‘Everything you’re feeling is normal,” I’ve found myself reassuring people recently. Or maybe I’m trying to reassure myself.
But what can be considered normal? It’s not the normal order of things for parents to bury their children, yet last week when Captain Kfir Yitzchak Franco, a platoon commander in the Armored Corps, fell in Gaza, I rushed to his home. The next day, I was present as his parents, maternal grandparents, and two sisters parted from him at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery.
It was not natural that his fiancee, Naama, should abandon their wedding plans and eulogize him and their powerful love. It was extraordinary that there, by the grave, she should pledge that she would nonetheless “one day raise a family in Israel,” a tribute to Kfir’s strong Zionism as much as her own courage.
Kfir was – will always be – the son of my friends, Muriel and Haim; the child from across the road who played with marbles, toy cars, and plastic soldiers together with my son on my living-room floor. I watched him grow from a cute kid into an officer and a gentleman. As is customary in the IDF, he was promoted posthumously. How I wish he could have remained a lieutenant for longer, rather than remaining forever 22 years and one week old.
Hundreds of people lined the street holding flags and singing “Am Yisrael Chai” as the family made their way from their home to the cemetery. “Am Yisrael Chai!,” his father shouted. The People of Israel lives! The echo reached the heavens and will forever reverberate in Jerusalem’s hills and beyond.
Thousands came to pay their last respects at Mount Herzl, those who knew Kfir in his too-brief lifetime, and those who only heard of him after his death – a brave soldier who suddenly became the son of all of us.
It was surreal – not normal – to lean on my reservist son at the funeral and to watch him the next day pick up his gun after a brief shiva visit and head back to his own unit. Kfir’s grave is located close to that of the much-loved Rabbi Naaran Eshchar, from my son’s yeshiva. The 33-year-old father donated a kidney in the summer, and his family donated more organs after he was killed in the line of duty last month.
Nothing is normal. Nothing is as it should be.
When unusually heavy rains fell in Israel at the beginning of the week, the talk was not of climate change: Radio and TV programs dedicated time to analyzing what it means for the troops who have to deal with mud and reduced visibility. The weather added to our collective worries for soldiers and the hostages being held in Gaza.
“I can’t sleep worrying about the fate of 240 people I’ve never met,” friends declared on Facebook, expressing the common fear for the captives being held by Hamas.
“Last night, I finally slept eight hours,” shared the mother of a soldier. “It only took me four nights.” You have to laugh. And you have to cry.
It’s normal to burst into tears now and again, I tell myself and others. This week I cried listening to a radio news show host who was weeping as she interviewed a bereaved relative. There are so many people to cry for. Some 1,200 were murdered in the Hamas mega-atrocity on October 7 and around 240 kidnapped. Close to 70 soldiers have fallen since Operation Swords of Iron began.
Each of their stories deserves to be told; each of their names should be remembered.
And then there are the tales of exceptional bravery – the soldiers, police officers, security squads, and ordinary citizens who risked their lives to save others on that terrible Saturday. Who can fail to be impressed by Police Supt. Shifra Buchris, the mother of 10, who rescued Supernova party-goers under heavy terrorist fire?
Kan 11 this week broadcast a program on the Magen David Adom milk bank. Dozens of women across the country are donating “white gold” to babies without mothers. Some are orphaned. In one case, an IAF navigator relies on the milk bank to feed her nine-month-old son while she spends days and nights in active service.
The wave of volunteerism is truly remarkable. There are too many initiatives to list here. They range from barbers giving soldiers haircuts on the frontlines; the volunteer agricultural workers; the girls offering free babysitting services; the animal rescuers and pet foster homes and dog-walkers. As we left Mount Herzl last week, we encountered a young woman and her friends giving out free candies, cookies, and sandwiches – all of which had been donated. “It’s the least I can do,” she explained.
Anyone who finds a niche, a need, fills it.
Zeh lo normali! It’s not normal. And yet it is.
News of the hostage deal this week is likely to lead to more tears. Tears of joy, tears of fear, tears of pain. As I write these lines, it’s not yet known who is included in the first stage of the release. Nor what price will have to be paid further down the line. It’s a deal with the devil. Hamas has proven to be satanic. In a continuation of its excruciating psychological warfare, the terrorist organization intends to announce the names of those to be freed, concentrating on children, only hours before their release. It’s not known whether siblings will be returned together. It’s not even known who is alive and who is dead.
Although some world leaders have offered Israel their support and backing, the international bodies that should be dealing with the humanitarian crisis remain shockingly silent. When World Children’s Day was marked on Monday, Israeli protesters renamed it “World Non-Jewish Children’s Day.” The UN, Amnesty International, and other organizations professing to deal with human rights barely acknowledged the Israeli children – the abducted, the wounded, the orphaned, and the dead. Decapitated babies? Babies burned to death? They don’t count if they live on a kibbutz, on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.
International media focused on the plight of the Gazan children – turning them into victims of Israeli aggression, as if the situation had nothing to do with Hamas hostilities and its human-shield tactics.
In return for the innocent children grabbed from their homes that Saturday morning – some still wearing pajamas, at least one in diapers – Hamas is demanding the release of women and teenage terrorists from Israeli jails.
The world might be carrying on as if nothing is out of the ordinary, but it is fooling itself – when jihadists declare war on the Jewish state, the Sunday people are next in line. Antisemitism has become so normal that people don’t even necessarily recognize it. The pro-Palestinian rallies in major cities – supporting an ISIS-like terrorist organization – have become the norm. The bullying of Jewish students on university campuses and attacks on Jews on the streets, these have been blamed on the Jews themselves, or at least on the Jewish state. What were the victims wearing, after all: kippot and Stars of David. And, as many local activists have noted, the #MeToo hashtag could be replaced by #MeToo_UNless_UR_a_Jew. The rape, mutilation, and slaughter of women in Israel somehow didn’t drive international women’s organizations to speak out, let alone cry out.
This week, i recalled talking to Kfir during the 2014 Gaza war, a few months ahead of his bar mitzvah. “How are you doing?” I asked. And he answered with his characteristic honesty: “The sound of the sirens scares me.”
“It’s normal,” I assured him. “Sirens are meant to scare you into action. It’s fight-or-flight syndrome. The noise makes you seek shelter and that saves lives.”
It’s not normal that that should be among my memories. It’s not normal that although his childhood was a happy one, it included so many wars and waves of terror. It’s not normal that he grew up knowing that one day, he too would have to fight to protect the country and people he loved so much. As a young adult, when he chose fight over flight – a meaningful military service – it was natural.
It is normal to worry about all those serving, all those displaced by the war, all those suffering.
Something changed for all of us who heard the sirens on October 7, and watched the news without being able to comprehend what we were seeing. It’s still unfathomable. But one day, our lives will go back to being normal. And that will be our victory.
liat@jpost.com