October 17, 2023

Sitting at my son’s swim team practice tonight I am reminded of the feeling I had last week, in this same spot. I sat here last Thursday evening, watching my boy swimming laps along with dozens of other hard-working kids. It was the day before the Hamas-declared “Day of Rage”, when Jewish communities around the world were fearful of attacks by supporters of the murderous Hamas brand of terrorism. Israel is at war with an enemy who didn’t hesitate, in fact planned, a massacre of over 1300 Israeli civilians: men, women, children, babies… And when Israel began to defend itself with airstrikes on Gaza, Hamas declared a day of global protest and “rage” on October 13.

I sat here last week, and felt the same way I felt in the early days of the covid pandemic in 2020. Then, too, my children and I were here at the pool. In fact, my kids were the very last ones in this place one evening, and just a few hours later the city closed the entire complex due to the pandemic. I remember sitting by this pool in March of 2020, knowing what was to come because, as an Emergency Physician, I knew. Sitting here last week, I felt a similar feeling of foreboding. I felt like things were shifting, changing, in a way that would impact us all for years to come.

Thankfully, the “day of rage” did not materialize into any significant actions. Our community here was calm, with protests downtown but no attacks. I went to work in the Emergency Department at the hospital which bears the word “Jewish” in its name, wearing my Star of David necklace proudly. We were all on edge, as security had been heightened, parking was closed to anyone but staff, and clinics were shuttered. The ED was eerily quiet, reminiscent again of the first year or two of the covid pandemic. Life felt scary. It still does.

These days all Jews around the world are unsettled. Our homeland is at war for it’s very survival, or so it seems. Families have been slaughtered or torn apart, rockets are landing all over the small land mass of our nation, and fronts are open in the north and south.

Today, I am in a very different stage of life than I was, when I lived in Israel and volunteered for Magen David Adom as an ambulance medic. Back then I was in my 20s, young, unafraid. I did not leave Israel when Saddam Hussein threatened to launch chemical and biological weapons at our cities. I did not leave even after working at the suicide bombing of the bus I was supposed to have been on. Leaving felt like abandoning my country, my people, my heart. My friends were on the front lines of ambulance work, but also in places such as Gaza and the West Bank.

Today, I am in my 40s, and my friends’ children are on the front lines. My friends’ adult children, are being killed. My friends are attending funerals for their children. When I call or text my friends, I ask about their children’s safety first. Yes, some have husbands on the front lines, who were called up from the reserves. But mostly, it is the next generation that are defending our land now.

Last week, Magen David Adom called me and asked if I could deploy this week as an Emergency Physician, to work in the ambulances in Israel. My heart wanted to say, “Yes! Yes! Put me on the next flight.” However, my soul knew I could not leave my children, my sweet, innocent, incredible children. Israel needs me, and the skills I have could be incredibly useful. I promised, when I left Israel for medical school in the summer of 2003, that if they called, I would rush to Israel’s aid as a physician. Last week, I had to break that promise to MDA, to Israel, and to myself. I hurt inside for having done that. I am in pain for having said no to Israel. But I don’t feel I had any real choice. My heart is in Israel, but my soul is in the arms of my children. In a time when so many are losing their children, and when children were murdered in horrible ways on October 7, I cannot leave mine.

Israel, I wish peace would come. I wish this would end. I wish I could guarantee the safety of my sister, her husband, her son. I wish I could throw a cloak of protection over the people of Israel, and defend them from all the evil in this world. But I can’t. All I can do is send love and support, and write these words on the sidelines of a swim team practice, on the other side of the world.