Even in the Face of International Chaos, She's Still a Gomer

I love the Internets. I love them so much. The Internets are a series of tubes and information flows throw them, from me to you and from you to me. Al Gore invented them and our lives have changed markedly because of them. Thank you, Al Gore!

I kid, I kid.

But I am still such a goon when it comes to the Internet and nothing thrills me more than getting an email from some faraway place, as I did yesterday. Actually, I got THREE emails--from distant family in Israel.

My aunt and uncle in St. Louis embarked on a geneology project several years ago. We'd always known there was family in Israel but it was Aunt Esther who had the primary connection to them. Most everyone is in Tel Aviv but others are scattered, including a few relatives in Haifa. My aunt and uncle have found everyone and have established regular contact with them. They wrote, expresssing their concern over the latest Middle East situation, and received these replies back.

Thank you so much for your concern about us. We all feel very safe and have confident in our county’s strength. The situation will calm down soon. Regardless the situation we need to be more in contact with you and I apologize for that. We hope that you will get well as soon as possible after this Surgery. Thanks again and Best Regards, Avraham and Yaffa

This is Shay writing, my father (Ya'aqov) is in Bulgaria this week, he flew there to work and to see his aunt who got in coma a month ago. We here in Israel appreciate your concerns and we are hoping that the situation will calm soon. Everybody in the family are feeling good and healthy. Here in Tel-Aviv the life is normal. My Uncle (mom's brother) and his sons who live in Haifa have stayed at our apartment until yesterday, and today my uncle returned to work and his sons went with their mother to an hotel in TA. I am appreciating the rally at St. Louis and all the support that we got from the USA. Hope you will recover soon from the surgery and that you will feel and walk like before. Keep in touch.

Thank you for your support. Although we are going through difficult time, we hope it will bring the North of Israel better days. In our family everything is fine. We spend a lot of time watching TV, but otherwise life in the central part of Israel continues as usual. Sorry to hear about your knee replacement. Wish you good health and hope for the best. Love, Avi and Lotta

How cool is that? Thankfully everyone is okay, but I still can't get over the fact that we can communicate so effortlessly with family in Israel. (Yet, isn't it funny that I had to find out from family in Israel that my aunt in St. Louis had knee replacement surgery? There's a certain irony there....)

Oh, and for the record, this is likely the end of my posts on Israel. It's not a topic I generally discuss. The whole thing is just one big ol' clusterfuck that I don't feel well-enough educated about to talk about rationally or intellectually. I'm not Zionist enough for most of my Jewish friends, but I'm too Zionist for most of my goyim friends. What can you do? It's one of the few political topics where I (wisely) keep my opinions to myself.

The one thing I think (and hope) we can all agree upon, however, is that there are peaceful days ahead--and soon. Would it be weird to quote Jimi Hendrix? Oh well....

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."