October Fire - 3. In the Wrong Place at the Worst Time

Friday, October 6, 2023

Robin could do little more than smile. English might be the second language of Israel. English might be required teaching in all the public schools. It wasn’t required teaching in the Yeshivas, though, let alone in the schools for Orthodox girls.

The girl sitting across from her had apparently never studied it. She didn’t even seem to speak Hebrew all that well. Not that Robin did either. The family seemed to speak Russian at home. Perhaps the entire ultra-Orthodox community of Ofakim spoke mostly Russian.

It was strange to be staying with relatives she’d never known. It was even stranger to be attending the bar mitzvah of a boy she hadn’t even known existed until a few months ago. She was sharing a room with a second cousin – or maybe she was a third cousin – a girl who appeared to be twelve or thirteen.

At least Robin had an air mattress to herself. Robin’s older sisters were sharing a double air mattress in another house with a different set of relatives. Robin’s father was sharing a room with the bar mitzvah boy himself.

Space was tight, but there were no hotels in Ofakim. They could’ve stayed in nearby Be’er Shiva, which boasted several fine hotels, but the family would have never heard of it. Because the family was Orthodox, driving or riding in a motor vehicle was forbidden on the Sabbath. Hence, they were staying in the homes of families in the local community. They would walk with them to the synagogue in the morning.

It had been an interesting week! Robin and the rest of her family saw all of the famous tourist sites in Israel. It had been an exhausting trip, and now that she was finally adapting to the seven-hour time change, she’d soon be heading back to the States where she’d have to adapt all over again.

She’d always wanted to visit Israel but hadn’t anticipated the profound feelings she had visiting places that were thousands of years old. The Western Wall in particular elicited a feeling of holiness she didn’t understand.

Mike had been an outstanding tour guide. He took them to spots most tourists didn’t visit. Each morning, he treated them to a phenomenal breakfast of typical Middle Eastern fare. He took them to a variety of outstanding restaurants for lunches and dinners.

No matter where they went, however, there were signs of protest. Sometimes, they had to detour from their planned route or even skip some things. Even in Rehovot, where they’d stayed, there were protests every evening. Jews of all stripes were filling the streets, carrying signs and shouting slogans. They were expressing their strong opposition to what the far-right government called judicial reform. As Robin had come to understand it, should Netanyahu succeed in establishing the power to overrule the courts, Israel might as well not have an independent judiciary.

For the Arens family, it was one thing to see all of this on TV from the comfort of their apartment in New York. It was an entirely different matter to actually witness the protests in person. They’d participated in the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, but those were nothing compared to what was happening in Israel.

Their time for sightseeing was far too short. Mike dropped them off in Ofakim in the late afternoon. As he drive them there, He explained a little of the history of the town on the way there as gleaned from sources such as Wikipedia:

Ofakim was originally a Bedouin village known as Khirbat Futais, consisting of little more than mud huts along the Beersheba-Gaza highway. Because the Bedouin tribes were often in conflict with each other, the Ottomans built a military fort, just outside of the village. The Ottomans controlled Palestine from the mid-sixteenth century until their defeat at the hands of the British in World War I. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 established the intent for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Its implementation gained impetus in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

The British developed plans for partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, but left large holdings of Jewish land within the proposed Arab state, and vice versa. The United Nations partition plan of 1947 attempted to fix that, but the resulting states weren’t even contiguous and the control of Jerusalem was left unresolved. Because the Bedouins were nomads and had few permanent villages, much of their territory was treated as unsettled land and given to the new Jewish state. The fort at Patish Futais became a key target for the Israeli Defense Force in the Israeli war of independence, in 1948.

This history was very different from the one Robin had learned about in school – one in which the Jews had fought for land that was given to them by God. She was coming to realize that the Jews themselves were refugees from other lands – survivors of Germany’s holocaust, victims of Russian persecution and exiles of Northern Africa and of other Arab lands.

Right or wrong, the partition happened 75 years ago and four generations of Israelis and Palestinians had been born since then. Robin couldn’t fathom why some still challenged Israel’s very right to exist.

Mike continued:

Ofakim was established in the mid 1950’s on the site where the Bedouin village had once stood. At first, it was populated by Jewish refugees from Morocco and Tunisia. Refugees expelled from Egypt during the 1956 Suez crisis joined their North African neighbors, followed by exiles of Iran, India and Romania.

Later, a large contingent of Ethiopian Jews settled there as well. By the early twenty-first century, nearly a third of the residents were immigrants from the former Soviet Union, more than half of whom were ultra-Orthodox.

Apparently, Robin’s family was among that contingent.

When the Arens clan arrived in Ofakim, preparations for the coming Shabbat were well underway and the men were getting ready to walk to the synagogue to recite the Friday afternoon and evening prayers. Although women weren’t excluded, they were too busy preparing the Shabbat dinner to attend. Their daughters were expected to help out in the kitchen, but Robin was a guest. Instead, she was relegated to sitting alone with her cousin while her father went off to pray.

Unable to communicate effectively and with nothing better to do, Robin opened her smartphone and stared at the screen for a minute, trying to decide what to do. She thought briefly about calling her boyfriend, now that Larry was in Israel too, but realized he might be busy and unable to talk.

In the meantime, her cousin started frantically tapping her wrist. She wasn’t wearing a watch, but Robin got the message and nodded her head. The Orthodox didn’t use anything electronic on the sabbath, so she’d have to power down her smartphone before sunset, which was soon.

The Torah said nothing about not using electricity, but lightning was electricity and lightning started fires. Flipping a switch or tapping on a touchscreen was obviously the equivalent of lighting a fire, which was forbidden on the sabbath. Automatic timers, on the other hand, were allowed, so long as they didn’t require human intervention.

Robin thought the whole thing was arbitrary and silly. A refrigerator could be used, but the interior lights had to be turned off so they wouldn’t light when someone opened the door. What was the difference between a refrigerator light turning on and the refrigerator’s compressor kicking in? One involved a door-operated switch and the other a temperature sensor, but both were triggered by opening the door.

Because she wasn’t sure Larry could take her call, Robin sent him a text telling him she’d arrived in Ofakim and would soon have to power down her phone. Moments later, she got his reply:

Larry: Glad U made it. Just starting Shimini Atzeret music prog. Then up all night at SuperNova music fest. Simcha Torah in AM.

Robin: So close and yet so far.

Larry: Maybe I can visit b4 U leave Sun AM?

Robin: Have to be early.

Larry: U can count on it.

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Congressman Moore was in his element. He was in Jerusalem, attending the bar mitzvah of the son of one of his major donors, the son of a longtime friend. The congressman had been on a fact-finding mission with three of his colleagues. He’d investigated the recent protests in Israel, on the taxpayers’ dime, and now he was free to pursue his own interests.

Frank Moore was born in Chicago and raised in Skokie, a heavily Jewish, affluent suburb. He was no stranger to the religious customs of the Jewish faith. He’d attended many bar and bat mitzvahs growing up. Indeed, bar mitzvah parties were the social events of the year for seventh graders in Skokie.

Frank’s mother developed multiple sclerosis when he was in middle school. Because his father’s attention was focused on his mother’s treatments, Frank and his sister had to grow up quickly. They learned to fend for themselves.

When he was sixteen, Frank’s family moved to Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington, so that his mother could be enrolled in research studies at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The NINDS was part of the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. His father, who was a prominent astrophysicist, called in all his favors to secure an appointment as the director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum; otherwise, the move wouldn’t have been possible.

Frank did very well at Walt Whitman High School, graduating near the top of his class and earning a full-scholarship to Harvard for his undergraduate education. He was disappointed when he didn’t get into law school at Harvard or Yale. However, he was crushed when he didn’t get into the University of Chicago’s law school, also considered to be one of the best in America. To Frank, Chicago was his home and he really wanted to return to settle there.

He couldn’t complain, though. He was accepted by Georgetown Law, which was still among the best. That turned out to be fortuitous for two major reasons. The first was that he met his wife, Julie, when he developed a case of appendicitis. She was an intern at George Washington University Hospital when he presented to the Emergency Department. Taken by the young man's good looks and sharp wit, she stayed with him as much as she could while he waited to be taken to surgery.

The second was that he was able to intern with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton Administration. When the Secretary went on to become New York’s Attorney General and later the Governor, Frank went with him, serving as a state prosecutor and then an assemblyman. That catapulted Frank into a career in politics.

In the meantime, Frank’s mother passed away, and his father moved to New York, becoming the Director of the Hayden Planetarium and the head of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Frank’s wife was offered a position as an oncology fellow at the world-famous Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, also in New York City.

Then, the assemblyman who’d represented New York's Lower East Side was charged with corruption. After discussing it in depth, the couple decided to take a leap of faith and bought an apartment in the Seward Park Coöperative, on Grand Street. A vacant assembly seat was an opportunity that might not come again.

Thanks to the support he received from the Governor, Frank won the Democratic primary for the seat and went on to win the general election. He served in the Assembly for nearly two decades, fathering and raising Seth along the way. In the meantime, redistricting after the 2020 census scrambled the New York Congressional Delegation. None of the incumbents lived in the new Tenth District, which included all of Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn.

The opportunity to run for a seat in which there was no incumbent was rarity, and Frank didn’t even have to move into the district; he already lived in there. Frank jumped at the chance to run for Congress, but faced stiff competition for the seat. With his years of experience as a cabinet staffer, a prosecutor and a state legislator, Frank Moore was exceptionally qualified. He easily won the Democratic primary and went on to win the general election.

Although only a freshman, Frank Moore quickly established a reputation as an outspoken moderate in the Democratic Party. He voted the party line on key legislation and was supportive of the Biden agenda. However, he didn’t hesitate to voice his opposition to a number of progressive measures he felt went too far.

He soon became a regular fixture on both CNN and MSNBC in addition to being seen as a rising star in the Party. The trip to Israel gave Congressman Moore a chance to broaden his foreign policy experience, delving into the right-wing policies that had deeply divided the citizens of a key ally.

Frank worried that if Netanyahu succeeded in his push to consolidate power, there might never be another truly free, democratic election again. In many ways, the situation reminded him of what was happening in the U.S., and what some feared might portend should there be a second Trump presidency.

The delegation met with a number of cabinet officials and leaders of the opposition. The one thing Frank didn’t hear from either side was a way forward in resolving the Palestinian question. By and large, Israelis were satisfied with the status quo and saw no need for an independent Palestinian state. He imagined it was an attitude similar to that among whites in the segregated South; they saw no need for blacks to have the right to vote.

It was clear to Frank that there were elements within the right-wing Israeli government that were hell-bent on annexing the West Bank and expanding the settlements. It was evident they intended to make life under the occupation even more intolerable – so much so that the Palestinians abandoned their homeland in favor of living in other Arab lands.

The blockade of Gaza had already made life there so miserable that it was often referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison. The crazy thing was that it was widely known that Hamas had acquired ample munitions in spite of the blockade. The only ones affected by the blockade were the ordinary citizens of Gaza, whom Hamas too often used as human shields to protect themselves from Israeli reprisals.

The congressman believed that the whole matter of Palestinian self-determination was being ignored at Israel’s peril. In the meantime, while Israelis were busy fighting each other, they weren’t focusing on the threat from Iran and its regional proxies. Those included Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and to a lesser extent, the Houthi in Yemen. Efforts to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia might help mitigate that, but they could also serve as a trigger for greater conflict in the region.

For the moment, Congressman Moore put all of that out of mind as he enjoyed the festivities around the celebration of Shimini Atzeret. Tomorrow, the bar mitzvah itself would take place. His friend’s son would lead the Shabbat service.

It would be a particularly holy day, as it was Simchat Torah. The torah scrolls would be symbolically rewound to the beginning, symbolizing another year in the endless cycle of life. The service was being held in an historic synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, mere steps from the Western Wall.

He and the other family members and friends of the bar mitzvah boy were staying in the King David Hotel, which was within walking distance but actually located in the New City, just over the pre-1967 border. It was an older hotel but well-maintained, and had been restored to its original elegance. It was a five-star haven in the midst of troubled times.

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Saturday, October 7, 2023

Larry had been going nonstop since he landed in Tel Aviv with hardly a moment for sleep. He and Dr. Silver had spent their entire visit at Kibbutz Be’eri where they’d worked closely with the kibbutz’s music director. They’d arranged and assembled an extensive musical program for the celebration of Shimini Atzeret. It was the final day of the holiday known as Sukkot, the festival of the autumn harvest.

Tomorrow would feature another holiday celebration centered around Simcha Torah, and a Beatles singalong led by Larry. However, there’d be no sleep tonight as Larry had been invited to participate in the SuperNova Music Festival, which was an all-night affair.

Originally planned for another location, it had been moved at the last moment to Kibbutz Re’im, just two miles away. He and the professor arrived two hours early to help set things up. The festival began at midnight and festival-goers continued to arrive throughout the early morning hours. It was a rave in which the music never stopped, but an educational experience as well.

Larry was surprised to learn that SuperNova festivals were international events, with the first being held in Brazil, 23 years earlier. Billed as a trance music festival, it offered a surprising degree of music diversity with a lot of Israeli folk music, alternative rock and pop music thrown in, augmented by the lights, lasers and heart-pounding amplification more typical of a rave.

Attendees indulged liberally in drinking and pot consumption, as well as perhaps the use of other mind-altering substances. Even if Larry had wanted to partake of alcohol or cannabis, there just wasn’t time for it. The festival organizers kept him busy managing the soundboard and controlling the other audiovisual effects. The equipment was state-of-the-art and similar to equipment he’d learned to use a LaGuardia High School.

At times he even had the opportunity to play along with the featured bands. In addition to Astral Projection and Man With No Name, both of which were Israeli bands that were well known outside of Israel, plenty of new talent was featured as well. When the band members discovered that Larry was an accomplished musician, they invited him to jam with them on stage. Larry had a blast… until the moment everything changed.

It began at 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun was starting to make its appearance in the eastern sky. Larry was enjoying the music, playing an accompaniment on keyboard when a loud cacophony of pops was heard in the west.

It sounded like fireworks, but not the usual pop-pop-boom heard at the start of a fireworks show. No, it was like the grand finale of a fireworks extravaganza with a constant barrage of pops and booms. All across the western horizon, streaks of light could be seen ascending into the dark sky. Then there were loud explosions as some of those rockets landed on the festival grounds.

At first Larry didn’t know what was happening. It felt like he’d been dropped right into a battle scene from a movie. His mind couldn’t process the fact that what he was witnessing was real. He stood still as a statue and only when he felt himself being pulled off the stage did he realize someone had been shouting at him for a minute or more.

“We have to get out of here,” one of the band members yelled at Larry. “The Iron Dome isn’t programmed to protect open spaces like this one. It only protects cities, towns and villages. We need to get out of here!” Even then, Larry was having trouble understanding what the young man was saying.

The missile barrage continued.

An explosion nearby finally motivated Larry to move. He let the young man pull him in the direction of a van parked behind the stage. Another two band members joined them as they piled into the van, with Larry in back. They took off toward the nearby kibbutz, when Larry noticed men on motorcycles approaching them. At first he thought they’d come to rescue them, but then one of riders raised a rifle and shot at them directly through the windshield.

The driver, whose name Larry didn’t even know, slumped forward and the van slowed to a stop. Another man on a motorcycle fired an automatic weapon into the passenger side of the van’s front seat. The head of the young man seated there literally exploded, spraying Larry with blood and what was left of his brains. Larry was certain he’d be targeted next, but the windows on the side of the van were painted, and he was less visible in the shadows.

Although still in a panic, Larry had the good sense not to follow his instincts and run. Still, he had no idea what to do. The young man next to him motioned for Larry to lower himself into the space in front of the back seat. Larry did so, not quite understanding why. Then the young band member lay down on top of him, pulling the seat back down over both of them. Only later would Larry realize that he’d lowered the seat back into the cargo position, making the van appear to be empty.

Moments, later, Larry heard the back doors swing open and then what he swore must be Arabic. Someone climbed inside and started rummaging around. Larry was certain that they’d lift the seats and expose his hiding place, but instead he heard laughter. Then there was the distinctive sound of someone pissing. He felt a warm liquid dripping on his face and he smelled the odor of urine. Finally, the voices receded.

All around him, he could hear the constant staccato of gunfire and the screams of people. He knew that Dr. Silver was out there somewhere. However, trying to help her would almost certainly only get him killed. He felt warmth in his groin. Only then did he realize he’d pissed his own pants. He was paralyzed by fear, but it was the fear that kept him alive.

The gunfire continued, accompanied by the terrified screams of the concert attendees.

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Robin didn’t sleep well at all. In addition to sleeping on an air mattress, she was in a strange room in a strange house which made its own noises. She was with a distant cousin she’d never known before. Then there was the constant ticking of the alarm clock.

She wasn’t allowed to wear a watch and had to keep her smartphone turned off, but an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock apparently was fine. Wound and set before sunset, it tick-tocked incessantly all night until going off with the chickens, just as the sky started to lighten.

Not more than a few seconds after her cousin shut off the ringing of the alarm, Robin was suddenly blinded by a bright light. She looked up in time to see her cousin pulling her hand back from under the desk lampshade. Stunned, Robin exclaimed in English, “You turned the light on!” Confused at first, her cousin suddenly realized what Robin was trying to say. So she lifted the lampshade off and showed how she merely slid a knob at the base of the light bulb, uncovering the internal LED elements. The bulb, it seemed, had never been turned off. Robin couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the way the Orthodox got around the limitations imposed by the observance of Shabbat.

Robin had already showered before going to bed. Only one bathroom was available for two adults and three children. While she waited her turn, she proceeded to dress as best she could by the light of the desk lamp. When she finally emerged after brushing her teeth, she headed toward the kitchen. There, she found a breakfast reminiscent of the ones she had at home with the same heavy, dark Russian bread that was the staple of a Russian breakfast.

Spreading a slice with butter, she added a slice of cheese from an assortment on the table. Smoked whitefish, pickled herring and roe eggs accompanied the bread. She was surprised there was coffee but then spotted a coffee maker with a built-in timer. The coffee was strong –more like the Turkish coffee served in the Middle East than what she was used to at home. Even so, she enjoyed having it for breakfast.

It was as they were finishing up with breakfast and getting ready to go to the synagogue that it began. The town was only about twenty miles from the border with Gaza, and even at that distance, the sound of the launch of a barrage of rockets was unmistakable. Moments later, she could hear a popping sound overhead. Simultaneously, loud sirens sounded, warning people to take shelter.

Without even realizing it at first, she felt herself being dragged with the family down a set of stairs into a room under the house. Only when she was seated did she notice the walls of concrete and the steel door through which they’d come – a door that was now closed and bolted behind them. It suddenly dawned on Robin that this was a rocket attack, probably launched by Hamas from Gaza, and that the family had retreated into a dedicated bomb shelter and safe room.

Even inside, she could still hear the constant barrage of rockets being launched from Gaza and the popping noise overhead. It dawned on her that she was hearing the sound of rockets being intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system. Suddenly, there was a loud boom. It was the sound of an explosion of a rocket that had reached the ground. Actually, she realized she felt more than heard these sounds.

Robin couldn’t imagine how these people lived with this sort of thing on a daily basis. She couldn’t know that they didn’t. She couldn’t know that this was a rocket attack unlike any Israel had experienced before. She couldn’t know that at that moment, Hamas terrorists were infiltrating the Negev, deep into Israeli territory, and she was right in the middle of it all.

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Congressman Moore was just stepping out of the shower when he heard the sirens go off. Knowing that rocket attacks were not uncommon, he didn’t give it much thought at first. He had absolute faith that the Iron Dome would intercept any errant rockets headed his way. Besides which, the hotel was built to withstand a direct hit from a missile with only minimal damage.

Attacks on Jerusalem were extremely rare in any case. It was a simple fact that as imprecise as the rockets were, there was no way to target Israelis without the possibility of striking Palestinians instead. In Jerusalem, the much greater danger was from suicide bombers than rocket attacks.

When the sirens didn’t stop, he became curious but still didn’t think there was any imminent danger. He continued to dress and get ready for the bar mitzvah. He took his time to get dressed in his best formal wear.

When the sirens continued to sound, he checked the usual news sites on his phone, but there was nothing posted on what might be happening in Israel. He flipped on the TV, but the commentators seemed to be as uninformed as he was.

Had the congressman installed the security app that all Israeli citizens relied on, he’d have at least been notified about the rocket attack. Even so, the Israeli security forces were in the dark with respect to the extent of the attack. Nor were they aware that Hamas had breached the Gaza security fence and was operating deep within Israeli territory.

Checking himself in the mirror and satisfied that nothing was out of place, the congressman headed to the elevators and down to the conference floor. There, an elaborate brunch was being held in the bar mitzvah boy’s honor. People were milling about and serving themselves from the ample buffet line.

Spotting his friend and donor, he headed up to the man and said, “Saul, congratulations. It’s hard to believe your son is now a teenager!”

“Don’t remind me,” his friend answered. “I’ve heard it’s all downhill from here.”

“He’s a great kid, and if he’s anything like my Seth, you don’t have much to worry about.”

“Yeah, but Seth turned out gay.”

Trying not to wince, Frank More responded, “Yes, and I love his husband as if he were my own. Seth has made me proud. He never got into drugs, he went to Stuyvesant, and now he’s a junior at Columbia. What more could I ask for?”

“I know that,” Sol replied. “It’s just that I’m not really prepared to deal with having a gay son – not that my Joseph has shown an interest, either way.”

“Chances are that he’s straight; it’s not like he has any say in the matter, nor do you.”

“Yeah, I know that, but we all have thoughts about what we want for our children. You can’t tell me that your thoughts included having a gay son.”

Sighing, Frank Moore replied, “Truthfully, it never even entered my mind. It turns out my own father’s gay. I think that somehow, I knew that, even in my childhood. Likewise, I knew Seth was gay even before he did.”

“More power to you, Frank,” Saul responded. “Of course I’ll accept and support Joey if he’s gay, but it would take some getting used to.”

After a brief pause, the congressman asked, “By the way, do you know what’s going on with the sirens?”

“There’s nothing much in the news media,” Saul answered. “Not even in the Israeli media. The emergency notification on my phone says there’s a rocket attack underway from Gaza, but those usually only last a few minutes. Hamas lobs some rockets at us and we lob ten times more back at them.”

“By which time, Hamas has already retreated into their reported tunnel network, so it’s the innocent civilians who take the brunt of Israel’s retribution,” the congressman observed.

“So what’s Israel supposed to do?” Saul asked. “Do nothing? We can’t help it that Hamas uses their own people as human shields. Maybe if we hurt enough children, the Gazans will get rid of Hamas and elect a legitimate government.”

“That’s a pretty callous attitude, Sol.”

“So is using children as human shields,” came Saul’s retort.

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Larry lost track of the time as he lay still in the concert van at the SuperNova festival. He was hot and soaked in urine and sweat. His attempts to talk to the band member who’d saved him went unanswered. Larry tried shaking him and even pinching him but observed no reactions; he didn’t even flinch. Finally, he checked for a pulse in his neck and found nothing.

There was no light in the recess they shared, so Larry felt around and eventually realized there was a hole in the guy’s chest. One of the bullets that had been fired at the driver must have passed through and struck the guy lying on top of him. Not only was Larry trapped in a van with continuing gunfire all around him, but he was trapped under a corpse.

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Robin, too, lost track of the time. The safe room wasn’t designed for more than short-term use. They’d already been trapped inside for at least an hour. Probably even longer. It didn’t help that it was Shabbat. The room was only illuminated by a single dim emergency light.

She really needed to piss and if there was a toilet, she couldn’t find it in semi-darkness. But the sirens continued their stressful wail, and the sound of rockets reverberated through the streets. The occasional explosions were becoming more frequent as the Iron Dome was pushed beyond its limits.

And then came the sound of automatic weapons fire.

Robin couldn’t stand being in the dark any longer. She got up and searched the walls until she found what she knew must be there. Next to the doorway was a light switch. Flipping it on, the room was suddenly illuminated in bright light. There were gasps from everyone else.

“You can’t defend against what you can’t see,” Robin exclaimed, even though she knew the others didn’t speak English. “This is war. War doesn’t break for Shabbat.”

“You are right,” the father responded in halting English. “The great rabbis debated the exceptions to Shabbat in the Talmud. It is considered a mitzvah to break Shabbat to save a life. That is especially true in times of war.” So he did speak English.

The father then went on to speak to the family in Russian, most likely explaining the same thing. In the meantime, Robin found a small door and gratefully used the toilet inside. She wasn’t about to piss herself if they were attacked.

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Congressman Moore grew increasingly concerned as the sirens continued unabated. The incessant wailing already had been going on for close to two hours, yet there still was little information in the Israeli media. A handful of booms even were heard overhead, suggesting that some rockets had been aimed at Jerusalem and intercepted by Iron Dome.

He downloaded and installed the English-language version of the Haaretz app which provided live reports. Haaretz, pronounced Ha-aretz, literally meant, ‘The Land’. It was the preeminent Israeli daily newspaper. The lack of information was shocking.

Initial reports told of a single casualty and scores of wounded from the rocket attacks. It was hard to believe that so few had been affected in the midst of the continuing bombardment. However, first-hand accounts were beginning to emerge on social media. Coming from the kibbutzim and towns near the border, they told a vastly different story.

Hamas had mounted a full-scale attack from Gaza, breaching the border fence in numerous locations and attacking the kibbutzim nearby. There were reports of massacres and of abductions and of sexual assault. There were multiple reports of a savage attack on the SuperNova music festival, near Re’im.

Wasn’t Larry Sanders staying in a kibbutz near the border with Gaza? Wasn’t he supposed to attend the music festival? Wasn’t the Arens family attending a bar mitzvah in a town near the border? The more he thought about it, the more the congressman became concerned.

Finally, the IDF acknowledged that Hamas militants had breached the border security fence and that a full-scale defense mobilization was underway. All reservists were ordered to report immediately. Civilians were encouraged to volunteer to help where they could. There was an urgent need for blood. Those living near Gaza were urged to carry guns if they had them. They were told not to hesitate to use them.

A large television was brought into the conference room and tuned to CNN International, which broadcast continuous updates on the situation as it unfolded. The military commander of Hamas, Mohamed Al-Deif, released a pre-recorded message that operation Al-Aqsa Storm had begun. He claimed 5000 rockets had been fired into Israel. Jesus.

In the meantime, the father of the bar mitzvah boy made an announcement:

My friends, this isn’t exactly the bar mitzvah we’d planned for my Joseph. It was my dream that my son would be bar mitzvahed in the old city of Jerusalem. It was my dream that it be within sight of the Western Wall. What could be more holy than to be bar mitzvahed on Shmini Atzeret and Simcha Torah? It’s not often that a boy turns thirteen on Sukkot. It’s not often that the holidays happen to occur on Shabbat. We thought we were truly blessed.

Israel was experiencing a period of unprecedented peace. The Iron Dome kept us safe, and so we became complacent. It seemed we were even on the verge of establishing full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. We all wanted to believe that Israel’s history of violence was behind it. We wanted to believe that the path forward was clear. We should have known better. The enemies of peace had other plans.

Although the attack seems to have been limited to Gaza, there is no guarantee that elements in the West Bank won’t join in. Sadly, it isn’t safe to hold a bar mitzvah in the old Jewish Quarter. We’ve been told we must not proceed there. After discussing it with the rabbi and the hotel, we’ve settled on a plan to hold it here. The hotel already has the facilities to hold a Shabbat service, including an Ark and Torah scrolls.

We’ll still have a dinner after the bar mitzvah. My son will give his prepared remarks. However, it would be inappropriate to hold the festivities we had planned. Besides, I’m sure you’ll want to keep abreast of the news. As things stand now, Ben Gurion is still open. Our charter flight back to New York will leave in the morning as planned. I suggested we leave earlier, but that’s not possible.

If you’ll indulge us so that the hotel can get things set up, Joey’s bar mitzvah will begin in the room next door at 11:00. In the meantime, please feel free to grab another cup of coffee or nosh on some of the excellent food the hotel prepared for us. Take a moment to kibitz with each other, and while you’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to pray for Eretz Yisrael.

Recognizing that he had a responsibility to his country, Congressman Moore approached his friend and excused himself, explaining the need to call Washington. Ordinarily, Frank would’ve tried to contact the Speaker first, but there was no speaker. Indeed, Congress was in recess. Instead, he tried contacting the office of the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, but it was still very early and Congressman Jeffries couldn’t be reached.