Thoughts

 I'm really debating whether to write this post. It's been written in my head for a few days now, and I'm still trying to quiet it down. My not-so-simple life here takes place on several levels, I could be the nice grandma who describes everyday life like anywhere else in the world, because there is life like that here too, but there's the extra spice that you know, the danger of life, the fear and the great sadness about what's happening to people like us in the world.

I also don't want to write from a victim's position, we're not like that.                                                                       We are people that the world loves to hate, for some reason, and throughout history they have tried to make us disappear, and here we are, miraculously surviving.                                                                                      But that's not what's been bothering me for a long time, and it's become much stronger in recent days when I read some comments here in Blogland about the terrible massacre that happened in Australia.            I saw it right after the October 7th, during the terrible massacre here, people can't stay for a moment with the terrible things that happened, they immediately seek balance, as if they share in the grief but immediately say "yes but", "yes but Gaza", "yes but Netanyahu", there is not a single moment of true and honest identification with the terrible thing that happened to innocent people, always part of the blame is immediately placed on the victim as well.                                                                                                              And here, in my opinion, is the root of the hypocrisy. Deep within these people sits a small anti-Semite who has not developed enough, fortunately, but that repressed inner being does not give that person the ability to truly identify with the pain of the innocent victim.                                                                                              And it doesn't matter if you had a Jewish grandfather, if you lived in a Jewish neighborhood and they were nice to you, or if you were an educator in the past, if you still can't relate to a hate crime against Jews without trying to create a seemingly balanced equation, it says something about you, and to me it says something bad.                                                  These are my thoughts. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, maybe not every inability to identify with human pain is anti-Semitism, maybe it's just some kind of mental disability, I don't know anything.                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Different types of dangers

 I discovered something strange. I'm more afraid of heavy rain and storms than rockets and missiles. Storm Byron is ending its short life here with us now. Greece, Cyprus and Israel have agreed on common names for storms. They start there and with us they are mainly public relations storms, lots of rain but not too bad, and I'm still scared.                                                                                                                                            A quick and superficial analysis of this phenomenon that I just did reveals to me that the adrenaline generated by the missile threat is the extra spice. An immediate life-threatening danger that requires immediate action doesn't allow much time for thought. Adrenaline wins.                                                   A long, heavy rain that continues for many hours and several days, raises many other thoughts and fears, but they continue for a long time, while I put another bucket over the couch to catch the drops falling from the ceiling.                                                                                                                                                 Of course the storm anxieties are a higher priority, but their duration is exhausting.

And I still sleep with my phone under my pillow and my comfortable shoes for a quick run out in the middle of the night with me every night. That's what happens when you get used to the dangers.

Guest from Singapore

 I need the wisdom of the crowd. What do you think? There is someone in Singapore who has been reading my blog for hours and hours, from the first posts and throughout the years that I have been writing my posts, which I think are mostly superficial, but improving my English has been my most important goal.                                                                                                                                                                                    This has been going on for several months, how do I know? The little flags on the right side of the blog tell me.

At first I was scared, who is so interested in me? During the war my irrational fears took over and I thought maybe the Iranians were looking for something here, it sounds stupid.

But I still wonder who this is and why he is doing this?

What do you think?

Far from here

Facebook sends me videos of people filming in Ukraine. I don't know why, but I click follow on every one of them because it interests me a lot. The videos are very up-to-date, it's happening right now.

Most of them are filmed by men who are going through villages and towns and rescuing people from their homes. Most of the people being rescued are adults and elderly, they leave the house with one or two bags, bags they packed before leaving the house that they won't be returning to. Most of them leave with one or two dogs and sometimes one or more cats, Ukrainians don't leave their animals behind, as much as they can.

Around them you see ruined houses, neighbors' houses that were burned down in shelling, and those who somehow survived are leaving now.                                                                                                                   Maybe I'm drawn to it because I know this place of fear. That feeling of having to act here and now and not having much room for other emotions besides the intense need to be focused on what's right to do here and now. I look at the faces of the old people leaving their homes with their bags and I think I recognize the same feeling.

It's quiet here now.

In the pictures you can see the beautiful and fragrant soaps that my granddaughter makes. It's not the subject of the post, but there's something wonderful about other good things we have here.

 

New Year

 In a strange twist of life, I received German citizenship this week, me and my children, who are no longer children of course, but will always be children to me.

This happened because of the previous time when everyone hated us and would have preferred to see us dead.

My mother and grandmother were born in Germany, they were never granted German citizenship, they were Jewish.

A few years ago the law in Germany changed and Jews who left Germany from 1933 or until, whatever year, due to persecution, can receive citizenship, including their descendants.

I set out on a journey that lasted three years, I collected documents, I collected materials, and this week it happened.                                                                                                                                                                       Although this is not such a good time, because we are once again hated in so many places in the world, and the thought that it is good for us to have European citizenship because we will have somewhere to run away to is no longer so encouraging.                                                                                                                   We are trapped. Captives of such a bad government that is leading us to the brink of an abyss, and accumulating so much hatred in the world.

We, the ordinary people, and we the majority, are doing everything we can to stop the government's very bad moves, but the power is not with us, and we continue to pay such heavy prices.                                                                   On a personal level, I still sleep with my iPhone under my pillow so I can hear the missile warnings at night, I still shower quickly so I don't get caught in the shower when the alarm goes off, I'm still scared on the road, and I still run to the shelter at least twice a week.                                                                   Today is a holiday for us, a new year, but there is no holiday feeling, a lot of sadness and pain in the air and a feeling that the world has turned upside down on us, and against us.

But I decided that in honor of the new year I will not be afraid anymore, I will do what I think is right to do, including writing this post.

                                                                  

Normal life

 Everything is so relative. Missiles from Yemen are already less scary, after the missiles from Iran that killed and destroyed thousands of homes just by bouncing off hundreds of meters.

On Friday evening I returned from a family dinner about an hour's drive from here, I'm always happy when there are no alarms on the way. I got home and sat down on the couch, it was ten thirty at night and then that scary sound that announces an alarm in a few minutes. Of course I ran to the shelter and there I met everyone else again, including the little children who woke up from their sleep scared and the dog Bella who is still very scared by every alarm.                                                                                                                    This morning at 6 a.m., the same sound announcing an upcoming alarm, and the neighborhood meeting at the shelter. Fewer people are coming, maybe because they've gotten used to it, maybe because these are missiles from Yemen, not missiles from Iran.                                                                                                           It's strange to me how adaptable we are. We sit in a shelter for ten minutes, with alarms and explosions above us, and ten minutes later we go out, each to our daily routine, as if this were normal life.                                   

The picture is of Edmund the cat, who is no longer with us, who also knew how to turn any crisis into a normal event.

There is still hope.

There is still hope, perhaps. I hope.