EFRAT, West Bank — For the past year, I’ve worried about what I would do if air-raid sirens sounded while I was performing a brit milah, a ritual circumcision. Would I halt the proceedings and send everyone to the bomb shelters? Or, if the procedure was under way, would I send everyone else to the shelter until it was safe to move the baby? The work demands such focus, I have always feared that I might not even hear the alarms. It took until the first anniversary of Oct. 7 to find out.
I felt uneasy the entire day. It was unexpected because my calendar was filled with nothing but happy occasions. The morning began in Jerusalem, my old stomping ground, with the bris of a third sibling. The event was in the synagogue where we had been members for seven years. It’s always nice to visit a place I used to call home.
The day continued in my hometown of Efrat with two adult conversions. Helping people along their path to Judaism never gets old. And I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the first anniversary of the darkest days in recent Jewish history than making more Jews. But still, something didn’t feel right.
My anxiety actually began a few days prior on Shabbat. After the weekly Torah portion is read in the morning, we get a preview of the next section during the afternoon service. Due to this year’s calendar, we were already up to the final segment of the Torah — the reading for Simchat Torah.
I was instantaneously transported back to the last time I heard this portion read — Black Sabbath. We were staying in Jerusalem when Israel first came under attack. There were 17 air-raid sirens throughout the day and the building we prayed in did not have a bomb shelter. After spending the majority of the morning running in and out of the stairwell, it was decided to quickly complete the service outside. In retrospect, that seems like a crazy notion.
As that year’s Torah cycle was being completed, I noticed one of the participants walk to the street. He hugged and kissed what looked like his son, who was wearing army fatigues. At the time, we still didn’t have a full concept of what was happening in the South. I now know that that may have been the last time these two saw one another.
The first anniversary of that grim day was rounded off with a second bris in Har Gilo for fellow Efrat residents. The family scheduled the brit milah in a neighboring community even though keeping it close by would have been more convenient for all of us. I had driven by the location often but this was my first time entering the gates. Upon arriving at the cafe that would host the event, I understood immediately why they chose to put in the extra effort — the view was stunning. It felt as if you could see all the way to Tel Aviv.
The cafe had an outdoor/indoor feel to it. The main area was a porch, which had already been winterized to protect us from the wind. The hilltops in our West Bank region get quite blustery during the cold months. It’s common practice to silence cell phones during occasions like this, so it was jarring when someone’s phone began blaring, midway through the ceremony. At the time, I almost didn’t make note of it. And then the explosions began.
I was so startled, I thought it might have been the wind hitting the windows. Yemen had fired surface-to-surface missiles at Israel as they’ve been doing for a year. We imagined that, due to the elevation of the town, the noises we heard were the interceptions of the Iron Dome over Beit Shemesh, about 30 miles away. Since it all happened so quickly, and there were no sirens in our area, we pressed as normal. We later found out that shrapnel from a rocket had fallen mere meters away from where we were. The explosions had been just overheard.
Driving home that day, I began to cry. I’m not much of a crier. It took until the following day to realize why I became so emotional. This was not the first time we’ve dodged a bullet. It’s been an entire year of running into stairwells or bomb shelters or just for cover. These things happen, and then get immediately compartmentalized. It’s the only way to survive.
This is why commemorating Oct. 7 was so challenging for me. My emotional tank is at an all-time low. The day marked a year of persistent stress that isn’t over. We’ve had no distance from the tragedy that we’re all still living through.
When I arrived home, my family was watching the first televised memorial. It felt like all of the others we have here in Israel, but I couldn’t participate. It just felt too soon. I know how imperative it is that we keep the hostages and the soldiers who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice at the forefront of our minds. But I feel as if, just like my intense focus during a brit milah, I can only look forward to where we’re headed. I don’t have it in me to even look to the side, let alone behind.
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