coming home to Israel
Early Sunday afternoon, the light streaming through the window beside my desk changed from a common, pale blue to an eerie golden glow. Coincidentally, or so I thought, my wife had received a snapshot on social media of a huge, stunning and oddly isolated cloud taken by a friend who lives about 5 miles west of our place. She had never seen such a thing.
Neither had we.
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In Israel, it’s a good idea to get out of the house as least as often as we hold national elections. An opportunity to do so arose for my wife Marcia recently between outbreaks of COVID variants, and she went shopping with a friend. I won’t pretend to understand all of what “shopping,” in its deepest sense, may mean to women, but I know the activity always boosts Marcia’s spirits as well as strengthens the Israeli shekel. Early in the process of her latest mercantile adventure, Marcia ran into one of our former Ulpan teachers.
Ulpan (אולפן), for those who may be unfamiliar with the term, is the word Israelis use for language school. A visit to Google Translate will suggest that Ulpan means “studio.” Deeper within Google’s algorithm, the translation “instruction” emerges. But neither is correct. Studio is to Ulpan in Israel like waiting room is to crime scene. Equating Israeli Ulpanim to mere places of instruction, though a bit more accurate, also misses the mark. Normal students absorb instruction but, since a typical tour of Ulpan duty might last five months, five days each week, five-and-a-half hours each day, Ulpan students endure it.
Marcia liked Ulpan. She attended twice. Perhaps I’m bitter.
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A friend, call him Reuben, rang us up from Ashdod a few days ago. Ordinarily, receiving a phone call from 30 miles away would seem unexceptional, but Ashdod was under attack. Hundreds of missiles had fallen in town by then, at a moment about halfway through the latest episode of Israel’s unending war with Hamas.
Most but not all hostile missiles aimed at Ashdod (and elsewhere in Israel) had been blown out of the sky by Israel’s Iron Dome missiles. Two Ashkelon women (12 miles from Ashdod) had been killed by incoming at the time of Reuben’s call, two others were seriously injured. The homes of those victims had received direct hits, as had at least eight others after Hamas fired uncounted missiles at the small city as part of what the terrorists proudly described as their “largest barrage ever.”
It was reported at the time of the now active ceasefire—italics used here because, in the Middle East, there is really no such thing—Hamas had fired well over four thousand missiles at Israel, all of them more modern than those they got off during their last fundraiser. (Formerly Hamas used short-range Qassam rockets with a range of about 6 miles but, in their latest attacks, they employed medium-range rockets with a range of 25 miles, Iranian M-75 rockets and J-80 rockets with a range of between 50-60 miles. Most Hamas officials declined to credit their daddy, Iran, for providing them with the necessary funds, technical support and weaponry to perfect their heroism, perhaps because between 10 and 20 percent of whatever they start off toward Israel somehow lands in Gaza. Their misfires severely damaged both their own electrical and water supplies, inflicting great hardship on their supply of human shields, but no one is perfect.)
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In the past, before and after missile attacks, Israeli civil defense sirens would first send out distinctive variable warning tones, meaning “take cover,” and follow them with a steady, single tone to indicate “all-clear.” But all-clear tones have not been used during recent Israel air raids for the somewhat ironic purpose of “avoiding needless confusion.” Also a bit ironic, most sirens in use in Israel were manufactured in Germany. And they are loud. The sound volume of the “supercharged” HLS F-71 pneumatic alarms used throughout Jerusalem and made by Hörmann gmbH, for example, are rated at 132 decibels, considered slightly louder than an aircraft jet engine at takeoff.
In less technical terms, they can knock your socks off.
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