Our almost 8-year-old granddaughter breaking eggs, measuring sugar, flour, oil, pouring batter into a pan, yesterday, while I watched, asked if there could be a siren, worrying about her sisters and her mom at a water park in Tel Aviv.  I told her not likely but could happen. Fleeting thought: on October 8 or 9, 2023, I would not have mentioned the unlikely of October 7 to her. Yesterday, I did. Yesterday, unlikely, spoke the truth.

After our Friday night family dinner, she, her sisters and parents prepared to leave our place for theirs. Apps buzzed: sirens in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, throughout much of Israel. Houthis. Mere coincidence – Kfar Saba (where we live) and Raanana (where they live) were not on the target map, but they waited to be sure before heading home. Complacence: not telling a child there’s no chance of a siren today.

Waking Saturday morning with a splitting tension headache and indecision whether I felt hungry or nauseous, thinking laughing would be healthy, I started to cry. In response to Haim’s concern, I explained. When I was 16, if I found books, movies, photos of the Shoah seemingly too painful to watch, “Never Again,” would shout at my mind, until eventual realization that I would not forget even if avoiding exposure to the information. Now, I can’t avoid the thought that members of the Jewish people perpetrate events I cannot bear to watch, that my........

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