( based on column for The Chattanooga Times Free. Press)
When my hubby and I saw that Iran had bombed Bet Shemesh, a community outside of Jerusalem, we were horrified. That’s where our daughter Elana and 4 grandsons live. Photos of the decimated village and stories of nine dead in the bombing filled the news. It was 24 hours before we heard from Elana. You can imagine what a relief it was to see her post this on
Facebook: “War has started again. Thank G-d we are all ok…”
But like the 12-Day War in June 2025, the rockets keep coming and the warning sirens seem endless. This war affected the Purim holiday with its tradition of gifting packages of food and drink to friends, family, and community members. “Nothing like getting a pre-rocket alert while you’re waiting in the car for your son to give his friend a gift package,” wrote Elana. Thankfully, they weren’t killed while fostering friendship and ensuring that everyone had food for a festive meal. Elana got home in time to head to their basement safe room as the bombs fell. I can’t imagine how scary Purim was for them!
Israelis are used to getting creative in wartime. Appearing on Elana’s Facebook page was a description of a new app that analyzes statistics, trajectories, probabilities and patterns for a good time to take a shower. Her friend posted, “…Only in Israel does “self care” require data analytics…Do I shorten the shower with dry shampoo? Do I really need to condition? And here’s the added layer of excitement f a siren goes off mid shower. I’ll have to sprint into the safe room and I have teenage boys…No one needs that kind of trauma. Not them. Not me. Not the State of Israel. This is life right now. Tech innovation meets real life chaos. We did not choose this reality. But we are living it. With grit. With faith. With humor, because honestly what is the alternative.”
But Elana’s humor is being replaced by depression. She went grocery shopping and got home only five minutes before another siren warning. “All my get up and go from yesterday has got up and gone. Sigh.”
How is she handling being in a war zone when she feels like a caged animal? “When living during a war and stuck inside, cleaning helps me feel more in control of at least something. And Pesach/Passover is coming, so I’m seizing the moment when I have nowhere else I can be anyway.” Cleaning up for Passover is a tradition for removing any leavened grain products from the house. I’m with her. Cleaning helps reduce my stress and creates inner calm, so I’m cleaning everything in sight, and imagining doing even more.
Her boys don’t go for cleaning, but they learned early on to create inner calm by huddling together as family. The younger ones often play games together in the safe room. The eldest, AY (Aron Yosef) takes his older brother/protector role seriously and the younger ones snuggle up to him. But AY’s inner self goes far beyond this solace. His drawings create a world of hypnotic beauty. They echo the famous saying that came out of the 1960s Iraq war when ‘Make Love, Not War’ became ‘Make Art, Not War’. The saying expressed the desire for creative rather than destructive action.
How can we come out of today’s devastating chaos? Look to the creative souls, the artists who can envision a better world. AY is barely 15 years old, but I sense that he’ll be one of those souls. And if you’re an artist, please try to be a visionary, too.
drawings by AY (Aron Yosef Kahan)
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