Day 5

Day 511thOctober 2023 It seems liketime has stood still. Can it really be 5 days since that morning, when thewhite-faced news reader had to break the news to all of us? Are we really goingabout our daily business, albeit in a cloud of disbelief? The answer is yes,and I took a photograph of the sunrise over Jerusalem this morning as if toprove to myself that the sun actually rose despite it all.Yesterday,after seeing our senior newswoman, Geula Saar, wife of Member of Knesset GidonSaar, burst into tears while interviewing a father who had lost his wife andchildren, hostages in Gaza, I made the decision that sitting at home, watchingthe television 24/7 is not healthy and I headed off to the local bakery, justbecause. Actually, most of all I needed to see normal people going about normalactivities to reassure me that we will somehow come through this.While I was out,I received a WhatsApp from my women friends in my Music Movement group, righthere in our area. Should we meet? Would it be appropriate? How can we dancewhen our world has fallen apart? We did, six of us met in our community hall,having first checked that it has a safe room, and the relief of seeing eachother, of hugging each other, of personal contact, was tangible. At first, wejust sat in a circle, each of us quietly expressing our emotions and our fears,then our teacher put on some gentle music and just said the words “When you areready, just stand up and see what your body tells you to do” We did. Slowly thegentle music took over and as we moved, we held out our hands to each other,finally even smiling to each other, finally releasing all the pent-up tensions,losing our sense of guilt at leaving that TV screen for a couple of hours. We huggedas we left each other, deeply grateful for our unity, our ability to ease ourpain through the music.Volunteers aretaking on the saddest of tasks, Zaka in identifying bodies, young and oldhelping to dig graves for the fallen, ordinary folk collecting food parcels forsoldiers and residents of the South alike, collecting clothing and utensils forthose who lost everything and have no home to return to, paramedics to relievethe medical staff in Soroka and Barzilay hospitals, children collecting toysfor the children who left them all behind in their burning homes. We are not apeople that is capable of sitting back and keening in our chairs, we are apeople of action, Jew, Moslem and Christian as one.The politicalchaos that contributed to our current situation continues despite the bestefforts of General Benny Gantz who could bring enormous expertise to anyemergency cabinet, war cabinet, together with his colleague General Gadi Eizenkot,both former Chiefs of Staff, but politics, dirty narcissistic politics haveprevented the formation of a relevant, logical government to deal with anational emergency. I have no words, none whatsoever.Dear friends,I find it hard to express the level of our gratitude for your concern, youroutpourings of love for Israel, your understanding that we, Israel, are thefront line but we are in this together. Every line of comfort that you writewarms my heart. To those of you who wrote asking to whom to send donations, Ihave written to you personally, each of us must choose according to his or herchoice. I will try my best to help.This is mycountry, this is our country, we can never abandon her, we must not show ourfear nor can we bend to the insane cruelty of our enemies. After all, Ain liEretz Acheret- I have no other country. https://youtu.be/pyFK0m-OGNo?si=cUTuIQZCmj44IPNnWith much lovefrom Jerusalem, Sheila -- If the media does not inform us we must inform the mediaMy Website http://www.theviewfrommyveranda.info/Facebook      Sheila Silver Raviv Involvement   http://www.impact-se.org/