Hi Again:

At this time – the eve of July 21st – we – the whole Rafaeli family or Anat, Sheizaf and 3 boys - were supposed to be in Barcelona. We had planned an afternoon bike tour of the city to become acquainted with it. And an evening dinner of Paella.

Instead, I am writing this sitting in my lovely garden, air planes looming above and bombs blowing off in the distance. How pastoral! How surreal!

This morning was quite difficult. I went to visit a friend whose son was killed in the attack on the navy ship early in the week. Each visit there I meet more army generals. Of higher ranks. Today the head of the Navy and the head of the Intelligence force – where the young man who was killed served – were there. And each visit I receive more of the military script about how and why the missile attacked this particular ship at the particular time and the particular place this boy had been standing. None of the military rhetoric helps the pain of these visits.

I did observe some interesting aspects of these visits of the generals – this is Anat the observer. The anthropologist. First, all the high rank military officers who come to visit the family come with a prepared script, of what to say, what to ask, what to talk about. This is classic social psychology. But is also very clever – it helps everyone involved. Second, officers of various ranks visit the family. But the order of visits does not seem to be random. The rank of the visiting dignitary has increased as the week has gone by. The sophistication of their answers has also increased. I thought this may relate to their rank. But then it occurred to me that this may also be a process of organizational learning – the lower level people who visited earlier in the week provided summaries of the questions posed by the family, and provided an outline of the type of emotional atmosphere in this mourning family. This allowed the senior dignitary to better prepare for his visit, to come equipped with answers for the family questions. I don’t know if this is a formal routine the Israeli military has developed. But it does make perfect sense. It helps both the family and the military officers who must do this dreadful jobs of visiting mourning families.

Third, and this is Anat the feminist, the senior officers visiting are all men, but they always come with a team of supporting, lower rank, officers, most of whome are women.  Something like 4 women to 1 man. But ONLY the senior rank man speaks. This is the third time I visit the family, each time this has happened. The women are all officers as well. I am unclear exactly why they come, as they do not introduce themselves or talk. But they are there. I suspect they must be professionals of sorts – psychologists or social workers or HR staff. They seem to provide social support BOTH for the military person they accompany, and for the family. What a traditional female thing to do – more invisible work done by women in organizations.

During the visit a siren went off. What a dilemma – you are already surrounded by death – do you run to a shelter lest another missile hit this family? The mourning family did not get up, so none of the guests got up. A few moments later we heard several VERY strong booms that we later heard were of shells that had landed but a few blocks away. Surreal? I still can’t believe I am actually living through this rather than reading about it or experiencing it in a movie.

Upon returning home, another siren went off. This time we did run to the shelter. And again heard these strong booms. My son pointed out we now have a routine – the siren goes off, we grab the phone, run to the shelter, wait for the boom, call Sheizaf's father, play a game of cards, and go upstairs.  What a lovely family routine, don’t you think?

Lovely as it maybe we decided that to retain our sanity we need to take a break, so in the afternoon we head off for an evening in Tel Aviv. It felt like going on vacation – albeit one that is too short and in a place that we often visit for routine work meetings. Hardly Barcelona, but then one can’t get too greedy when a war is going on.

On the way, when we stopped for gas, I met a Russian couple sitting and staring at a TV in the gas station coffee shop. Apparently the last missile had landed right next to their apartment and they were terrified, got into the car and drive south. The problem was they had no where to go. So they were sitting in the gas station. The moment I started speaking to the woman she said "I am exhausted from all this. I have no more energy left.' It occurs to me that this is exactly how I feel – depleted. And that this is what we had been reading and talking about in my class on emotions – that negative emotions require energy and can be ego depleting. Leaving one unable to perform required tasks. In many ways this is similar to the recent research Shy and Rellie and I are doing on the effects of others anger. These sirens and missiles are – come to think of it – expressions of others' anger. Indeed, the Hezbollah seem to be VERY angry others. And they are doing a good job of depleting those of us who live in Northern Israel.

I should not have been surprised, since everyone had been telling us, that in Tel Aviv life goes on as if nothing has changed. The restaurants we went into were full. And none seemed particularly cognizant of our emotional fatigue, or of the fact that there was a war going on up north. In fact the first restaurant we went into asked if we had made reservations. I answered that "NO, we just came from Haifa to escape the missiles." "Well" answered the waitress "you have to learn that in Herzliyah you need to make reservations." "Don’t get angry with the waitress" I told myself "she is only doing her job." But there as something quite frustrating about this – the mention of us escaping from Haifa which to me was an emotional big deal – was only an issue of us being out of towners who have come to "the big city."  And she was proud that in her town – the great town of Herzliyah – restaurants are so heavily frequented that reservations are needed. Not like in those cow towns up north, like Haifa. This is the classic stuff I often teach about the need to educate customers. So why am I upset?

We saw a movie in Tel Aviv - For a few hours we escaped and forgot the sirens and booms and fear. And enjoyed only the make believe fear that Hollywood creates in The Da Vinci Code (which we thoroughly enjoyed by the way, even though we read the book, which usually means the move will not be enjoyed). I asked myself about half way through the movie what I feared more – the make believe fear of the movie or the surreal fear of the sirens and missiles back home. I honestly don’t know the answer to this weird question. The missile fear is so weird, so unfamiliar, so unexpected, that I don’t quite know how to experience it. I have much more experience with the Hollywood fear. Perhaps there is a theoretical lesson here – that one needs to learn and practice emotion?

We have just returned to Haifa, singing with two of our kids who were with us all the way back. The youngest one started singing to himself, saying to me this helps him forget the fear at home. I immediately joined him, as did his father and older brother. We went through all the holiday songs that we sing on Hanukah, Passover, and New Year and then just popular Hebrew songs. Again – as if we were on holiday. Only the motivation was a bit disturbing – the need to distract ourselves. But it worked.

I wish I had a few more hours of quiet here, rather than immediately landing into again hearing the booms in the distance and the airplanes above. I guess I should be grateful that there are no sirens. And that I have such a lovely family with whome I can spend such a pleasant evening. Yes – I am quite fortunate. But somehow I wish for more, for myself, but especially for people like the Russian couple I met at the gas station, who have to face all of this without the strong social support network that I have.

Now I wish that we will have a quiet night of sleep, without being awakened to a siren.

Stay safe everyone,

Anat