Praying for Peace Under Exploding Missiles
Ayala Emmett

Two Lemons and an Orange
On Thursday July 10, I skype with my brother in Israel and he tells me about his day. In the morning he went to the produce store where he has been buying fruit and vegetables. The owner was not there but his son, a young man in his late teens, was in charge. The radio was blaring the latest news, “President Barak Obama is calling on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, to show restraint.”

From thousands of miles away, in Kiryat Motzkin a town 15 kilometers from Haifa, the young man was raising a fist at the American president. Ignoring the customers, he started yelling and blasting President Obama.

My brother, while choosing produce, said to him that he sounded very angry with Barak Obama. Yes, said the young man, he was furious at the American president’s request for restraint. “What restraint? What if the missiles landed here? Right here in Kiryat Motzkin? That could happen at any moment. Then what could I do?”

My brother said that if indeed that would happen, he could do something. The young man looked incredulous. “What could I do?”

“You could do quite a lot. You are young and fast on your feet and you could run out and help the elderly get to a shelter; there are quite a few older people in our neighborhood and they have a hard time getting to the shelter; you could guide and help them get there quickly and safely.”

The young man thought for minute and said: “You know, I have never looked at it this way. Yes, when the sirens begin, I could do that, it’s just that I have never thought about it like that.”

Seizing the moment, my brother said: “And you know you could do something else. You have a produce store and at the end of day you have fruit that you have to get rid of, but it’s still edible. So you know that an elderly woman has a hard time even getting out of her apartment, you can go over there and give her two lemons and an orange and she would be so grateful.”

Not everyone in Gaza is Hamas
A day later on Friday July 11, my sister who lives near Tel Aviv sends a joint e-mail to my brother and myself letting us know that she slept in her clothes in case they would have had to go to the shelter, but they slept well, no sirens. Under ‘Subject’ of her e-mail she wrote: “Islands of faint hope” with a link to an article, “When the Rockets Whistle the Phone Rings” by Revital Blumenfeld.

Blumenfeld writes that under the barrage of missiles it turns out there is someone to talk to on the other side. An Israeli Jewish woman Roni and her friend Mahah a Palestinian woman in Gaza keep in touch. The women on both sides of the border talk to each other by phone three times a day. Roni lives on a farm a hundred meters away from the border with Gaza. Despite the clashes and the fear of missiles Roni has empathy for suffering on the other side. On the phone the two women discuss tactics of how to stay alive, yet Roni acknowledges that their situations are also different. While she has a shelter in her house, Mahah does not, and as Mahah tells her, at every Israeli attack she asks herself if that would be the end of her, “Will I die this time around, or not.”

Mahah had this to say: ”Not everyone in Gaza is Hamas…there are ordinary people here who want to live like citizens, we live here day-by-day not knowing what will happen tomorrow, or if there will be a tomorrow. We must bring change, because violence just brings violence. Many of my neighbors feel the same way.”

Roni says that she is in a conundrum: “In the last few days I am experiencing an inner struggle…because after all they are shooting at us. In the end I try to comfort myself that violence is not the answer.”

Pleading With God
On Saturday July 12, my brother sends me e-mail with an attachment: “I am sending you this article because it touched my heart.”

The article in Ha’aretz, is by Sayed Kashua, “God of Mine, I just want You to Know: I found my safety zone in Chicago, and while waiting for the plane the only thing left for me to do is to offer a prayer.” Kashua pleads with God, praying for the first time, beseeching God, that there would be no more killing:

“Make the Jews think of the children in Gaza who are under real missiles, fast planes, please God make Israel understand that Gaza is filled with people without hope, whose lives there cannot be considered life at all”

“I am asking you God to make the Palestinians in Gaza stop shooting missiles, that under the leadership of Hamas it would give up empty victory slogans, that they would begin their struggle in another way. I know that the current strategy would not be useful; it was tried in the West Bank and the result was always the opposite.”

“Please God make both sides understand that the language of force is the wrong one…Please make the voices of those who support justice, equality and peace, be heard here…God, Make peace here between Jews and Arabs. That children around the world will hear no more the sound of weapons, that children will know only joy, amusement parks instead of emergency rooms, and toys instead of guns. Please God, I have no one else to turn to, I am asking you to protect my children and all the children in the world.”

A Yiddish Song
On Shabbat July 12, in a Torah study session at a friends’ house in Rochester N.Y., Avram Mlotek shares/sings/teaches Yiddish Hassidic Songs. One of the songs is a song that fits this heartbreaking, ongoing, senseless Israeli Palestinian conflict/war.

The Yiddish song, translated by Mlotek, is titled, Volt Ikh Gehat Koyekh—If Only I Had Strength.

Volt Ikh Gehat Koyekh

If only I had strength
I would run through the streets
I would cry out peace
Peace, Peace, Peace

All Translations from the Hebrew by Ayala Emmett