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    • The decision to start a family is the best response to the threats to Israel
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    The decision to start a family is the best response to the threats to Israel

    Caradoc Wyn Posted on

    Over the last year, Israelis have led a kind of double life. All plans, big and small, depend on the outcome of the war.

    By war, I mean attacks by anyone who decides to attack Israel – Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Houthis, you name it.

    It’s reminiscent of Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up routine, in which he explains that all plans made between men are always provisional and depend on whether one of them meets a girl. He explained that the unwritten pact was even the cause of delays in the Apollo space mission, when one of the astronauts started hitting on a potential date on the way to launch.

    The same applies here. “Sure, we’ll meet for dinner tomorrow… unless Iran decides to retaliate.”

    Sunday morning’s historic pre-emptive attack on hundreds of Hezbollah rockets and rocket launchers designed to target sensitive targets in Israel, and the resulting reduced barrage of more Hezbollah rockets into the north of the country, were over by 7 a.m., before most of us had eaten breakfast.

    This meant that the day would be relatively quiet. For me, this meant that we had to stick to our early evening plan to meet our son at the Rishon Lezion mall to buy a suit for his upcoming wedding.

    Zahav Canyon was packed with shoppers and families trying to keep their children busy after summer camps and preschool during the drought in late August.

    You wouldn’t know there was a war going on, or that Gaza was only 50 kilometers away. We Israelis are a resilient bunch. Either that, or we try to stick to a routine as much as possible to ward off the demons, the anger, the fear and the terror that permeate the atmosphere everywhere we look.

    While my son was trying on suits, I exchanged messages with a friend in the US who had asked how we were doing after the dramatic events earlier that morning.

    “I’m buying a suit for my son,” I replied, as if there could be no other answer to such a simple question. But I quickly realized that the seemingly mundane act of shopping for a wedding suit was actually quite a bold statement.

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    Choosing life

    Is there any act that expresses more hope and confidence in the future than the union of two people who are building a home in Israel and will hopefully give their parents many grandchildren?

    My son, looking so handsome in the dressing room, was the only response to the near-catastrophic attack that morning by Hezbollah and all the other countries and terrorist groups that don’t want to see Jewish weddings anymore.

    Despite the quagmire we find ourselves in, the idea that young people are still planning for the future – and seeing a future – is a testament to the will and strength of the Israeli character.

    On the other hand, it’s just a suit.

    As I was driving back through Jerusalem after my successful shopping trip, feeling pretty good, my daughter from the USA asked me the grim question in a WhatsApp message: “Is everyone OK?”

    This is a well-known and unfortunately overused code in Israel for “something happened.” And of course, a quick look at the news sites confirmed that this was indeed the case.

    Hamas had fired a rocket in the direction of Rishon Lezion, which landed in an open field shortly after we left. Apparently they don’t like Jewish weddings either. Too bad for them.



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    Caradoc Wyn
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