An Israeli Soldier’s Mother Waits. What’s At Stake in Gaza

I knew that Israel was going into Gaza with “boots on the ground” at least a day before they finally did so. Two Israeli mothers, who do not know one another, each have sons in the elite Golani and Givati Brigades. Both sons had been ordered to turn in their cell phones; there would be no more “haimishe” (comforting, familiar) contact with home.

Another mother in Israel, Bonna Devora Haberman, who is a dear friend, a feminist professor, a religious woman, and the mother of five, emailed me last night. With her permission, I am sharing her words with you. Hers is the voice of a mother in Israel.

“Our son finished his 17-month grueling training in an elite commando unit last Thursday night. On Friday, his unit prepared equipment, then returned home for Shabbat. He was called to report for service on Shabbat eve, before we had benched. This was the first time the phone had rung in our home on Shabbat that we can recall. In the hour before he left, we read together some poetry, Coleridge and Blake, Wordsworth-romantics who defied social institutions with their embodied Eros, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s introduction to Vindication of the Rights of Women. I shiver with our embrace at the threshold of our home, at the threshold of Shabbat and desecration, at the seam of peace and war.”

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>