Blood gushed dark red. Eti asked, "What happened?" I said, "Nothing. It was a little bump, and all is okay." The members of the Mutual Mending Club, who were there for coffee and cake with Shaul, helped me to my feet. The surgeon stitched me up, and a CT showed no brain damage.
Bernard, on the group mailing list, read about the affair on WhatsApp and flew in from Australia.
The balcony couch, his usual sleeping place, looks out on the Judean Desert. He awoke and knocked softly on the open kitchen door, "Look at these amazing pictures of the Dead Sea that I took." "In the evening, you can see the lights of Amman twinkling in the distance, 30 KM away," I said.
The time had come to put away my dawn reverie and get going on the chores he'd come to help me with to make my life easier.
The first thing was fixing the plastic chicken wire on our kitchen balcony door to prevent cats from entering and helping themselves to titbits. Next came the racks in the bathroom and shower cubicle to hold shampoo and other soaps.
Each morning, we took the bus to the stairway into the valley and met Shaul for tea and cheese and lively discussion.
Bernard’s visit flew past, leaving Eti and me alone again. Things like the car license examination had been done. Eli, the mechanic, checked the brakes and presented us with a certificate of functionality for the licensing authorities.
I wondered at Bernard coming from Australia to do these small chores and to spend time listening to my theories about the causes of the war, thoughts not heard anywhere and resisted by my usual companions, Shaul, Declan, Robbie and Mike. Finally, someone agreed that my ideas were sensible and explained what was happening.
Radio and TV announcers and commentators harp on the plan to wipe out the Jewish State but don’t explain why. According to them, several countries, like Iran and demonstrators all over the world, hate Israel because she is oppressing the Palestinians.
Many Israelis are in favour of Palestinians participating in governing the land with the Jews. More than 2 million Palestinians, about 30% of the population of Israel, are loyal citizens, ruling the country with the Jewish People. About 4 million other Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza choose not to be citizens of the Jewish State, preferring to fight for their independence and to replace the Jewish State with a Palestinian state.
Their oppression by the Jews and their lack of freedom is a lie. This lie has become a loud cry for help. Through it, the Palestinians gain International support for their cause, which is fiction, namely the establishment of a Palestinian state in place of Israel.
Hamas, claiming to fight for the Palestinian cause, launched an unprovoked, brutal attack on peaceful Jewish villages (interactive map)
on the Gaza border. The next day, Hizbullah attacked Israel, also claiming to be fighting for the freedom of Palestine.
These two terrorist organisations, Hamas and Hasbullah, belong to two opposing Muslim factions, the Sunnis and the Shiites. They hate each other and have been at war since the 7th century. For long periods of history, the Shiites dominated the Muslim world and, at different times, the Sunnis. Both purport to be the saviours of the Palestinians and want to annihilate Israel, who they see as the oppressors of the Palestinians. Iran, the leading Shiite Muslim country, promotes Hamas and Hizbullah by supplying them with weapons.
The Shiites were weak until they overturned the Shah of Iran in 1979. They are tremendously rich from the sale of oil and are now using their strength to dominate Lebanon and Yemen. They are making inroads into the stronghold of the Sunnis by showing themselves to be the saviours of the Palestinians, who are Sunnis, by eradicating the Jewish State.
Bernard saw the contrast between Australia and Israel everywhere he went. He was intrigued by the noise of war and the hustle and bustle of Mahane Yehudah market, which is easily reached by light rail from our apartment in French Hill.
The car parked in the station parking garage, and half an hour later, we were dragging Etti’s shopping cart from one crowded stall to another. The feast of Tabernacles was fast approaching, and Eti gave us a long list of things to buy, from potatoes to fish and meat. Shopkeepers and shoppers received a dose of Australian wisdom. The time came to meet members of the Mutual Mending Club for coffee and tea at Yolo. Bernard dealt out more words during the Friday session.
He drove Eti’s Prius on the club's journey to the settlements around Gaza to witness the places attacked by Hamas on the 7th of October. Shaul chose this visit as a way to celebrate his 84th birthday.
We all knew the stories Pepe, our guide, related, but being at the site where they happened gave them new meaning. We heard the story of how the terrorists massacred 69 people at Kibbutz Nir Oz while we sat at the filling station on the outskirts.
We visited the site where hundreds of vehicles are stored, mostly belonging to 300 young people killed in cold blood during a dance party called Nova, near Kibbutz Reim.
We stopped next to a colourfully painted safe room on the road to the field where the party occurred. We see these at bus stops built several years ago to provide shelter from the frequent rocket attacks from Gaza. When the shooting began, about 20 boys and girls fled to this room for safety. Sad to say, the terrorists found them there and threw a hand grenade into the safe room, to kill all of them.
One brave boy, Aner, picked up the explosive device and lobbed it back out. The terrorists flung another grenade, and this he also expelled. He had removed nine grenades before the terrorists eventually killed him, and a grenade exploded among the people inside. 17 died, and three miraculously survived, lying under the bodies of their friends.
From there, we continued to the open area where the party took place, and the children died. Families and friends have set up memorials for their loved ones.
We passed over Kibbutz Beeri and Nahal Oz, where the devastation was so bad, we would not have been able to tolerate the trauma.
Our last stop was at Kibbutz Netiv Haasarah, where Hamas terrorists murdered 20 people. The kibbutz members have planted 20 old olive trees in memory of the fallen. This site is next to the security wall which divides the Gaza Strip from the kibbutz.
Bernard purchased a beautiful yellow orchid from the kibbutz nursery, which is now thriving on the balcony at the entrance of our apartment in Jerusalem.
Every year, I build a succah, a temporary dwelling, to remember the Israelites' sojourn in the wilderness. The roof is the most challenging part. We make ours out of palm branches and other stuff, like reeds. We roll this reed mat onto the wooden supports and ensure that the covering complies with Jewish law, which requires seeing the stars through it.
On the festival's third day, the Mutual Mending Club gathered with a guest from Holland, who is in Israel, to volunteer as a nurse at the St. Louis hospice opposite the New Gate of the Old City.
A visit to Israel isn’t complete without a dip in the Dead Sea. Bernard and I floated on the salty water and basked in the warm sun, starkly contrasting Jerusalem's
rapidly cooling weather.
Bernard had come to comfort me after my fall, continued to battle sites, and helped me build my Succah.
The trip concluded with a family get-together at Ariel’s favourite wine shop in Savion, a few kilometres from the airport, where we took my faithful brother for his return flight to Australia.
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