teaching. I spent the morning in the archives preparing a video collection of videos from last year's seder Pesach. Similar to the two years of Covid when there wasn't a kibbutz seder, this year there won't be as well, and we're trying to organize some materials that can at least create a holiday feeling. Since the early afternoon I've received four requests for help from lecturers (and students) from the college. These were easily dealt with, though they came in when I was semi-napping. While writing this I'm also digitizing a few more cassettes from the archives. We have about 140 tapes saved and I've slowly been plowing through them - until this war when it made sense to bring a batch home a couple of times a week and do this from home (rather than only when I'm in the archives). I now have only about thirty to go. If the war continues I should finish this entire task even before Pesach is over, but clearly that's not a good enough reason to continue this senseless war.
A report like the above suggests that things are quiet. They're not. I'm continuing this around 19:30. I've worked (if that's the right word) through until now. Tzippi came home around an hour and a half ago. We only had one alert by us, at around 13:00, and though we heard sirens and booms, they weren't for us. But in the north the missiles kept falling throughout the day, reaching a depressing peak about half an hour ago when a woman was killed by a missile there. We still haven't received a more extensive report. This morning a missile landed in central Tel Aviv, luckily in the street rather than a direct hit to a building. Though it caused extensive damage it could have been much worse. So the fact that things have been quiet by us doesn't give an accurate picture of what's happening in general.
How does Israel adapt to the reality of an ongoing war? Last week I sent Ofer Ilani's (translated) column from the HaAretz weekend magazine. His column of this week specifically deals with adapting: In Israel, Life Happens in the Brief Intervals Between Missile Sirens and Wars (https://archive.li/ogCrj). On a slightly different approach to adjusting, this Instagram report notes a number of apps that have been developed to answer various wartime needs.
I'm behind on my newspaper reading. I'm sure there's lots that's worth reading and sending, but I'm not keeping up. This is partially because of the vast amount of information being passed around in our WhatsApp groups. Often these have good materials that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten to. Rina Anati is a somewhat known columnist (I think by profession she's a biochemist). The attached (translated), from today, is from her Facebook account. She writes with even more run-on sentences than I do, but she makes very good points.
Not everything is bleak. The attached article from today's Walla website is about a petition from the "arts" community concerning the situation in the territories. Hopefully more unconvinced people will read it there than were it to be posted in HaAretz. A couple of days ago our WhatsApp groups carried a message put out by a respected rabbi from the territories. If the petition signers are almost all identifiable as leftists, this rabbi is pretty definitely right-wing, but he expressed his disgust and embarrassment with the pogroms being carried out in his name. That's at least a bit encouraging.
The day is winding down, so ... 23:45 ... a preliminary alert. The runner on the television says it's missiles from Iran to the middle of the country. But after about five minutes (yes, when we expect that it's definitely not for us) we get the get-to-your-safe-rooms siren and that's where we are now, with the television reporting to us from Tzippi's laptop. The map on the screen definitely shows that we're in the danger zone. We've now been told that at least one missile was intercepted, though immediately we're reminded that heavy shrapnel is still making its way down to earth, and often it can be as destructive as the original missile.
We got the all clear from the television at 00:05, and Tzippi suggested that since I'm getting up early to go to the college I could take the first shower, which I'm now out of and drying off. I want to do a bit of reading before signing off and going to sleep (for me 00:30 is early).
In a somewhat complementary fashion to Ofer Ilani's piece I linked to above, Dahlia Scheindlin's latest - What Are We Waiting For? (https://archive.li/IDIOY) -, from this morning, captures the ongoing limbo we find ourselves in. A large majority of Israelis seem to accept this as the way things are supposed to be (until, of course, we finally vanquish our existential enemy) but even those of us who don't accept it have learned to adjust to it.
And I guess that's enough for this report.
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