Finally, she said to me in her Polish-accented English. “You didn’t hear the news? There were tzvei korbanos,” she said in a trembling voice. Korbanos?

What on earth was Bobby saying? And just as suddenly, I realized. Bobby was talking about the Israeli soldiers fighting the First Lebanon War in the 1980s, a war that claimed hundreds of Jewish soldiers’ lives. My grandmother and my Israeli step-grandfather would tune into the breaking news on the radio in their beloved Eretz Yisrael. They must have just listened to a broadcast.

The tears! I secretly wondered about my grandmother. She, who survived death camps, death trains, death marches… in Plaszow, in Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, where death was rampant. She must have seen thousands or more dead Jews. Yet her pain at hearing of the fresh loss of two soldiers was real. She cried as if it were a close cousin.

My grandmother left This World nearly eight years ago. Things have changed. Two of my daughters live in Eretz Yisrael. And things have stayed the same. Shebechol dor vador… if it was Fatah then, today it’s Hamas. Different names, same thing.

For days my daughters and I hashed over the terrible details of October 7. The shock, the trauma, the humiliation of our nation, the stories… and their own fears as they ran to the stairwells of their buildings when sirens wailed during the day and in the middle of the night. They went to the store and stocked up on canned food, water, and diapers. There was so much to process. Over the phone we gave therapy to each other. For a long time, it was the only thing we could discuss.

But slowly we started talking about other things. We hesitantly moved on.

Now I’m the one tuning in to the news from afar on my filtered computer. And as I go about my days working, shopping, debating which size beds to buy for my children’s bedroom, I check the news. I pray, Please let it not be today, let it not be another young beautiful face. But it is not to be. Every week since October 7, and almost every day, we see faces of those newly perished in this awful war. Every week. The faces of young fathers, brothers, sons. The korbanos! My stomach clenches, thinking of the shattered worlds they leave behind, of a pain that doesn’t go away.

These days I daven extra for Eretz Yisrael, for the Yidden who live there, for the young soldiers fighting, for the hostages. I try to focus on the words of matir asurim, riva riveinu, bonei Yerushalayim. I’ve joined a neighborhood group that finishes Sefer Tehillim every evening, we learn hilchos Shabbos at our Shabbos table… I daven some more. It’s not enough….

Memories of my grandmother’s red-rimmed eyes sweep through my mind reproachfully. Why don’t I grieve the way my grandmother did?

L’illui nishmas Ita Perel bas Reb Aryeh Leib

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 913)