How to Survive an Apocalypse

No, I'm not going to teach you to cheat death - no one can cheat death. But it turns out that the apocalypse can be really long, like, years, and that many people will survive it and you could be one of them! So here goes: an Israeli guide to surviving the apocalypse. 

1. Drink water from a wine glass, it feels fancy.

2. Make your ice coffee in a beer stein.

3. Make plans. Doctor's appointments, birthday parties, fun outings - keep them in your calendar! You might have to cancel them but you might not so it's better to have them planned.

4. Find your style. All the clothes you don't wear because they're outside your comfort zone? Who the fuck cares?? Wear what you want. Forget all the descriptions you've given yourself over the years ("classic," "modest," "tomboy" - I'm sure you have a few you can think of), just dress however.

5. Stop buying crap. Make a shopping list and stick to it, not just for groceries! Need a new kitchen appliance? Add to your shopping list. Need a new pair of jeans? List. No impulse buying, it's truly a waste.

6. Work less. This should be the first item on the list but obviously you still need money, so figure out how to earn money while still working less. Fewer hours, fewer commutes.

7. Learn. The best way to feel good about all the horrible things in the world is to realize that it's all happened before.

8. Ask yourself: if time and money weren't an issue, what course would you want to take? What skill would you want to learn? Then find a way to do it.

9. Eat good food.

10. Plant seeds. Especially plants that give you food.

There it is, in no particular order.

Making Statements

I'm so non-confrontational it's like I can't even function. Anyway I'm trying to change that, to have stronger opinions and make them heard even if it pisses people off.

Anyway that's why I tied a rainbow ribbon to my backpack today: it's pride month, and I want to support the LGBTQ community in Israel. I feel the need to rationalize this decision so here goes:

People need to feel like they're being heard. People make judgments about the people around them. And if you're going around feeling like people around you are blind to your pain, then that's a shitty feeling. And I know that when an Israeli member of the community sees a woman with a head covering like mine, they might feel like i hate them, or just want to make their life difficult. And I don't, so I'm going to put a ribbon on my backpack so that people who see it will know that they have an ally.

And you know what? I just had that experience myself. Just now at the train station I saw a Haredi man with a little Israeli flag pinned to his lapel. He's saying "you might think I hate this country because of the way I dress, but I don't." And I appreciated that.

Crying in Public

I hardly ever cry in public. Maybe only at memorial day services. But yesterday I just broke down at rehearsal I didn't even see it coming.

It was a long night, Mom was watching the kids, I had to bring food for rehearsal so I spent quite a few hours preparing. I mean, it wasn't actually my turn to do refreshments but the person who was supposed to was looking for a replacement and I volunteered. So I had spent the whole day on my feet. Then I drove for an hour and carried heavy bags of food to the building, then rehearsal was exhausting and there was a siren in the middle which meant that Mom had to carry the kids to the mamad.

Then rehearsal ran late - they just kept going when I knew I still had over an hour drive ahead of me. And that was the last straw. I packed my things and left but not before everyone saw me ugly cry.

The conductor wrote to ask if everything was ok, which was nice, but even he didn't realize how long it would take me to get home.. He thought I was ignoring him.

Israeli Fashion

Yeah I want to focus on something entirely different today: fashion.

Israeli fashion is boring. There, I said it. Why?

Well today I was in Tel Aviv on Nahalat Binyamin street. I thought I'd be looking at what people were wearing but I didn't really end up doing that because nothing caught my eye. Most people were wearing black or white t-shirts with neutral shorts. Some people had jeans. Really nothing exciting at all.

And it's such a shame! Yesterday I saw a video by Justine Leconte (a French youtuber and fashion designer) where she listed some French fashion rules and encouraged people to write their own local rules in the comments - things like "no white after labor day," or "belt and shoes must match." So I thought, what are Israeli rules? We're such a diverse society that there are very few rules - Etheopian women wear embroidered white dresses, Moroccans amd Yemenis wear bright vibrant colors on special occasions, Haredim wear long black coats and fur hats, Druze wear those pants with a dropped crotch, religious women wear colorful headscarves... Really you can get away with anything. Except a baseball hat, those are clearly American.

But then I thought, we could use some rules, you know? Not like a fashion police, but like common sense, I guess? I'll start:

Do not wear black in the Tel Aviv summer.

Tel Aviv

I decided on a whim to go to Tel Aviv today. I parked the car at Big and took a bus. Got off a few stops before Azrieli mall and walked, then took the train home. I wanted a break but for some reason this city gets me feeling all existential.

1. The walk to the mall wasn't hot, but it was humid. This city just has sticky air. Everyone is busy and rushing somewhere. 

2. In the mall I saw more formal uniforms than I've seen in ages -- i just got used to seeing soldiers in fatigues so the formal uniform suddenly looks funny. Also lots of new soldiers with fluffy berets!

3. Walking out to the train station the air smelled like the ocean (well maybe a combination of the ocean and gas from cars on Ayalon), and I just wanted to breathe it in. I forget that this is part of my country too. Jerusalem air is special, we all know that, and so is Tel Aviv air apparently. I was feeling really relaxed and optimistic until I entered the train station... 

4. ...Then as soon as I entered the station the mood changed. The walls are covered with bumper stickers for fallen soldiers. Yellow ribbons are tied everywhere. It's a painful stabbing reminder of what we're living through.

5. These people are my people. When the train stopped at Hagana, there's Dani standing at the station! So we had a whole train ride to catch up.

למי קראת ביביסט?

 לפעמים ממש מביך אותי להיות חלק מהחברה הדתית לאומית.

עכשיו בחידון התנ"ך )שהוא בגדול אירוע של דתיים לאומיים( עלה שר החינוך יואב קיש ודיבר קצת על החשיבות של לימוד תנ"ך, ואז הוסיף איזו הערה על המלחמה ועל זה שנתניהו מנהל מלחמה בשבע חזיתות. ואנשים הריעו. כאילו ממש הריעו. הם מריעים לראש הממשלה? זה מאוד מוזר. או שהם מריעים למלחמה בשבע חזיתות? כי זה לא משהו שמח, חברים. וזה מביך אותי שאנשים מריעים במצב כזה.

יום הזכרון

מדהים, או אולי נורא, שביישוב של 150 משפחות יש לפחות 12 משפחות שאיבדו קרוב משפחה בפיגוע או בשירות בצה"ל. וכמובן עוד כמה שאיבדו חברים בשנה האחרונה, כי עם כמות המילואים שאנשים עושים פה זה בלתי נמנע.

שניים מתושב היישוב נהרגו במלחמה בעזה.

ועכשיו נודע ליוסי שמגייסים אותו לעוד סבב, הפעם צפונה, אולי לבנון או אולי סוריה, לא ברור. הסבב הבא שלו אמור היה להיות באוקטובר אבל הנה יש צו חדש לעכשיו כי מרחיבים את הפעילות בעזה. 

עדיין לא אמרנו לילדים, נגיד להם ביום שהוא יוצא. יהיה קשוח. אפשר לקלל קצת? יופי. נניח הערב בטקס יוסי ניגן בקלידים, שזה תמיד מהמם, אבל אומר שאני הייתי עם הילדים בטקס. אבא שלי הגיע אז לא הייתי  לבד שזה מעולה כי הילדים לא יודעים לשבת בשקט. הם טיפסו אחד על השני ועלי ועל סבא עד שהם התעייפו אבל רציתי שיראו את יוסי מנגן. בכל מקרה הם הגיעו לשלב ממש עייף אז לקחתי אותם הביתה ומיד לביא התחיל לבכות שהוא רוצה את אבא.

"אבא מנגן, הוא לא יכול לבוא עכשיו"

"תכף הוא מסיים ומגיע"

אומייגאד הוא בסך הכל מנגן, ילד! הוא ממש פה בחוץ, פשוט לא נמצא עכשיו בבית. אתה יודע שהוא תכף יוצא למילואים? מה תעשה אז? אתה כבר מרגיש שזה קורה? יש לך חרדת נטישה? ומה יהיה אם הוא ייהרג, אה? מה תעשה אז? תמשיך לבכות לי על אבא? ומה אני אעשה? אמשיך להרגיע אותך ולעשות כאילו הכל בסדר? כוסרבאק איתך יחד.

Memorial Day

You know you're fucking privileged when your memorial day is a day of celebration. 

Realizing your worst fear?

For the first year of the war I had terrible anxiety. I refused to hear anything about what Yossi was doing in miluim. I didn't want to know what my friends were up to, didn't want to hear about people getting killed or injured unless I knew them personally - every accidental piece of news had my heart jump to 150 and I would shut down until it calmed. Sometimes it would take hours. Once my dad said "did you hear the news?" and that was enough to send me spiraling.

Surprisingly, that's changed. Now my skin is much thicker. I can hear stories, even ask questions, and I think I understand why: I had my greatest fear realized -- Yossi went into Lebanon. (*Ok maybe not my greatest fear, because let's face it, I have lots of fears and they're all great. But,)

Since we started dating I knew that Yossi is positioned in the North. His miluim in the past was usually along the Lebanese border, and his training was all to do with combat in northern terrain. I also knew that since 2006 Israeli leadership has been warning that there will be another war with Hizballah. So I always had this fear in the back of my mind that Yossi will get sent to war in Lebanon.

When October 7th happened my biggest fear was war with Hizballah, and I felt bad because everyone was focusing on Gaza and Hamas and here I was worrying about a possible war that wasn't actually happening, but it was all I could think about. A week into the war I saw a neighbor who said his son was on the Lebanese border talking about combat, two weeks into the war my colleague's son was killed in Gaza and in his letter he mentioned the possibility of "Lebanon III," and a few weeks later Nasrallah made a big deal about giving a speech to the Israeli public. It was horrible.

Then Yossi was called up in September 2024, and Nasrallah was killed, and Yossi went into Lebanon and came home. And that's it - my fear was realized and I can function again like a normal human being.

Narrative: Stories

I've been asking my friends about their war experiences. I don't have a narrative, just a bunch of experiences I was told firsthand from soldiers. They're not even stories. Stories have a beginning and a middle and an end and some sort of plot, but when you're experiencing life things don't fit neatly into stories.

So in no particular order:

#1

When Yossi and his guys were in Gaza last summer they would carpool. One of the guys would pick up Yossi and a few others, they'd drive just over an hour to Be'eri and park in a parking lot near the kibbutz. Then the army would provide an armored vehicle to take them from there to the base in Gaza. Then after a week to ten days they'd carpool back. That's it, just a commute to the war and back.

An American relative sent me a song that was written about the war, which apparently was a hit among American Jews: "Daddy come home... fighting a war so far away." I admit that the song made me cry because it's a kid asking where his father is and that hits close to home, but guys - the war isn't far away. It's literally a fucking commute.

#2

One friend, let's call him A, is doing his reserves in an intelligence unit that's responsible for collecting information about our own hostages. This is interesting because usually intelligence is about researching the enemy, not your own people. One day he mentioned that he has hostage files on his personal computer and he should probably erase them for security reasons.

#3

Friend B's reserves are a little nightmare-inducing, not because he's in the war zone but because he deals with identifying bodies. Trigger warning: dismembered bodies. Skip ahead if this bothers you.

When the attack on Oct 7th was happening the paramedics were evauating unidentified casualties. They couldn't necessarily tell whether a body belonged to an Israeli or Palestinian, and unfortunately many bodies were in fact just body parts. Some body bags ended up with an uneven number of limbs. So B spends his time looking for DNA of Israelis among the Hamas body parts. At first it was just about understanding which missing people were kidnapped and which were actually killed, but even a year later there's still missing information and those body bags might still hold clues.

#Note

I'm removing my friends' identifying details for security reasons, so I have no proof that these experiences are real. Except that I heard them firsthand from friends. More experiences coming soon.

Narrative

I'm so fascinated by this concept of narrative. Everything is a narrative. History is a narrative. Even if everything you tell is absolutely true, you still have a storyline and you tell the stories that fit it.

For example, I was listening to an interview with a man who lives in Northern Israel and works for mainstream media (he didn't say which channel). He's displaced, as are most residents of the north, so since the war started he's been living in Tel Aviv. At one point his media outlet asked him to write an article about families (like his) who'd evacuated their homes up north. He found ten families who agreed to be interviewed, but of course each family had a different opinion about the situation. He was told to pick the family who was most outspoken against the government and was not planning on going back to their home.

So see? There are all sorts of stories out there, but this media outlet has a narrative saying that the people in the north are unsafe and it's all the government's fault, so that's the story they chose to publish. 

But I don't want to do that. I'm going to try to write down all the war stories as I've heard them and I hope that anyone reading this can appreciate that people are complicated. Stories are neither good nor bad, they just are.

Trolling

Have I mentioned that internet trolling is my new fun hobby? I like to respond to anti-Israel commenters on Instagram and Facebook, it fills my days with meaning ><

I try to only post comments on Israeli/Jewish pages because I want to boost engagement on their posts, so if someone writes something rude or wrong or anti-Israel I'll respond. Also, sometimes I write on random international parts of the internet. Like, for the people out there who know nothing - here's a taste of what being Israeli is actually like. For instance, I'm kinda proud of this comment I left in a group called "Dull Men's Club:"

The group is for people (not just men) to post silly and mildly-interesting things they notice. It's quite cute, all kids of distracting content that's usually somewhat entertaining. This one post was about bus stops somewhere in northern Ireland (maybe? Don't remember), where they build cement structures to block the wind in case of severe storms. This Trevor guy said it looked like rocket launchers (it didn't, but fine), and I took the bait and responded with a picture of a migunit in Sderot. I thought I'd get hate comments, but here are just 5 random people who saw my picture and learned something new. Maybe they'll remember it? Maybe when someone mentions the war in Gaza they'll be able to say something about Palestinians shooting rockets into Israeli cities?

Living in War

I don't remember how much of this I've actually written here, but I need to write my experience so I don't forget. Here's a short journal of the end of 2023.

When Yossi was called up on October 7th at 11:00am I was left without a husband and without a house. I lived with my kids at my parents. We'd moved in a few weeks earlier and were planning to stay until mid October but we ended up living there until December.

For the first two weeks there was no school or kindergarten. It wasn't safe to have a large group of children in one place - what if there was an air raid? Could the teachers get them all into the safe room on time? What if a terrorist broke in and just started shooting kids? We didn't know how far Hamas had gotten, only that they had been invading cities near Gaza. Had they continued on foot further into Israel? The roads were empty, people were mostly staying home. There were police and army blockades everywhere to make sure that there was no Hamas left within Israeli borders. What about the West Bank? Would Palestinians join Hamas and invade from all across the fence?

A few days into the war, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, the Home Front app had a notification saying to get into the bomb shelter. Usually that sort of notification comes with an air raid siren and goes off in specific areas, but this was a notification for everyone all over the country. We locked the doors and windows and got in the mamad. I was sure that terrorists had infiltrated the entire country. My parents live at the edge of the city so we'd be the first line of fire. Then the Home Front sent an apology saying it was a false alarm. WTF? That doesn't help with the anxiety.

I wasn't eating. I could barely feed and bathe the kids. Thankfully my parents were active, and Yaira was living with us with her kids, so between the four adults the kids were being taken care of. Mommy was cooking food for soldiers. I couldn't bring myself to do anything.

Teenagers in my parents' neighborhood started offering babysitting help for free, which was wonderful. Every afternoon they'd bring toys to the shul and invite all the kids to play. I would go and find Amy there with her kids, and Elianna with hers, and Naomi Berman with hers, and Rivky with Betzalel and Adin. There was a sense of community. Also nostalgia just from being back at the place I grew up with the friends I grew up with. Amy said that Ari was a paramedic and he'd been doing shifts since October 7th - so he wasn't called into the army, but he was away too getting his own dose of trauma.

Abba started working on our house. He was working on an Air Force base at the time doing a construction project, but the base was closed to civilians so he was home, and of course he was going crazy doing nothing. So he went to our new house and started putting in the air conditioning. It was surreal. I would go to the house to help, and I'd call the tile company and the carpenters and I went out to buy paint for the kids' bedrooms and all the while I was thinking, "what if my house is bombed tomorrow? What if other Arab countries join the war and close in on all sides and Israel can't protect me? If Yossi dies and I'm left alone?" What's the point in building a new house?

I kept watering my house plants, and the plants I'd already planted in the garden (I'd sprouted sweet peas and they were growing along the fence in the backyard). What for? What's the point if we all die?

Eventually Yossi started coming home for short breaks. The first time he came back was on Wednesday night, a week and a half into the war. Longest week and a half of my life. He arrived Wednesday evening and was off to base again on Thursday morning. Later he'd come home for longer periods of time. And each time he left again I cried. Like, proper ugly crying. Every time. I knew it could be the last time.

Once schools started again we got into a routine. I'd get the kids up in the morning (we all shared a room), they'd have breakfast and I'd make lunch for Lavi, and then we'd all get in the car and I'd put on some podcast (for myself). It would take almost half an hour to get to Neve Michael and Givot Eden, then I'd go to the house to work. By this point we'd set up wifi and I could work from the kitchen. We didn't have chairs, I sat on a stepladder. I didn't go into the office until November, but I'd join meetings on Teams. One day I got an email about a colleague's son who was killed in Gaza. Then I went into a meeting. You think I could concentrate on the meeting? Please.

I started meeting neighbors. Lavi would make friends at gan and I'd meet the parents. Well, the mothers, because the fathers were all off at war. One evening I sat in the living room, on the dusty floor with no rug or couch, and Lavi took out Lego to play with Ido. Ruchama came with Shahak and he hung out with Yuvali. I'm sure Ruchama and I were both trying to be present in the situation but were we? It was so surreal. I'd take the kids out to the park. Neighbors would show up with snacks, sometimes with dinner. No men. Maybe one or two men, like Akiva and Yedidya, who gave the sense of normal life even though it wasn't. We didn't talk about the war. From the park we could hear distant explosions - either missiles landing in the Shfela, or interceptions, or artillery and air strikes in Gaza. Yeah, we could hear Gaza even 60 kilometers away because of the way the topography works in this region.

One Friday night I woke up at 3:00am with Yuvali. When I got her back to sleep I heard distant explosions. The windows were shaking. I was sure that this is it, Hizballah are attacking Tel Aviv - the pattern of the explosions was different from the Hamas pattern I was used to. Hamas rockets come in groups - you hear four or five booms in a row, then quiet, then more booms, and this lasts a few minutes and then stops for an hour or so. But this was different. This was one boom every few seconds and it went on and on. I was sure it was Hizballah. I checked my phone - but not the news! I didn't want to know. But I figured that if Tel Aviv was being bombed someone would write something on WhatsApp, like someone from Vocalocity would write something. Nothing. Yossi appeared to have been online so I felt like he must be ok, but I certainly couldn't sleep. My heart rate must have been through the roof. I put in my earphones and opened Netflix and binged whatever I could find. It didn't help, I could still hear the booms. This lasted until around 6am when the kids woke up. I don't remember if I got up with them or if I sent them to my parents' room.

For months Lavi kept asking when we're moving to the new house? We would have dinner there then drive back to my parents to sleep. At some point he got into his head that the kitchen was missing an oven and that's why we hadn't moved. Then the oven was put in and he would ask every day why we weren't sleeping there?

Eventually I felt like I couldn't live with my parents anymore. The house was set up, we all has beds or mattresses and we had a fridge and pantry and stovetop, so we moved in. It was December 19th and Yossi said he'd be coming home mid-January (at this point we knew that the army was releasing soldiers from the northern front. We knew it would be a short break). December 19th we slept in our new house, each in our own room which was very strange, then on the 20th Yossi said he was coming home the next day. On the 20th at night we got the news about Lior Sivan. All night I could hear the mosque from the next hill over. Every noise woke me up.

The war became a routine. Turns out people can get used to anything.

Trump's Plan

I've seen so many interesting takes on Trump's plan for Gaza, I figure I'd add a take of my own to the mix:

First of all, the plan is more of less to make Gazans leave Gaza, mostly to Jordan or Egypt, and for the USA to take over the Gaza Strip. So thoughts:

Against:

1. I can't help it, I'm a leftist. I don't want my nation to be responsible for forcing people out of their homes. It's horrible that we've destroyed their homes already, but forcing them to leave feels wrong. I would hate to have to leave my home - I love my community and I've put effort into building a house that I want to live in, and of course my family needs stability. I'd hate for it to happen to me and I don't want to do it to other people.
2. Moving the Gazans to Jordan and Egypt doesn't solve the problem, it only moves the problem somewhere else. In fact, it's more dangerous because Jordan and Egypt have longer borders with Israel, which makes them more of a threat. And yes, even though most Gazans are not directly affiliated with Hamas, they still probably believe that my country should cease to exist. Honestly Jordan is already mostly Palestinian so they might be ok, but Egypt has been working so hard to avoid being taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood and if you add a million more people who support Muslim Brotherhood ideologies to the mix then Egypt could easily become another Islamist state. Obviously that's bad for us.
3. What about Hamas and PIJ?
4. Do we really want the USA on our border? I mean sure, it would be nice to own a Starbucks Gaza City mug, but other than that they'd ruin the place. American pollution and consumerism is not something I want to import to the Middle East, thank you very much.
5. Also, America is getting kind of unstable. To me at least it's pretty clear that they're heading toward a civil war, and maybe soon the 50 states will split into two separate countries (red and blue or something like that). I don't need another unstable country on my borders.

Why do I think Trump's speech was a good idea?

1. He's making a big statement and we know him well enough to know he could mean it. That's enough to shuffle the cards a bit, which is good because right now we're stuck and need something radical to change the direction of this war.
2. He created a new card for Israel, which is pretty cool. Hamas carry the hostages card, which is huge, and Israel's cards are starting to look insignificant - we need more cards to use. (*I'll add that Israel's cards are not insignificant, but Hamas makes them look unimportant. Humanitarian aid, bombing Gaza, blocking the way from south to north, blocking the Egyptian border, actual soldiers on the ground - in theory these should be things that are choking Hamas, but they don't seem to be pressuring them.)

Anyway it's not going to happen, but it's interesting to see how people are reacting.

Israel's Fourth Quarter

Do you also have intense arguments in the shower? In your head with an imaginary person, obviously.

I don't sing in the shower, I argue. And I always have time to make a full point, and I'm always well articulated and I certainly win. Sometimes I imagine a specific person, it helps if I already know what they think about the subject. Sometimes I'm on a podium shouting into the street. I guess if I wrote my opinions on social media it would be the same thing? But I don't, I barely write them here :)

So my most recent argument has been about the essence of "Q4," which is a movement I joined that's meant to try to ensure Israel's sovereignty for the next quarter of a century. And I think it's so important and I need people to know. Here's why.

*Why am I writing it down? Because maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are points I haven't thought about and information I don't know that will make me see things differently? If you have any such information, then please provide!

**What are my sources? Mostly podcasts. I listen to Israeli and American, and some other international, mostly about politics and the middle east, and mostly liberal. I tried listening to a conservative episode once and it was really annoying... But I guess I learned a lot from it and I should do that more. (Ok it was Ben Shapiro, more on him soon.)

We Israelis know that many people (/countries/organizations/movements) want Israel to cease to exist as a sovereign state. Like, no more Israeli government. No more Jewish state. The Palestinians, for one, haven't even accepted that the state exists even though it's been around for 76 years. The trouble is that they have a precedent. Two precedents: twice in Jewish history did the Jews have sovereignty in this land and both times the sovereignty ended after about 70-80 years. The first was at the time of King Solomon, where the empire fell apart when it split into two kingdoms (one was Solomon's son and the other came from outside the royal family). The second was the Hashmonian rule during the second temple, which fell apart when the Romans conquered Jerusalem (sometime after Jesus was crucified). And now, the third sovereignty is at risk.

But there are many ways to take down an empire! One way is to literally claim their land in a war, but the Arabs have tried that several times and it doesn't seem to be working. So let's think of other ways: internal fighting, like a civil war or some sort of betrayal? Like someone assassinates a leader and the country falls into chaos. Or maybe a country runs into financial problems and that's how it falls apart. If you want to bring down an empire today you would shoot in all directions:

• Cut off financial ties. This could potentially bring down an economy.
• Weaken their allies. If the USA can longer provide ammunition to Israel then Israel is more likely to lose a war.
• Shame them. If other countries think they're not worth interacting with, then they'll eventually keep them from entering their country, cut off business ties, things like that. UN and ICJ resolutions are one way to do this.
• All of the above: convince young people in other countries that this country should cease to exist, and they'll do all the work for you once they become leaders in 20 years. If you have patience, which the Arabs do, this can work.
• Cause a civil war. This one is interesting, because how exactly do you cause a civil war in another country? Well, get creative. Use media? Get people stressed and anxious enough that it happens on its own?

So the civil war part is the one I want to address, because I feel like we can do something about that. That's also the most dangerous one in my opinion. And that's what "Q4" are doing. So what exactly is Q4?

Well, it's a social movement. It's about getting people to talk about the things they disagree about, until they can reach some sort of understanding. There are meetings where we pick a topic to discuss, sometimes in big groups and sometimes with just one other person. Sometimes we're given a topic. We're always taught how to have a constructive argument, because that's key.

And then there's the political part: it's not a political movement, as in it's not affiliated with any particular party or politician. That's important. But it does want to affect politics because there's only so much you can do with grassroots. So Q4 takes people from all over Israeli society and puts them together to discuss actual political issues and try to come up with a solution that can work across the board. For instance, the current crisis between the Knesset and the Supreme Court. It's evident to just about everyone that the current system isn't working. Maybe the laws are bad, maybe the court isn't working like it should, or maybe the laws are ok but we just don't trust the decision makers any more. In any case, we need to fix this. So Q4 is writing up what they call the new set of rules. It's fascinating.

This is what I call being a part of the solution, so I recommend.

Real questions

Real questions in no particular order:

1. If America (USA) is no longer a superpower, how would that actually affect Americans?

I imagine it would mean they could travel to fewer places, and maybe English wouldn't be such a popular international language? And prices would go up for everything I guess. What else?

2. What is liberalism?

Obviously this is a question I could answer by reading up on it. Same for Marxism.

3. How do empires fall?

I need to learn more about empires in history and how they came to an end.

4. Why don't more Americans vote independent? Like, why choose one of two (awful) options?

The point is that I'm really trying to understand why Americans think and act the way they do. I feel like Israelis are so focused on the war right now that we're not looking at the bigger picture, which is really important. The bigger picture has to do with how power shifts in the world and how sovereign nations can lose sovereignty. The bottom line for Israel is that we need unity and we need allies, and I'm pretty sure that's the bottom line for America. But do the American people realize that?

Alcohol??

Ok confession time: I've been eating a lot of sugar. Like, way too much. While Yossi was in miluim I'd end every day with ice cream, and most of what I ate during the day was cake and cookies. (My amazing neighbors would bring over all sorts of baked goods, it was wonderful! But you know, not healthy.)

So one evening I'm staring into my open fridge and thinking that I really need to stop with the sugar, right? So I was wondering what I should replace it with, and for a second I was like, ooh, what about wine? And it actually took me a few seconds to remember that alcohol is not a healthy addiction either 😂😂😂

Testimonies

So for a long time I avoided reading, hearing, and seeing anything that happened on October 7th 2023. But tonight I went to Jerusalem to hear a couple from Beeri talk about their experience.

It was a talk organized by Q4 הרבעון הרביעי, which is an excellent organization that I've been taking part in. It took place on King George street right next to where the protests take place, the idea being that people can come listen after joining the protest.

The crazy part is that this was the first time I've actually heard firsthand about anything that happened. I guess I was just too preoccupied with Lebanon and didn't have the headspace? Like, whatever happened has already happened, there will be time to learn about it later. Yossi is on the Lebanese border and that's what matters to me right now. Anyway next I need to go to the hostage square in Tel Aviv.

I need some time to process the actual talk before I write about it.

Words

Words that people (on the internet) use which immediately make me question their trustworthiness:

Colonialist

משיחי

Ethnic cleansing

Genocide (or my favorite: "genocidal")

And honestly it doesn't matter who's saying it. These words just make you look cheap, you know?

Effects of War

 Besides for death and destruction and anxiety, here are some effects of war that aren't obvious:

1. Asking people how they're doing and really meaning it.

2. No GPS, reading actual maps in advance to know where you need to go.

3. Everyone's just so vulnerable. It's pretty normal to see someone holding back tears randomly on the street.

4. Fewer wireless microphones. No joke! My acapella group will be performing next week, we were going to use cordless mics but there are 30 of us and it turns out we can't go cordless because there aren't enough available frequencies. As in, the frequencies are being used for the war.

5. Also, I've been yelling at my kids more than I should. At this point I'm sure it'll affect their development down the road.

6. Divorces. Or at least separations. I keep hearing of more couples who just aren't managing to hold it together - the stress is too high, or their experiences are so different and they just can't bridge the gap. I hope it's temporary, but people are going to need a lot of counseling in order to get through this.