13th February, 2026
Shabbat Shalom to each and every one and Ramadan Mubarak for
Tuesday. I hope someone has ignored the fact that St Valentine was an
antisemite and has chosen to be romantic! Friday 13th doesn’t worry
me, 13 is good luck in Judaism.
This week I had intended to give you the usual news rundown, but
apart from a very few worthy items I have a story to tell a story that is more
important than the most gripping of news.
First and foremost, on Monday, I drove to Herzliya
Pituach for a truly uplifting meeting of the Israel British and Commonwealth
Association, led by the Chairperson, Melvin Berwald. Dan Kosky, an
indispensable part of the IMPACT-se team since his Aliya, spoke with clarity
and conviction about our work and the measurable progress being made in
advancing tolerance in education across our region, with a few notable
exceptions.
At the insistence of the Prime Minister’s Office, the
word “massacre” has been excised from the title of a bill establishing an
annual commemoration of the 7 October Hamas attack. Bereaved families are
incandescent. They accuse the Netanyahu government of attempting to launder
language in order to blunt the truth — and, with it, responsibility. Equally,
the terrible situation of crime and killings in the Arab sector has been
exacerbated by two simultaneous situations. Ben Gvir has repealed the committee
of Israeli Arabs to prevent crime and criminals and terrorists have infiltrated
from the disputed areas.
King's College London, the famous College of the
University of London, showed a screening of the bearing witness to the October
the 7th Massacre, the first time it has been shown to a public audience.
I had planned to reflect on the unpredictable and often disconcerting
reality of our current situation and why the Prime Minister has returned yet
again for a meeting with the President of the United States, presumably to
discuss the impending attacks by the Ayatollahs and why the visit our
President, President Herzog to Australia, to stand by the families of
Australians who were killed in an attack on Australian soil, is considered, by
some, as controversial. Instead, I want
to tell you a very Israeli story.
At the centre of our estate stands a remarkable building, once
the convalescent home for members of Israel’s only union in the early years of
the state. It is clad with Jerusalem stone, its architecture inspired by the
White House. When we first moved here, we were told it would one day become a
community centre. For years it stood beautiful but empty, as though waiting for
its true purpose. Now it has found its calling as a Wellness Centre for those
living with the physical and psychological aftershocks of the 7th of
October 2023. In truth, almost everyone in Israel carries the sadness of that
day, but for Nova survivors, for those who ran for their lives that morning,
and for soldiers who saw what no human being should ever see and returned from
Gaza, the trauma does not sit lightly. It burrows deep. It alters the air they
breathe. It threatens the soul itself.
On Wednesday morning my dear friend and neighbour Gila
invited me for coffee at the new café that has opened inside the centre, just
two minutes’ walk from our home. As we sat talking, the young barman drew my
attention. There was something about him, as though he were fully present and
yet carrying an enormous weight just beneath the surface. He had a soft face,
long hair tied back in a ponytail. His tzitzit (ritual fringes on the corners
of men’s undershirts) were visible beneath his sweatshirt, yet he wore no
kippah which somehow felt deliberate, and it drew me to ask who he was and what
had brought him here.
The centre and café, he told us, were the brainchild of himself,
his sister Haya and their friend Snir. His name is Yisrael.
When I asked about the name “Café Moreshet”,
moreshet means heritage, and what had led them to create a Wellness Centre, and
what his connection was to 7 October, he did not hesitate. He didn’t dramatise
or embellish his story, he spoke with the quiet urgency of someone who has been
holding his breath for too long and can no longer do so. We listened without
interruption, allowing his pauses to linger, understanding that the spaces
between his words were as heavy as the words themselves.
He and several friends had been among the organisers of the Nova
Festival. Everything had been done properly, police permission, IDF
coordination, local authority approval. They prepared and cared for the site on
Thursday and Friday; another company was due to take over on Friday night.
Exhausted, they went to sleep intending to rise at 6:00 am to oversee the
handover. For reasons none of them can explain, they overslept.
At 06:29, 3,700 missiles were launched at Israel.
Thousands of terrorists broke through the fence between Gaza and the small
communities killing, burning and raping and began the slaughter at the Nova
Peace Festival. Yisrael had slept through the worst disaster Israel had ever
known. When he repeated the time, six twenty-nine, his voice changed. He said
it quietly, as though it were engraved somewhere inside him. He, Snir and Haya
lost many friends that morning. He did not recite their names, but their
absence was palpable, filling the air around us. “I keep thinking,” he said
softly, “if we had been there…” The sentence trailed away, he didn’t need to
finish it. The implication that perhaps they might have done something, changed
something, saved someone hung in the air like a heavy weight.
The survivor’s guilt was not abstract; it was crushing. He returned
home and shut himself in his room, barely emerging for a year. PTSD did not
come as shouting or visible breakdown; it came as numbness, paralysis, an
endless replaying of a morning he had not witnessed yet could not escape. He
searched obsessively for a moment that might have altered the course of events,
a different instinct, a different choice. There was no self-pity in his telling
and no attempt to excuse himself. There was only a pain so clear that all we
could do was bear witness to it.
Slowly, he said, an idea began to take shape. If he could not undo
that day, perhaps he could help others survive what followed it. The Wellness
Centre was not conceived as a business venture; it was born of necessity. He
needed somewhere to go, a reason to leave his room, a structure that demanded
his presence when he felt least capable of giving it. Together with Haya and
Snir he searched for a space, and when the local council suggested the old
convalescent home, they walked through its doors and knew. The light filtering
through the windows, the quiet dignity of the building, its history as a place
of healing felt almost providential. Their father has guaranteed the funding
for the first year, an act of profound faith in his children and in their
fragile but determined vision. After that they are on their own, sustained only
by commitment, courage and the conviction that this place must exist.
Today the centre offers therapy sessions, workshops, breathing
groups, conversation and coffee. But what it truly offers is something far
rarer: permission. Permission to say, “I am not coping.” Permission to speak of
what haunts the night. Permission to sit across from someone who will not
flinch. Yisrael tells his story because silence almost destroyed him, and with
each telling the weight shifts, if only slightly. Each person who walks through
those Jerusalem stone doors seeking help becomes part of his own fragile
healing.
Before we left, I asked him about the tzitzit and the absence of a
kippah. He gave a wry, almost shy smile. The tzitzit, he said, are his way of
thanking the Almighty for being alive; the absence of the kippah is because the
Nova massacre happened and he lost so many friends. In that simple explanation
lay gratitude and rupture intertwined, faith expressed, faith wounded. And in
that moment, we realised that the building at the centre of our estate is doing
exactly what it was always meant to do: accepting pain and bringing hope within
its walls, and allowing broken hearts, slowly and imperfectly, to mend.
The story is so Israeli, although not exclusively so. There are people
around the world who fought in many wars and suffer the emotional consequences
but here, army veterans with PTSD do not beg for food on the streets, they are
our heroes and although some slip through the net, they are few. We treasure
them, we do everything in our power to give them succour.
Yisrael, Haya and Snir took their immeasurable pain and turned it
into a place of healing. That is their story and that is Israel’s story. I see
soldiers without limbs running in international sports through the care of
rehabilitation and now they also have a place for their emotional rehabilitation
through gentle love.
A change of mood and direction!
Did you know that Israel has a bob-sled team in the Winter Olympics?
Not only do we have a bob-sled team but one of our team is a Druze, the first
ever Druze to compete in the Olympics. Wared Fawarsy, who is making history as
the first Druze to represent Israel in the Olympics, was a passionate lover of
rugby who owned his own sports club when A J Edelman, the Israeli team leader,
sent him an Instagram suggesting he join the “Shul Runnings” team. Shul
Runnings comes of course from the movie about the Jamaican bob-sled team, no
less unlikely than Shul Runnings (shul being Yiddish for synagogue). 5 Jews, one
Druze and a Shiba Inu dog!!!
A tree is framed in the window right in front of me as I write to
you, an almond blossom, the famous shkedia, its pale pink blossom heralding
spring. As I drove to Herzliya the puff balls of shkediot on the hillsides gave
my journey a special feel, especially as I came to the junction between
Herzliya and Kfar Shmeriyahu and saw the enormous Israeli flag flying gently in
the breeze. What a welcome! Talking of fruits, no matter how many kumquats I
pick to give to friends, the tree is still laden. Limes aplenty, oranges and a
tree full of tiny lemons (if anyone knows the name of these sweet and juicy
little lemons please tell me). All of the above are barely as tall as Zvi
except for the fejoya. I can see the tiny sunbird darting about in the shekdia,
enjoying the feast of sweet blossom. I love this season of hope and new growth,
hope that we will find solutions to the multiple problems of the world while
enjoying the beauty of new growth.
For no particular reason I love this song, especially the singers.
B’derech shelcha – Your way or your route, sung by soldiers of the IDF. https://youtu.be/ybJgDpCGG8o?si=4AbS2iiyQVu66EsA
In Judaism we are taught that each morning, as we wake, we thank
the Almighty for giving us back our soul. Giving thanks is not a matter of
religious observance, this prayer is simply thanks for giving us one more day.
Omer Adam with Modeh Ani https://youtu.be/npRw36_Ftmc?si=HDSpDxXWzt_HbJG3
Again to Omer Adam singing the most appropriate song for today,
Friday, Yom Shishi. https://youtu.be/yI73P4c6vlQ?si=-uagM-5krgR3R6P4
That’s it! Today Zvi will head off to his parliament and I will go
to see Rachel. Tonight we are just us, the two of us and tomorrow we will
listen to a lecture by Or Heller, definitely one of the most informative
military journalist in Israel from where
we can walk to Shabbat lunch with our lovely friends Sharon and Ernst Voss. In
the meantime dear friends, take care of yourselves, stand tall and proud, never
bend to bullying.
Shabbat Shalom and much love from the Jerusalem Hills
Sheila
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