The Az Nashir Haggadah:
On the Path to Redemption
(Matan Edition)

God, I miss ordinary things. It’s raining this afternoon. There is lightening that flashes green and purple and metallic, thunder that growls and claps and demands attention. I think I can tell the difference between the missile interceptions, the warplanes, and thunder. It’s hard to describe; maybe thunder is more crackling, more robust, more familiar. The light is blue from my window, the rain is tapping on the windows, on the roof, slipping into the house through the glass

I barely read the news anymore. Usually, I read the news all the time. Not obsessively, like many in the information era. But I check the news with the awareness and urgency that the news shapes my reality on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute basis. Once, my therapist (who is in America) said to me, "Why don't you put your phone in another room?" I laughed and said that my phone is a lifeline for an ever-changing environment. It tells me when I'm in danger. Often, the news, as c

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to belong to an ancient people. I'm amused by the antisemites who come to my page to negate Jewish history- from our origin and modern life. Who blame and point fingers and literally laugh at our suffering. Who lie and twist and leave little droplets of hate on my page. Because their ignorance or their vileness bleeds out from their comments. It reflects nothing on me when trolls try to shame me, erase me, and wish for my d*

When the war is over, this is what I'm going to remember about this time: I'm going to remember my neighbor's daughter in her green uniform leaving her house on Shabbat morning to go serve when the war began. I'm going to remember that feeling of readyness when the sirens began- I had been preparing for this and knowing that it was coming. Jumping out of bed with an awareness that it was time. I'll think about the way the sky cracked open and massive pieces of metal fell from

This is a message for those who live outside of Israel but love, support, and advocate for her. I want to say that I see you. I see how your hearts are here with us. I see how you comment online, what you share, what you post. I know the pain of being separated from a place that you love when its suffering. Someone in my comments the other day even went so far as to say, "I'm not in Israel right now, but I would rather be with you in the bomb shelter..." I knew exactly what s

If you want to understand Israelis, you have to understand one thing: we are stubbornly committed to life. The situation we are in is absurd. There are literal ballistic missiles flying over our heads, shrapnel falling on houses, roads, open fields… …and still my 12-year-old just asked me if he can play football tonight. “They just brought new shelters,” he promised me. Pesach is only a few weeks away, and the supermarkets are packed. War or no war, people still need to make

We were in a hospital room when the siren started. I knew that it was their worst nightmare- a siren going off in the middle of the procedure. I was holding their hand, as the doctor was holding a massive needle and knife, deep in their skin. There was no crying, but there was certainly cursing when our watches and phones started blaring that there was a rocket warning. We looked at each other in shock. Mid-procedure is not a time when you can just run to safety. We discussed

They say that the war will end soon. They say that 80 percent of Iran's rocket launchers have been destroyed, and we want to get to 95%. Israeli officials say it may take a couple of days- the USA says maybe longer, but not far off. That's what they say. On Facebook, people who hate Israel say that Iran has destroyed us. They say that Tel Aviv is under rubble, or on fire, and Ben Gurion is experiencing a mass escape of Israelis who are fleeing the country. That's what they sa

The siren stops, and for a few seconds, no one moves. Sometimes when it starts, you walk slowly toward the shelter, gathering what you may need - your phone that won’t stop blaring, a water bottle, your baby, extra diapers, a snack for the kids, the dog. You already knew it was coming. The alert had sounded first, the one that makes it feel like the end of the world. But you’ve heard it hundreds of times now. You know the drill. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night

Members of the Iranian women’s national soccer team cannot go home for fear of being imprisoned or k*lled by their own government. As a form of protest, Iranian women's national football team players Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Ghanbari, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh, and Mona Hamoudi, refused to sing the IRGC national anthem in the tournament opener. As members of the IRGC were part of their delegation in Australia, it seems they were forced to sing the anthem at subseque