Photo credit: Basia Monka
Basia Monka – The Rain Scarier than Iran
As many Olim Hadashim, I am being asked constantly the same set of questions: “Are you happy in Israel?”, “Will you stay here forever (…happy ever after)?”, “Was your first homeland better or worst (like: “who do you love more: mummy or daddy?”), and so on… But the question we often ask each other is: “do you feel Israeli?”
Last week, I was visiting Poland for few days, the week when the whole world was afraid of The Third World War (thank you the UK for Meghan and Harry, at least this week there is a new world problem). My friends in Warsaw were asking if I am not afraid to go back to Tel Aviv, afraid of Iran. ‘Has veshalom’ (God forbid), don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to provoke the fate, but no, I was not afraid of Iran, like many Israelis, I was afraid of the rain!!!
I was reading my friends’ social media reports about no electricity in many neighborhoods; I was concerned if my flat is not flooded, again. And if I will have to call my landlord, and she will not have to come with the silicon to solve the problem… Yes, if you ever lived or will live in Israel, you should know that silicon has nothing to do with the Silicon Valley nor with beauty corrections, but with the solutions of all the problems in Tel Aviv apartments.
If everyone was afraid of the bombing, I thought, I was hoping for the comfortable empty plane. But no, Polish tourists got their tickets, and they were not going to resign from sightseeing Israel, even in the forecasted rains, and Israelis were coming back from the shopping break in Warsaw with new clothes and cosmetics, or from the graves Tzadikim in Poland. To my disappointment, the plane was almost full.
Ten minutes before landing in Tel Aviv there were announced and certainly experienced by passengers, strong turbulences. There was a storm, lightings outside the window. Yes, at that moment I was afraid. Of the storm, of course. I was holding on strong to my seat, I looked at two ultra-orthodox men on the other side of the alley, and I said in Hebrew: “now, pray for all of us!” I am a woman, so they didn’t react to my words. But I hope they heard me, or included us all in their prayers without my request, anyways. We safely landed. We clapped for the pilot – both Israelis and Poles do that.
The next day, at the Shabbat table, somehow from Iran and the rain conversations went back to the war of 2014, when one evening my pasta was not ‘al dente’ due to Hamas! How did they dare?! There was a siren while I was cooking! Another memory, that summer, when all neighbors were meeting regularly on the stairways (not every building has a shelter, and we have 90 seconds to hide here), we had to make sure to wear nice pajamas. It was not funny back then to me, but now we were all laughing. Also from the recent events, a couple of months ago, when the siren over Tel Aviv woke me up at 6 AM, and I thought his is a really weird hour to make a siren test and went back to sleep… Only a few hours later, when I read messages “if I am safe and OK”, I realized the siren or few of them, were for real. For the rest of the day, yes I was afraid.
When last week, my Warsaw University colleague asked me if I think there will be a war if this is serious this time, and if she and her son should come for the school break to Israel, “Because this is a problem for her”… I answered: “I don’t know. This is a problem for me, too.” As it is, for any Israeli. But ‘b’emet’, we can be scared and laugh about it at the same time. As in the case of the rain, we cannot. Rain in Tel Aviv, the rain we pray for, as this is a blessing for the Land, but for an individual – it is often scarier than Iran. And that makes me feel, I am an Israeli.
