Where the Desert Meets the Sea

by Werner Sonne

Tamar Schiff stood at the window of her apartment and looked down on the now-deserted street. She’d been unable to sleep so many times in the past few weeks. In the morning, Yossi was going to Tel Aviv for two days, on one of the convoys that was getting hit ever harder by the Arab gangs. She was going to give him a letter for Judith, an invitation to Passover. Tamar just hoped he’d be able to make it home safely. Jerusalem was now experiencing daily shootings and explosions. Just three weeks ago, a bomb had devastated the building housing the Palestine Post. This morning she would go to Chaim Grünbaum’s little shop and try to get a sliver of meat and some milk for the children. She wondered how much more she’d have to pay to get him to make another exception. On his last stay in Tel Aviv, Yossi had scared up a sack of grain. But she was keeping that as a last resort, in case the food supplies turned even worse. Shouldn’t she just go with him, take the children, get on the bus, and leave Jerusalem behind, like so many had recently? Why couldn’t she live in Tel Aviv, on the sea, in a city that was practically all Jews, where things were relatively safe? Of course, the people from the Jewish Agency, just a few hundred yards away on King George V Avenue, would be against that. Jews weren’t allowed to leave Jerusalem, not right now, so soon before the British pulled out. But how could she keep exposing her children to such danger? She sighed. Yossi was against moving too. His ...