Ruvy,

I cannot fathom how you live under those circumstances, and I fear for the children of Israel who develop insouciance. What damage is being done deep in their minds that may emerge as demons later on?

Of course, the same could be said about Arab children.

One would think if the adults on both sides don't care about their own lives, they would at least care about what this situation is doing to their children. (Alas, one could have said that about Ireland, Africa, how many other places?)

But I suppose a society reaches a point where it can't handle those questions. And so the insanity rages unabated.

In Jamesons Veritas

Ruvy,

Is it the children aping the anger in their societies, or the other way round?

Fine post, if you'd like to cross-post it to Desicritics under your ID, 'twould be well-received

Ruvy, you know how I feel about this essay. Re-reading it, the musician Sting's Cold War-themed song "Russians" came to mind:

"How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy.
There is no monopoly in common sense
On either side of the political fence.
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology.
...What might save us, me and you
Is that the Russians love their children too."

Mark,

I was showing my son Avi how you check for articles and how you edit them on Movable Type. We were checking the article over - there was something I wanted to change and couldn't. Then I scrolled down a bit and saw your comment.

Avi looked and laughed. I didn't laugh, but I've seen comments like these so many times from Americans and Canadians... In the first month of living here there were some scary things - jets flying overhead, helicopters (there are no Eye-In-The-Sky reports on traffic here), jeeps driving up and down the Hebron Road. There were shots in the night from the Arabs shooting from Beit Jallah to Gilo.

But the truth of the matter is that you get used to it. There are neighborhoods in New York and DC where no person enters unless he HAS to - do you really wonder how they get through the day?

"Of course, the same could be said about Arab children."

If this were all true, there would be very little fighting here. Those kids are trained from early youth to want to be "shahíd" (martyrs) in the Arab cause. Their parents are intimidated into accepting the idea that they should be suicide bombers.

What is insane about living here is that the Israeli government has refused to permanently shut down these broadcasts of hate against Jews and Israelis, this program of brainwashing of children to commit suicide. It has forced some among us to wonder if there is not some other agenda going on, something far more evil than I like to imagine.


Aaman, feel free to post this on Desicritics. I'd be humbled and honored.

Think back, if you can, to the twelve year old kids riding around Beirut with Kalashnikovs in jeeps. We face an analogous equivalent here - the young suicide bombers, propagandized from their youth to hate and to kill. So they must be reflecting the anger they get on TV an in school. I can't speak for the Arab kids, but the Jewish kids react to the terror so obviously directed against them.

Ms. Davis, when the Arab parents realize what is in that song, we will be a lot closer to peace here.

In the mean time, those of us who are believers pray for miraculous redemption - we've seen what the pack of thieves and robbers on government hill have to offer, and we've seen what kind of redemption can be offered at the hands of the Americans in Iraq - NO THANK YOU!

Ruvy, Life in the Warsaw ghetto must have been something like this. Freedom of a sort. Walls to keep away the wolves...or to give the illusion of being safe ...even though all the evidence is to the contrary. Children who take the situation in stride and adapt to it even as the adults, who know better, keep the fear to themselves.

This time, however, it is Israel that has built the walls to protect herself. But still the children take it all in stride. Is this naivete or hardened realism? Can children, having always known their world as encircled by walls and wolves, ever possess a vision of something different or better? Is there within them a passion for peace? An inner-drive to change their world?

Or will the vision, the hope, die with their parent's generation, leaving the children, now adults, with a lissome "insouciance" towards the status quo as the walls, and their world, collapse around them?

Ruvy, you have shared a profound and troublesome slice of life from today's Israel. As a parent you are facing issues that are beyond my experience and understanding. I pray God's blessings on you, your family and your nation. I pray for wisdom for your nation's leaders during these troubled days.

Above all else, I pray for shalom: what we Christians refer to as "the peace that passes understanding" and, as the people of Hawaii like to call it: "Aloha."

Great piece, Avi and Ruvy! Ruvy, I always admire and value the unique perspectives you share here at BC in your posts and comments.

Elvira, Thank you for the kind words. Avi's computer teacher opened a blog site for them in class where he can post. He's only 14 and growing up so fast! The other boy will have to report to the army soon for tests.

BoP, your perceptions about the Warsaw Ghetto would have been accurate here in October or November of 2000. After the fall of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Madrid and London subways, the murder of Mr. Van Gogh and other events, I think that you in America and Europe need to adjust your perceptions a bit.

We know what wolves roam our country and are being restrained from destroying them by an evil regime in Jerusalem. But even these evil members of a Judenrat try to provide some protection, lest we rise and kill them the way they deserve.

In Europe and America, your leaders lie like rugs, spreading the blather of PC baloney to cover the fact that they do not care if you live or die. And the wolves roam unchecked in the streets - particularly in Europe. The alleged security these regimes pretend to protect you with is designed to take away your freedoms. But these are problems you must deal with. I can only observe.

You do raise one issue that is important, though, and is a serious problem.

Many people complain about precisely the same things I do and then shrug their shoulders and say "mah la'asót?" - what can we do? I saw this here, and started to think very hard about solutions and how to hook up with like minded people who have similar understandings as I do.

You may have noticed that I do not complain too much about the injustices perpetrated upon us and concentrate upon what we as Israelis, or as citizens of the Kingdom of Israel that will arise after the present state collapses can do. Many of these things do not seem too nice, but that is not the point. "Yesh ma la'asót!" - there is something we can do!

I teach my sons that precise philosophy - that there is something we can do - and can only hope that they carry it further when I am no longer able to pursue my mission here. There is a path to pursue to obtain peace, even if it is not the one you are used to hearing about.

Thank you for your prayers.

Shabbat Shalom
Reuven

Ruvy, you'll have to post it yourself - you have an ID - if you don't remember it, please let me know and I'll mail you the info

Off to go look up the word, "insouciance"...


ah, good word. I'll have to find a way to inject that into conversation.


Great piece. Disturbing but great. I can't fathom growing up in that environment.

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm looking out of a window and seeing prophecy fulfilled. This city has expanded to the north and the south exactly as Isaiah said it would. Scott, I know a fellow raised in Australia whose son upbraided him for leaving Australia and coming to Israel. The boy would have preferred to have been an Australian.

Last year, the boy disappeared in northern India and no one has seen him. Foul play and murder is suspected.

Had he stayed home instead of travelling around the world on the money he got from his combat pay as a soldier, he'd still be alive now. The son I wrote about above is likely to be drafted and assigned as a combat soldier of some kind. If G-d gives to live through his assignment, I hope he remembers the lesson of the fellow who disappeared.