The Israel I Know

If you only know Israel through social media, what I'm about to describe will make no sense. But this is the Israel I know.

Here is what an ordinary afternoon at the shore looks like:

There’s a fisherman who tosses his large net out to sea and drags his ample catch back in.

His last at the end of the day.

People of all ages walk by and ask him what he’s fishing for and admire his large basket of bounty from the ocean.

My teens are wandering, my daughter looking for shells that strike her inspiration. No random shells- something beautiful. Something she’s never seen before.

My son is watching a unit of soldiers do exercise after exercise. We don't know what they are training for but we can only imagine.

They are running in the sand, bucket hats flopping, in sports clothes and sneakers. Army crawling in the sand, water splashing in their faces. Sweat on their brows.

His eyes are wide and he asks me if he can join them.

I tell him not yet.

There’s an Arab family sitting next to us; the father and son are playing shesh besh- the mother in her hijab and pants, carefully watching her little ones in the waves.

On the other side is a charedi family- the mother wearing shvimkleid with a turban in Lycra- her son shirtless with a small mustache leaning on her knee. The other son with a beard is writing, his fingers in the sand. They have Israeli music blasting. No one minds.

There are enormous dogs running in every direction- making friends with other canines, galloping on the dunes, free and joyful.

The lifeguards are hollering. They are closing up for the night, taking away the colored flags stuck in the sea, warning about the waves, about the jellyfish, about life here. Probably. They sound so warbled on the loudspeaker- it’s hard to understand them.

The elderly have walking sticks and tanned, wrinkled skin. Soaking up the last of the day's rays of sun.

The kids all have shovels. The babies crawl with no diapers and no worries.

And I?

Just sitting on my chair in the sand. Marveling at this blissful place.

Watching the sun slip away one more day.

And wondering how the world got us so wrong.