"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," wrote Tennessee Williams for his classic play "A Streetcar Named Desire," for the incredible character of Blanche Dubois, played in the film adaptation by Vivien Leigh in her second powerhouse performance, following of course her 1939 Oscar-winning portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind."
This line about strangers has always rung true for me, as without them, I'm sure I wouldn't have survived my tumultuous life of moves, though at other times, I have sought them out in hopes that stimulating conversation would take my mind off some very upsetting things, which I have unexpectedly needed on this spontaneous trip to Israel.
As for Ms. Vivien, a legendary brunette born ahead of her time, who struggled with moods and alcohol and being a genius in Hollywood and a man's world...she tends to visit during tumultuous times with her catchy Southern phrases and tough-as-nails composure, and this has added sass and humor and caused me to smile for seemingly no reason as I wait to cross the street during my otherwise very Middle Eastern October.
My first conversation with a stranger happened in my hair salon two weeks ago when I (finally) saw my amazing guy Menny, whom I've known for decades. As I sat there thrilled to finally have my hair color in (I hadn't let anyone in America TOUCH my hair in six months), a man in the chair next to me smiled, so I asked him how he was in Hebrew.
"No Hebrew," he said with an accent. "Only English," which made me smile and raise an eyebrow at the irony, as I'm constantly trying to practice my Hebrew and rarely asked to speak in English because somebody else doesn't speak Hebrew.
"Where are you from?" I asked him.
"Russia," he said, and I think my mouth flew open - and then I started laughing.
"WOW!" I exclaimed. "Two wars?! Good for you..." and this made him burst out laughing, too, despite my incredible insensitivity, which actually wasn't insensitive - it was tongue-in-cheek ironic humor, and thank goodness he got it. When we eventually both calmed down, he told me his incredible story.
He left Russia two years ago, and since he had Israeli citizenship since age 11 (which I didn't completely understand but this seemed irrelevant), he came here to escape even the possibility of being "drafted to his death."
He told me more than 300,000 men have died in Russia, and that the number in the Ukraine is higher if you add in those no longer able to work or serve due to disability.
"Probably closer to 500,000 in the Ukraine," he said. "It's crazy...just crazy."
"What does everyone in Russia think the war is all about?" I asked him, knowing that Putin can spread whatever he wants on his airwaves, and that it is my understanding that he is more or less just making up that over in the Ukraine everyone is a "Nazi" and other such nonsense.
"People have no idea what it's about," he said, but they say, "As long as we win the war, then great."
He went on to tell me that murderers have been released from jail to fight in the war, and if they survive six months of fighting, they are then free - and worse than that - they are then brought into schools to speak to Russia's children and teach "the meaning of Patriotism."
He came over alone in 2022, and finally brought his wife and daughter over to safety in Israel on September 7th, 2023...can you imagine my face at this point?
They had one month reunited as a family in Israel...and then it was October 7th.
We talked about how it was already World War III in his opinion, until his daughter arrived at the salon and filmed him cutting someone's hair. She was young and sweet and mature as ever I'm sure, and I loved this night, talking and learning about a war that wasn't this one.
--
My next interesting conversation was with someone in my Air BNB building. He invited me over for dinner, and since I have had very few invites for the millions of holidays happening in Israel now, I decided to join when the moment actually came, which took some effort, as I had just changed into sweatpants and was honestly feeling quite irritable, but too much alone time is not my friend, so off went the sweatpants and on went the skirt and I may have even smiled, (but it's possible I didn't.)
We talked about all kinds of things but eventually the conversation turned to the 7th of October, when he said he didn't want to see my pictures from Be'eri because he didn't want to have nightmares. I said my opinion was that if people could live through it, I thought we could at least visit it and bear witness.
He then changed his story and minimized seeing the houses as being "not traumatic at all" compared to things he has heard about - like a female friend who survived the Nova festival that came back and told him about the gang rapes she watched from her hiding spot, after which the woman being raped was stabbed in the back repeatedly.
"So, what's so bad about a house?" he asked me.
I held my tongue, as of course witnessing depraved violence in the moment is something I could never do, and I suppose can't be compared to seeing a house months later, but he was the one whose original excuse was that he didn't want the image of a house to give him nightmares.
I then told him what hostage Alon Ohel's mother said to me about how crucial it is that the hostages be brought back alive or all of Israeli society would remain broken forever and would never heal, and that if this happens, Israelis may begin to leave, as what is the purpose of this "safest country for Jews" if it is no longer that? That if Jews and Israelis can be taken from their beds and their homes from this country they all served in, and dragged into hell and then left there to starve and to suffer indefinitely, then how is this the Israel that Diaspora Jews visit and send money to and think of as the safe haven to run to if ever one is needed? How is this the Israel we all think of as the safest country for Jews if its citizens aren't put first?
"Nonsense," was basically his response. "One for Everybody - and Everybody for One."
He then explained this phrase to me, a mantra and lesson learned in the army from the very first second and over and over again, and I have not been able to get it out of my head since learning it, as it explains so much of what I see in Israeli society and so many of the stories we continue to hear from October 7th.
The first part is simple - if one soldier is injured, then all of the soldiers will do everything in their power to rescue him - that is "Everybody for One," but "One for Everybody" means that if a bullet or a grenade is heading in your direction and it is either you or potentially 100 people at the bus stop behind you, then you're jumping toward that bullet or grenade - you are the one taking it for everybody.
That is just a basic fact for Israelis - and that explains the catching of the grenades in those shelters until they exploded and killed them. It explains the turning around to rescue more kids at the Nova festival only to be taken hostage yourself. It explains the basic instinct of people here to think of saving everyone around them ahead of themselves...
But this man was bringing it up in response to what I had said about the hostages...so I returned to what I had been saying, and asked:
"So...are you saying...that the 101 hostages are sitting in there saying, 'okay, so it's me, and it sucks, but I am a casualty of war for this war that needs to happen in order to rescue Israel?"
At this he let out quite a sound effect with a facial expression and said, "Well, no...trust me, I don't want to be in there. Nobody wants to be in there, but what I'm saying is - Israelis aren't going to leave Israel. I mean some may, but not many. Israelis understand that bad things happen here, and that this is a bad thing that happened."
You can say that again. I mean - DUH.
--
On Saturday night, I met a new friend Karen, from South Africa, though she moved here 30 years ago and never left. She found me on facebook through my relentless Israel posts.
We went to Hostage Square, where the gatherings have finally returned, after being held on Begin St. instead for weeks, if at all, between the Iran escalation and the holidays. The families of the hostages requested everything return to Hostage Square where the energy and vibe is one of calm, love and support as opposed to the anger at the protests.
My priority was finding Michael Levy, the brother of hostage Or Levy, who I interviewed last January and have remained in touch with all year. He is constantly traveling and telling his family's story, so I was beginning to think I'd be leaving Israel without seeing him even once, but I found his family who said he was there, and so I searched. The square became packed with people - I have not seen it this way in a very long time, and this warmed my heart that so many people had come out to support the 101 families that remain in the most torturous hell imaginable since this war began.
When I did finally find Michael, he looked better than I expected, and I made sure to talk to him like he was a "normal person," as I remember him telling me that nobody did that anymore, that everybody is afraid to just talk to him. He actually laughed pretty hard at some of the "trials and tribulations" I have had on this trip, which perhaps made me lighten up about them, but when I asked how his three daughters are doing, I could tell they were really struggling. I then asked about Almog, Or's son, who was 2 1/2 years old the day his mother was murdered, and his father was taken hostage. Whereas he spent the first year crying and asking for his parents, he is now older than 3 1/2 and Michael said his memories of his parents are now more from photographs than from real life.
Devastating. Utterly devastating, and sickening, and heartbreaking - and all because they went to a party that they didn't even make it to. Read their story here.
The day after this, I checked out of my Air BNB and met someone trying to help me find a volunteer opportunity on a different Kibbutz. I went to the Nachal Oz tent in Hostage Square and met women from there, and heard more harrowing stories, but they didn't seem like they needed volunteers.
We walked through the Jewish Agency building, which I had never done, and I snapped a few shots - one shows old Zionism, and the rest is all post-October 7th additions.
That evening, I walked on the promenade in Tel Aviv with a friend, when out of the corner of my eye...I spun around and went back the other way, and kept my eye on a guy inside a building...I could see if I just made it to the window, he would be at the counter, so I did and - I was right. DOUGLAS MURRAY!!!!!
He had just completed a workout and was about to order a smoothie, which I also could have done from the outside window had I wanted to.
"Hi!!!!!" I exclaimed. "I am supposed to meet you."
(Yes, I really said something ridiculous like that).
I gave him my card and said I had come back here as soon as the war started, and that I was an "emotional writer," and he seemed quite taken with that.
"Thank you for all you do for Israel," I then remembered to say, (thank g-d, thank g-d, thank g-d).
The guy in the shop sort of cleared his throat, waiting next to the freezer of frozen fruit with an empty cup, so Mr. Murray said, "Oh, uh, some banana, and mango, and whatever protein you have today...."
I told him his name had come up earlier that day in the Nachal Oz tent, (though I may have accidentally said Nir Oz), and this led him to tell me he had been in Gaza that day, but stopped in Nir Oz on the way back....and that some people were living there.
I said I'd been in Be'eri for a while and planned to visit Nir Oz soon and rambled on about a book. I said too much of course, but after he left the shop, he passed me and my friend and said, "Good luck on the book."
Meeting Douglas was great, but in general, my past few weeks have been challenging, and I do keep coming back to that.
I had something unexpected happen, so came to Tel Aviv to recover, only instead of recovering, I actually got sick over Yom Kippur and spent days cooped up with a fever.
I've also had writer's block, having not felt like I could process what happened through my writing.
I've had issues with the job at home that I planned on leaving anyway - now it's officially no longer my job, and though this isn't really a problem and there are many other jobs starting very soon if I want them - I did make the choice to choose Israel over my life in the US, only right now that may take longer than I'd hoped.
Despite all of this, I haven't wanted to leave Israel, because once I leave, I have very little at "home" in the US, so if I leave with things feeling less than perfect in Israel, I will feel on very shaky ground regarding how and when and perhaps even if to move back.
I've therefore tried to find a place to volunteer before leaving, to park myself somewhere and feel useful, but even that has been a challenge, with Sukkot, which to be honest, is one of the holidays that even when I lived here, I never really understood or celebrated, so I have found myself doing now what I did years ago and saying like a fool to all of these strangers: "Sorry, but which holiday is this again?"
And this time I finally learned, that it is yet another holiday about wandering, essentially similar to Passover, only instead of being about what we ate during that time (or didn't), it is about where we slept, in these makeshift little huts, and this seemed eerily odd and appropriate, since I have literally crashed with a few strangers, in between these atrocious and overpriced Air BNBs here and there, as I try and try and try to volunteer...
Where shall I go? What shall I do? (Scarlett).
Given all of this wandering and finally understanding the meaning of Sukkot, I did decide to wander into my first Sukkah here in Tel Aviv, and I chose the one with the little girl lying on her side, because I guess it won't ever matter how old I get, but the "little girl lost" theme does seem to follow me wherever I go, no matter how many times I may finally think I am found.
And then I finally went out with my friend Avi, a plan that had been made and cancelled once, then twice, but thankfully not three times, and he is honestly a fabulous human being, and after finally catching up properly in person after so many texts and audio messages, he felt like he knew me well enough to say:
"You know, if I had a week with you, I think I could...tone all this down...turn down the volume...calm down this energy...and make you a 'completely normal person.'"
I stared at him, unsure if I should laugh or cry, and with a poker face, replied "I thought you were going to say, 'make you fluent in Hebrew.'"
"Yes, that too."
And so - I had no choice but to get ecstatic.
A normal person AND fluent in Hebrew?
And now I thought of Eliza Doolittle and her damn jerk of a Professor Higgins who promised her the moon and the stars.
"In six months, I could pass you off as a lady in a proper flower shop that requires better English."
But then I remembered that Avi had no time, and so just like that, my fantasy burst.
And so, self-talk will have to do, so here is the deal.
I came to Israel alone in November of 2023 to help as much as I could - and I did.
I started this website about the hostages, and I did several in-depth stories.
I got to know the families of Shani Louk, Emily Hand, Itay Svirsky, Alon Ohel, Or Levy and Yonatan Rapoport, and I fell in love with Kibbutz Be'eri and became passionate about the idea of writing a book about October 7th.
I have been asked to write a book proposal about what happened at Kibbutz Be'eri, but in order to do this properly, I would like to base myself in the south of Israel, and live on one of the Kibbutzim so that I can immerse myself in the culture for about a year and not have to work full-time, but focus on the writing and the telling of the story slowly and properly.
This is the part that I still need to figure out - that and finding a publisher. I'd hoped to figure it all out this trip, but I haven't. It is going to take time. It is a delicate process at a fragile time, and I am not familiar with life inside Israel anywhere outside of Tel Aviv.
I think the book should be about more than the Kibbutzim, but actually begin with what it was like being in America on October 7th all by myself, not hearing from a soul, and witnessing the celebrations of the slaughter. I think the pain inside my own life, feeling the trauma of what happened in Israel, and then seeing the celebrations across the world should be the beginning of the story.
Then the story would have me arriving in Israel for the first time in eleven years and beginning the project, how it evolved, but how for me - it felt like returning home again. I have the ability to be Israeli and feel things here but also know how it is in the Diaspora. I am also part of an extremely non-Jewish world when I am outside of Israel, so every time I leave, I experience a full-on identity crisis or...I am two people at once at all times...I need to guard and maintain my Israeli self while simultaneously being a "normal person" (take that Avi!) - and to write about October 7th from these various perspectives within myself would be interesting.
I have eleven days left inside the Jewish State to maximize my "usefulness" and "Israel conversations" and then whatever problems I have here will be left behind - and the moment I get on that first plane of three - the other problems of "nobody caring about Israel" will be front and center again...and all of the things I have started to take for granted here will be instantly gone and replaced with all the horrible and unbearable--
I can't think about that right now. I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think about that tomorrow.
Honestly - what would I do without my sweet Scarlett?
In case you want to help:
This is a labor of love and I feel called to do it but admit it has started to cost a small fortune, between flights, rent in the US and accommodation in Israel. I have therefore started a GoFundMe in the hopes of getting a little bit as I stay to conduct these interviews with families of hostages and cover the war from the ground. Any donation, no matter how small, will go toward accommodation and bare bone travel expenses. Anything at all will be tremendously helpful and very much appreciated. With gratitude, Melanie
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