I’m never thrilled to admit it, but there are wise men (and women) out there, serious types, persons of probity, even people I know and like, who do not concur with my assessments of life on this planet or my world view. There are those, for example, who believe that the IDF can and should press for a ‘total victory’ in its campaign against Hamas, even if that means going it alone against a cruel world that does not share its goals or its optimism. There is at least one Nobel Prize winner advocating a return to Israeli rule over Gaza when the fighting is over. There are some, made of the sternest stuff, who would accept a deal to return the hostages – those lucky ones who are still alive – only if the terms were to the liking of politicians of a certain stripe. Well, no, say others with equal conviction. A majority of Israelis, according to a recent poll, no longer believe #1 is possible and aren’t about to be convinced otherwise by anything Our Leader says; #2 only demonstrates, to these folks, that a person can be brilliant without having much sense; #3? Please indulge me while I share a few thoughts of my own, for reasons that will become clear as I ramble on. Oh, and I have good news about my new coffee grinder, the one I just ordered.

Don’t leave him behind to die!

If nothing else, I know my movies, as do some of you.  You may have watched films about WW I or II, and you’ve seen this scene – maybe many times over. The battle has ended, and there are only a handful of soldiers left alive in a bunker somewhere in France. One of them is badly wounded and would have to be carried away from the carnage by the others, who are considering what are their chances of survival.  One of the men makes the point that bringing the wounded man out with them would only slow them down and endanger their own lives. Leave him there, even if it means he will be captured, tortured, and killed by the enemy. After some discussion back and forth, the others reluctantly agree with him and leave their comrade to his fate, while they beat a hasty retreat. Nooo, that’s not how the scene ends. They don’t leave him behind to die. That’s just chicken shit. Who made this movie anyway? Let’s change the channel.

I don’t know much about military affairs, never having served one day in any country’s army, let alone in a combat situation. But I believe that “Leave no one behind” is the rule of the day. I don’t see how you can function under such pressure if you don’t have 110% confidence in your buddies. But how does this apply to civilians captured and held hostage by an enemy? I know I’m not the first person to ponder over this matter, but that doesn’t give me – or anyone – license to ignore the question.

We’ve had enough!

That’s how matters stood, a series of random thoughts, none of which involved doing anything more strenuous than scratching various parts of my anatomy. Then on April 5, I was sorting out our stack of Friday’s newspapers and noticed this headline on the front page of the Jerusalem Post: “Qatari Officials to ‘Post’: We approached Israel after October 7 with hostage deal, response took a week.” The information is based on a series of interviews the newspaper’s new editor, Zvika Klein, conducted with Qatari officials, who were actually eager to talk with him. The thought that this information MIGHT be true – and I don’t know if it is – is more than I can handle. Later that morning, I opened the paper to page 3. Headline: “Iran embassy strike shows Israel’s growing reach.” But what stopped me in my tracks was an ad that took up the rest of the page and certainly grabbed my attention: “Tortured by Hamas for 6 months.” And in smaller print: “On April 7^th we’re all gathering in Jerusalem to cry out we’ve had enough.” (Later that morning, I noticed the identical ad in our English language Haaretz.)

A cynic might look at the headline and then the ad, and wonder: How is it that the Israelis can locate and eliminate seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp in a compound in Damascus, but they can’t locate 100 hostages next door in Gaza? Maybe that’s apples and oranges, but you have to wonder.

I kept looking at the ad, which included where and when to assemble, “In front of the Knesset, 18:00 Gathering 19:00 Rally.” You know how I often ‘get into trouble?’ I keep seeing words like ‘we’re all,’ and I can’t escape thinking that ‘we’re all’ doesn’t mean only my neighbor, the guy down the block, and the little old lady in French Hill. Somehow I’m included, as in, they mean me. I know that, thinking rationally, my being present at any rally or demonstration where thousands of people are planning to show up won’t amount to a hill of beans. No one will notice if I’m there or not. Except that I will, and that has always made all the difference to me. So where did I leave my Israeli flag? (There it is in the corner. It needs a light dusting.)

Walking from the Light Rail towards the Knesset that Sunday evening, I could easily spot folks heading in the same direction. When you’ve been to as many rallies, marches, picket lines, and demonstrations as I have, you can spot kindred spirits a mile away. Here it was as easy as pie. Random dudes in Jerusalem don’t go around waving Israeli flags; their feminine counterparts usually don’t carry signs with pictures of hostages needing to be rescued. No one else wanders around the streets of Jerusalem wearing black t-shirts demanding action.

First things first.

First stop, Cinema City to use the facilities. Will they let me enter carrying a flag? (Who knows how much trouble I might cause.) No problem: I’m not alone. There’s a long line of t-shirters waiting their turn to use the sherutim. There were even some folks enjoying a pre-rally meal at Café Greg. I did what I had to and kept on walking the few blocks to the Knesset with more and more people heading that way.

The organizers were expecting a lot of people to show up at this demonstration. In case some participants had forgotten to take their turn at Cinema City, there was a string of porta-potties ready for use. The planners must have figured out that they would need a bunch of giant TV screens so people could see what was going on, and sure enough, there they were, strategically placed so a few thousand onlookers could crowd around each one. (No, Ezra, don’t get ideas; one of these screens would not fit in your living room.)

Well, not much going on at 6:30; just lots of folks with their flags and banners and t-shirts milling about, munching on beigelim (soft pretzels) an enterprising guy was selling. Sometime around 7PM, some lady with a microphone started to lead the crowd in collective chanting. With my limited Hebrew, the only word I could make out was ‘achshav’ (as in we want the hostages released NOW), but I joined in whenever I could. (Least I could do!) By 7:30 when the program actually started, the assembled crowd had swelled to the tens of thousands.  One by one, returned hostages or family members of the ones left behind got up to speak, all sharing their stories and their pain, as if we hadn’t gotten the message in the weeks and months before. But I can’t blame anyone for being repetitious, after all, the hostages are still in harm’s way with little hope in sight. As one speaker pointed out, they don’t have a political party of their own. And, if they did, they wouldn’t be going on recess like the rest of the Knesset.

That would be good.

And then the M.C. introduced Moshe Leon, the mayor of Jerusalem. By this time I had figured out that the big screen had closed captioning in Hebrew and, more or less, in English, so if I looked carefully, I could figure out a little bit of what was going on. I imagine that a lot of the crowd – if they live in the city – hadn’t voted for the dude, and I could hear the murmurings of discontent from those assembled. What, are you stupid, I thought; it says a lot that a right-of-center politician who has just been re-elected and doesn’t need anybody’s votes wants to be here and be heard. So let him speak, and shut up.

I was getting ready to leave, when I realized that the next person on the podium was Racheli Fraenkel, whereupon I stopped to listen right in front of one of the mega-screens. Everyone I could see was starting to pay close attention; you could tell the difference in attitude right away. This wasn’t some politician you can ignore or make nasty comments about. Everyone knew that her son had been murdered by the same terrorists, and that she shared the pain that everyone felt and had every right to be up there speaking.  Why don’t I leave on a high note? (I learned days later that there were additional speakers, including Yair Lapid, but my attention span is demonstrably limited, and I believe in getting while the getting is good.) I made my way through the crowd back to the light rail and the bus back home. Put your flag away to wait for another day. Maybe we can hold off until Yom Haatzmaut. Maybe all this will be over by then. That would be good.

We’ve got questions.

You’re sitting in your apartment doing whatever it is you’re doing when the phone rings. It’s somebody conducting a public opinion poll for an Israeli TV channel. We’re going to tally the responses from the first 1000 people who answer the questions. You resist the urge to hang up and, instead, start answering.

Would you be in favor of a deal to return the hostages in exchange for a cease fire and a removal of Israeli troops from Gaza?

Would you be in favor of new elections tomorrow, in the next few months, only after the war is over, or not until the Knesset term expires?

What grade would you give the government on its response to Oct. 7?

What grade would you give the Israeli people as to the collective response to Oct. 7?

Has the assistance by the Americans been of great help, some help, little or no help?

Does targeting Iranian officials make Israel more safe, less safe, or the same?

There are other similar questions, lots of them, and I’m sure you have answers to all of them. But one respondent, I am told, asked his own really good question. How come you don’t have ‘I don’t know’ as a possible answer? There’s a point to that. There are times when ‘I don’t know’ may just be the best of all possible answers. But that does require some self-control, and who is good at that?

What about the coffee grinder?

Barbara was putting in her bid for dummkopf of the day. She had scheduled months ago an appointment for an eye examination at Hadassah Hospital, except she was ‘confused’ and wound up at the Mount Scopus facility instead of Ein Kerem, where she was supposed to be. Next available appointment? Sometime in June. Oh well.

I couldn’t really top that, but I could put in my bid for honorary mention screw-up. Several days before, I had received a message on my phone: my coffee grinder had made its way through the sorting center in Modiin and was waiting for pickup in a store down in our industrial area. Ezra, I need a ride! The message made it clear that I owed 131NIS for Customs. (The point being that when the post office can collect from you, you get express service; otherwise the grinder would take its place next to Barbara Levine’s misplaced coffee order – the subject of an earlier article.) Except that I hadn’t bothered to read the rest of the message and notice the link that was kindly provided.

You have to pay the post office. That’s what the fellow in the store said. Otherwise, I can’t give you the package. Flashing my credit card didn’t help because I couldn’t just pay him. I looked again at the message and clicked on the link. There it was, an app (always an app!) from the post office. Pay here!

It’s good to have friends; it’s good to have friend who know how to do things. This is a walk in the park for Ezra, who uses his phone to do everything except open cans. With the store clerks’ Hebrew, Ezra’s know-how, and my information (teudat zehut number, email address, credit card info) we got it done. Look I’ve paid! The salesclerk was more than happy to give me my package, and off we went.

I’ve decided to delay using my new device until Pesach, so it’s sitting on top of a shelf next to the kilo of shmurah matzoh that will be delivered to Ron and Esther for the Seder, where we go every year. But it’s one more thing off my mind, one less to worry about. And these days, every little bit helps. Especially when the rockets are red glaring.