War Day #174: Throwback: Israelis are getting feisty (again)
Thurs, March 28 Throwback to #17 October 23
This is a throwback to an update from the first two weeks of the war, when Israelis were just starting to come out from the shock of October 7, and revert to their usual programming, aka feistiness. It’s a post about volunteerism and just plain pluckiness in the face of horror.
And it ends with an anecdote about how one old man saved his entire family, a story of startling braveness, in a sea of incredible, awe-inspiring stories.
The feistiness here is surging again. And I fear we will need this kind of bravery again in upcoming weeks.
#17. October 23
Israelis, scared, concerned, heartbroken, are also getting to that next stage that we have seen before, during wars or situations - feistiness.
Whether it is in the supermarket, on the roads, or in a war, you really don’t want to mess with a pissed-off or feisty Israeli.
(They’re the ones who, during the Palestinian stabbing intifada a few years back, chased after the knife-wielding terrorists with pizza pans and umbrellas.)
Also, if you haven’t experienced Israel during a ‘matzav’ (which literally means a situation, but is a Hebrew euphemism for a bad scenario usually involving terrorism or intifada) you haven’t seen volunteerism at its finest.
Israelis LOVE to volunteer. They live to plunge in and get their hands dirty, donate & schlep stuff, organize & help, the more complicated the scenario with the more moving parts, the better.
This doesn’t always make the most sense or prove the most efficient - for example, the fact that most Israelis would rather start a new shiny nonprofit than volunteer for an existing nonprofit. But it means that Israel has what is probably a higher per capita nonprofit rate than anywhere in the world. 34,000 non profits. The Israeli NPO sector is considered to be one of the largest in the world in terms of contribution to the nation’s GDP and the number of people employed.
Israel also prides itself on always being first in to any worldwide disaster, whether it is earthquake or building collapse or other natural disaster. We even, when they need help, go into countries with whom we have no formal relationship (Ask me some (other) time, we have extremely funny stories about chutzpadik and heartwarming disaster relief efforts in Haiti, which involved an Israeli commandeering a 747, and landing it on a Haitian inadequate-and-earthquake’d airplane runway.)
But Israelis just plain do well with disasters, when all their feistiness has free reign. Kal v’homer - all the more so — when it is a disaster happening within Israel.
You see it happening right now. Barely two weeks ago, Israelis were thoroughly annoyed with each other. Judicial reform was tearing us apart. Today, just 16 days later, everyone is working together, and serving together, and united in a way we haven’t experienced in years.
We are seeing so many small local acts of kindness.
Israel’s fanciest restaurants are converting their kitchens to kosher, so that they can feed soldiers thousands of meals per day all over the country.
The Eritrean community of Tel Aviv is feeding all the thousands of the protest workers.
The protest movement, which just two weeks ago was protesting full time, has now, in the almost-total absence of government organization, risen to the task and is coordinating all civilian war efforts.
The Haredim are doing the bulk of the Zaka body identification and burial, a horrific job given what they are uncovering.
And everyone is amassing supplies, donating goods, cooking, schlepping.
A united feisty Israel is a force to be reckoned with. Maybe we can savor it even after this is all over.
I’m going to end with just one anecdote of the many going around, of heroic feistiness in the face of horror.
When it began to be known what was happening in the south, with Hamas terrorists going home to home, bursting in, and slaughtering families wholesale, one old man told his family - his wife, his children, his grandchildren - to hide in their bomb shelter.
There were many families hiding in their shelters, most of whom were kidnapped or massacred.
But when Hamas got to this particular house they didn’t go search out the shelter as they had everywhere else, because the home wasn’t empty.
There was an old man, sitting by himself, in the kitchen, having a cup of coffee.
So the Hamas terrorists slaughtered him, and continued on their way.
With that unfathomable act of bravery, the old man saved his entire family.
Please God that we all have that kind of brave feistiness in the days ahead.
Floral Art by Liya Naidich.
https://www.instagram.com/floralartbyliya/