Because COVID had made it difficult to travel to Israel during much of the pandemic, my wife and I decided to spend Sukkot 2023 with our son and his family in Giv’at Shmuel, the central Israeli city where they lived. The first half of the holiday was amazing. To borrow an analogy from Apple, Judaism and the land of Israel are made for each other.
The weather was glorious, and eating in the Sukkah was beautiful and natural, but getting to know our grandchildren was priceless. Over Chol Hamoed we toured the Tel Aviv harbor by boat and went to museums.
For Simchat Torah, we relocated to Ramat Shilo to spend time with my wife’s cousins in their Shul. I have never had a more meaningful Simchat Torah, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
It began Saturday morning, Oct. 7, 2023. On my walk to the synagogue, I heard a thud. Nothing dramatic, but I stopped walking to consider this. It sounded like a box being dropped, or a garbage dumpster, or maybe some far off construction, but then I reminded myself that these things didn’t happen on Shabbat in Israel. I moved along. I heard another thud. Gunshot? Nah, this wasn’t Milwaukee. I made it to shul.
The services were proceeding, but here and there was heavy, intense whispering between small groups of people. The rabbi (our cousin) was pulled in. He interrupted the services to announce that he was informed that there were rockets launched from Gaza, and what we should do if the air raid sirens should sound. But don’t worry, nobody shoots at Ramat Shiloh, and they’d never had sirens there before.
I decided to head back to where we were staying to let my wife know so she would be aware of what to do.
By the time I returned to the shul, the sirens had started. By then there were too many people to leave the building to find a shelter, so we hunkered down under the tables and waited for it to stop.
Rockets, I thought. Well, here’s the authentic Israeli experience, right? They’ve had rocket attacks here since the Gulf War. More regularly since the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. We have Iron Dome, right? We’ll be fine.
As the day progressed, we had more and more sirens, and I saw rocket trails in the sky and explosions from the Iron Dome intercepts, right above our heads. We were told to get under cover, so as not to be hit by falling debris. My wife spent much of the day in a shelter.
Between sirens, we danced the Simchat Torah Hakafot outside and sang Acheinu (our brothers) in a circle. It was incredible.
Throughout the day, small bits of information began to leak out, from people checking phones, about more than just rockets. About an actual incursion into the country. About terrorists roaming the streets. People being killed and abducted. It sounded crazy. By Saturday night (the end of the holiday for Israelis) our cousin was deployed to his base.
My wife and I had adopted the custom of diaspora Jews visiting Israel, observing two days of Yom Tov, and Sunday was pure torture for us. Our cousins brought us to their home and tried to make us comfortable, but their level of concern and nervousness began to affect us, and by Sunday night we had to get out of there.
And old friend of mine, who had made aliyah, stopped by to see how we were doing. He had a gun and had been doing patrol duty the night before. He showed me a video on his phone from (of all places) the Wall Street Journal. I will never forget it. It showed bands of Toyota pickup trucks with terrorists in the back holding assault rifles, driving down the streets of an Israeli town, stopping at each house. Gunmen got off, ran up to the doors, and began shooting and dragging people out. It was like something my mother told me about Poland when the Nazis came to her town. People were shot dead in the street or abducted and never seen again.
I looked out the window of the apartment we were in. The streets looked the same. It could have been the town we were in. I didn’t show the video to my wife. It’s since been removed from the site.
We had plans to go to Netanya for the final days of our trip, to stay at a hotel and decompress. We were unsure of the status of our flight (Delta eventually rescheduled and then cancelled all flights). We needed to go. We needed space. We needed to process what was going on. Our cousins begged us not to go. They told us the roads weren’t safe. We were already hearing about terrorists at large, a car shot up on the highway.
I don’t know if it was ignorance, or false bravado, or just being American but we decided to go anyway. We assumed Waze would guide us safely and we’d flash our U.S. credentials and be safe. I don’t know what would have happened if they had blanked out Waze, which was certainly within the IDF’s capabilities. We made it past checkpoints “manned” by young Israeli women pointing assault rifles at us and arrived at the hotel in Netanya.
The hotel was understandably empty, at first, but over the next few days it began to fill with an assortment of different people. Young families with many children. Older adults with walkers and wheelchairs. Most sat around the lobby with bags containing their possessions. The staff put on a puppet show for children in the dining hall. We asked an older gentleman in the elevator where he was from. “Sderot,” he answered. “Hashem Yishmor,” we responded.
I signed up to volunteer with the health services, but I also needed to get back to my own practice in Milwaukee, which was being covered by my partner. Delta cancelled all flights, as did other American carriers.
The U.S. State Department sent us an email indicating that if we could make our way to the Haifa Port, they would assign us to a ship leaving for Cyprus. After that it would be up to us to find a way home from there. No further support was offered, no guarantees they would get us on a boat, and a very clear statement that we would only be allowed on once we signed a promissory note agreeing to pay back all as of yet undisclosed costs of such evacuation. This left a sour taste in my mouth. It felt like my government was blaming me for deciding to vacation in a war zone. Fortunately, I had a great travel agent in Chicago who literally worked night and day to get us on an El Al flight to Amsterdam and several connecting flights to Milwaukee.
This gave us an extra Shabbat in the Holy Land, which we were fortunate to be able to spend with our grandchildren and daughter-in-law, as well as her sister’s family. Our son had already been called up into the reserves.
The messaging from the State Department did not sit well with me. I tried to express this to some of the people we were staying with. I explained my thoughts that the concern and sympathy for Israel in the days following Oct. 7 would be fleeting and would soon be replaced by victim blaming. These young children, who had been born in Israel, would soon be labeled as colonizers who didn’t belong there, and therefore were deserving of whatever horrors Hamas inflicted on them. I had hoped I was wrong, but sadly time has proven otherwise.
If anything, this, as well as the rise in antisemitism globally and on college campuses, has only strengthened my belief in the vital need for Israel as the only true safe haven for Jews.
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Mark Skier is an internal medicine physician and musician who has lived on the West Side of Milwaukee for more than 30 years.
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