Happy to sweat the small stuff

I love sweating the small stuff. It’s great when all our problems aren’t overwhelming and we can make huge issues out of things that aren’t really harming us. We get our proverbial knickers in a knot, and it makes us mad.

When my colleague Howard Feldman told me how women in the community were on his case because he had upset them by calling nappy pants unattractive, I realised that our lives had normalised a bit.

When something like this captures people’s imagination and ire, we’re doing okay. It means people aren’t stressing over far bigger things. Do you remember how during the COVID-19 pandemic, nobody got upset about such things? We were dealing with life and death daily – nappy pants didn’t touch sides.

It’s not to say that when the United States points out ISIS activity in South Africa, that it’s a small thing. It’s extremely concerning, and something we must take seriously. However, it isn’t having an impact on our lives right now.

When we are writing more about what’s happening in Israel than what’s happening here, it means there’s an element of quiet to our lives on the southern tip of Africa.

I caution myself and you all, as it doesn’t take much to take our lives back to the craziness, so I have to say that this is case of “blee ayin harah” (protect us from the evil eye). We certainly want things to stay calm and on an even keel.

When we can tell stories about our communal leaders taking the former ruling party to task, it means they have time on their hands to do this. Not that it isn’t important, it’s extremely important not to let politicians ride roughshod over us. But it means that we aren’t putting out urgent, massive fires but rather cleaning up after the fact.

This isn’t the case in Israel, which is why we’re still writing so much about what our expats are going through there. Calling life in Israel tough horribly underplays what people are experiencing.

Last week, a woman allegedly murdered her own little boy, their dog, and took to the streets with an axe (page 13). Days before, people who saw her said she looked like she was managing her life well. She had a close relationship with her son, and her husband was on miluim (reserve duty). But something snapped.

Living under the duress of war in Israel from at least two sides of the country is tormenting people.

I recall on my recent trip to Israel, how I was sitting at a restaurant with a dear cousin of mine having a lovely meal and a chat. Her phone beeped, and I witnessed her face go from happy and relaxed to pure anguish in split seconds. She started sweating and went pale.

I discovered that she had received an alert to say the moshav next to the one she and her family live on had a break in, and its residents were ordered to the safe rooms in their homes. They were given strict instructions not to make a sound, and not to come out until they had the all-clear. The authorities believed it could have been a terrorist infiltration as the moshav was close to the West Bank.

My cousin panicked as her 18-year-old daughter and friends were at her home baking, and it was impossible to know if the incident involved only the moshav next to them. Should she go home and fetch her daughter, or should we both go back there? She called her daughter and told her to go into the safe room immediately with her friends even though her moshav hadn’t been given the alert.

In one minute, I witnessed the true impact of this war on Israelis who live in the centre of Israel and appear to be unscathed. Nobody is unscathed by the war! Even if you’re safe. The fear and insecurity that arose from 7 October last year hasn’t diminished, it has been exacerbated. We now know what terrorists are really capable of, and how the world is capable of ignoring and downplaying it.

It turns out the infiltrator was a criminal and not a terrorist. My cousin and everyone on the moshavim nearby were relieved. That was a little odd for me when our biggest fear is crime, but their reasoning was obvious.

As much as things may appear normal on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, there’s nothing normal about living there. This week, we spoke to expat refugees who are trying to survive living away from their homes (page 4). We find out from experts just how the lives of Israelis are underneath the surface (page 13), and how they are withstanding the incredible pressure they are living under.

We also speak to South Africans who found themselves close to the building hit by a drone strike in the tourist area of Tel Aviv close to the United States Embassy (page 3).

Having been there so recently, there’s something so disconcerting in knowing just how close I was to it. It’s frightening to think about all our family and friends who live that life under threat.

Truth is, as much as we would like to believe that Israelis are safe, they are in a country at war and are doing their utmost to keep going as normally as possible under the circumstances. What’s the alternative? There simply isn’t one.

The problem is that this war is going on for way too long and the collateral damage is massive. The damage to Israeli society is still unknown, and it will take a long time to determine the toll this war has taken. May Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu find a way of bringing home the hostages and ending this war. It’s time!

We all need this war to be over so that Israelis can also get back to sweating the small stuff.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor