Paragliding into the Superbowl like...
Good morning from an uncharacteristically rainy day in Tel Aviv. There’s a famous Israeli song that says that in London, despair is more comfortable. That’s who I feel today about being back home, it’s sad and gloomy here, but it’s the only kind of sad and gloomy I am capable of at the moment.
As I write, the names of 21 IDF soldiers who were killed in Gaza last night after a building they were operating in collapsed are being published. What seems like a routine headline in wartime is a complete tragedy for every single Israeli. Our soldiers are our sons, fathers, brothers and friends. Each one is a life and a light, and each one of us is only 1-2 degrees of seperation from death at any given time.
These 21 boys were Jewish, Christian and Muslim, religious and secular, black and white, Ethiopian and Russian, left wing and right wing. Young bachelors and new fathers. Some were settlers, others hippies. One was a Filipino kid who came to Israel to work with his mother and decided he wanted to serve and give back to Israel, his country. You can read their stories here.
May their memory be a blessing.
In this week’s this solo pod, we occupy familiar and new territories:
Being sick at home
Nancy Rommelmann reporting from Israel! Follow her on substack
and of course her fantastic podcast with Sarah Hepola . Nancy is on Twitter as well.We are brothers?
Hostages forever
The Russian roulette that is Jerusalem bus travel
Chaya Leah guarding trash cans
A funny story about false teeth (is there a story about false teeth that isn't funny?)
A tribute to Chaya Leah's beautiful aunt Anna Firszt, may her memory be a blessing. Here she is with her brother and Ask A Jew’s Chief Rabbi:
Would you gain or lose weight in a Shiva?
A very Israel soccer game - listen to the screams in Hebrew and Arabic. They all agree that the ref is a son of a …
What is a Ballerina Farm?
Holocaust poetry
Reagan Airport gets "Community Noted"
The Rebbe demands....
Film recommendation: Maktub.
A beautiful viral story in Israel, translated by
on his excellent .
Zvika Gringlik hit a car. He exchanged details with the owner of the car and he said to the owner of the car: “No problem, I'm to blame, I wasn't okay and we'll fix what you need in the car.” They arranged to meet together at the garage on Wednesday.
On Wednesday she arrives at the garage and Zvika Greenlick does not come. She tries to call him and he does not answer his phone. He disappears, as if the earth swallowed him. Thursday the woman sends him a message: “I'm really disappointed, your behavior is not nice, we arranged for Wednesday and you didn't come.”
He sees the message and immediately sends her a message back: “I'm very sorry, on Tuesday my son Shaul was killed in Gaza, so I couldn't come.”
The woman immediately apologized. She herself had been at the funeral but she did not make the connection that he was Shaul's father. That same day, she arrived at the shiva home and comforted the family. During the shiva, Zvika told her: ‘When the shiva is over, I will transfer the amount of the repair to you.” She told him: “Don’t worry about it, I don't want the money.”
At the first opportunity he had, he transferred NIS 2,000 to her via Bit [DG – Israel’s “Venmo”] She sent him a message that made him weep: “There is no need. The owner of the garage heard that the person who hit the car was the father of a soldier who fell in Gaza, so he fixed the car without taking money.”
This is the true story of the people of Israel” -Uri Shechter
In the photo: Zvika Gringlick on the grave of his late son Shauli, z’l
Love the podcast between just the two Jews. I just want to say that as a Jewish woman, living in the most Evangelical town in America, I do think of all Jews as my brothers and sisters: the orthodox, the secular, those that are fully Jewish and those that are
Jew-ish, all the groups. But, as a Russian immigrant, and I have been in America since I was 5, this is what I was taught. I hold this true even though I think very differently from most American Jews. They are just my kookie and weirdo brothers and sisters😜😂. Now, if I lived in Israel maybe I would feel more animosity towards other Jewish groups. What do Russian escapees in Israel think???