An Israeli speaks out

To be an Israeli, you must face the fear that, any day, someone you know, or someone who knew someone you know, will die. Nine years ago, a man named Yair Lapid wrote, in French, an essay describing what this means. He published it on the French Jewish site Terre Promise (“The Promised Land”). Last night, Terre Promise published it again, to mark Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha’Atzmaut).

Yair Lapid teaches a lesson in courage that matters as much today as it did nine years ago. (Your editor knows, because for ten days he traveled in Israel and saw, first-hand, up close and personal, the courage of its people.) Your editor asked the site administrator for permission to translate the essay into English and publish it here. He said, “Of course, Terry; no problem.”

No one has said better than this, how brave those people really are. So here, in plain English, is that essay. Read it, and ask yourself whether you would be brave enough to live like this.

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

By Yair Lapid

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

You turn on the TV set at night, and instead of Rambo 3, they’re showing a local horror film in which we are the actors. You hope that there’s no one there that you know, you’re glad there isn’t anybody you know, and then you’re ashamed to be glad. You keep your eyes glued to that TV even though you know exactly what the next scene is going to look like. Then you tell yourself, “Just two weeks ago I was right there! This is unbelievable!” And you feel that you’ve gotten away without getting hurt, though you weren’t even around. And then you walk through your house at two in the morning, silently look in on your sleeping children, and think that when they’re like that, under the covers, they suddenly look so small all over again!

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

You know that something has happened, just from the type of songs that play on the radio. You remark to yourself, “They always play the most beautiful songs when an attack comes.” You know that when the newshounds say, “There are wounded people here,” what they really mean is that there are dead bodies there, and that the phrase “desperate state” means that somebody is fighting for his life. You ask what exactly does “victims in a state of shock” mean, and then, after you think about it for a few seconds, you get the meaning loud and clear. Then you call your family, no matter how late it is, just to say, “Hello? How’s it going?” You go to the mall as if you’re going into the reserves, and you go into the reserves as if you’re going to war. You tell yourself, “If I had any brains, I’d go to Australia,” but of course you don’t mean that. You quarrel a bit more with whomever you’re living with, and won’t admit to yourself that it’s on account of the tension.

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

You say, “They’ve got to go back in there,” without knowing who “they” are. You say, “We can’t go on like this,” but know that’s probably just how you’re going to go on. You say, “They’ve got to retake Gaza,” just to hear yourself say the words. You understand that any solution will not be simple, but you hope, all the same, that someone will find one. You listen to radio programs where people call in and say horrible things, and think, “Look how far we’ve tumbled,” and feel that you don’t really want to call in. You remember that you’ve already trusted too many leaders who have disappointed you, but still convince yourself that maybe—just maybe—a leader will rise up and not disappoint you. You tell yourself that the time has now come to write a will, but you don’t do it.

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

All day you feel tired and don’t know why, a tiredness that starts at your shoulders and goes right down your spine. You’re not religious, but you still ask yourself, “Could this be from G_d?” or maybe you are religious and ask yourself whether your old Army injury is acting up again. You tell yourself, “Traffic accidents are causing more deaths,” but you’re not sure that that’s true anymore. You figure: after Jerusalem and Haifa, of course they’re going to get around to Tel Aviv. You get angry when someone says, “That was a cunning attack,” because they don’t rate that much! You run into a friend who asks you whether you heard that George Harrison just died, and think that he’s just landed on the moon. You know, so clearly that it freezes you, that after a day, two days at the most, you’re going to know someone who has died. Or else you’ll know someone who knew someone….

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

You say, “Me? I’m all right, but the country’s in the [censored]!” You begin a sentence with, “Aside from the situation,…” You cancel trips because it’s not the time to travel, and then you travel anyway because life is a crock anyway. You remember without knowing, “Why [did Prime Minister Itzhak] Rabin [have to get blown away]?” You realize that you never told your son about the [Yom Kippur] War and swear that you will find the time to do that. You want to see the latest Israeli film that everybody’s talking about, just because it is something Israeli. You eat a little more than you used to, get up late, and then jog. You note that everyone’s telling jokes lately. You know that that means something, but you’re not sure what.

What does it mean to be an Israeli?

You think that your country has passed you by. You talk back and forth in sentences you know with people you don’t, and hear sentences that you don’t know out of the mouths of people whom you know well. You hear the Prime Minister talk about “the strength to endure and resist,” and then realize, a little later, that he is talking about [and to] you. You console yourself by saying that at least this year we’ll have rain. [When Lake Kenneret, aka the Sea of Galilee, rises, every Israeli grins from ear to ear—Ed.] You stand next to the window, a glass of tea in hand, and think, for the first time in years, “This would be a great time for G_d to just sweep the world clean!” You agree to take post-dated checks, because the situation demands that, too. You sit at night, looking at bills to pay, and decide that it’s time to tighten our belts. You look at pictures instead of reading the newspaper.

That’s what it means to be an Israeli.

2002

Editor’s note: When your editor’s plane landed back in Newark on April 7, the news had broken in the USA of yet another attack: someone had fired an anti-tank missile at a school bus in the western Negev, not far from Gaza. Now you know what Yair Lapid was talking about.