Sleepless Dreamer’s Reviews > The Cry of the Dove > Status Update

I do not know a deeper loneliness than war in your country when you're abroad. My heart hurts and nothing makes sense. I have to believe that there is a better future for the Middle East, just across the corner, half a step away but how, how?

My family was kicked out of multiple countries. My story is not unique; I am most Israelis.

You can't teach us about oppression. We are the grandchildren of the Jews you couldn't kill. You step on our graves when you go outside to protest against us. Your synagogues are empty because we are here. You live in our old houses.

I do not expect anything anymore.

Me: I must live by the Israeli ethos. No siren scares me, I am functioning despite war.

Also me: I experienced two missile attacks today and felt so shaken that I'm still full of adrenaline 6 hours later, spending hours on war meme pages and oh no, it's 2am.

I am amazed by Israeli strength and resilience.

The hero who saved her entire kibbutz. The woman who gave the terrorists cookies & chatted to them in Arabic while coordinating her own rescue. The policeman who saved 500 people from the music festival massacre & still cried about not saving more.

In the depths of this, I am grateful to my people for reminding me that we are eternal survivors. We will outlive it all

Jewish adventures:

I did not realize how meaningful I would find non-Jewish friends wishing me a happy new year, especially with the Hebrew.

Like gosh, it's most of my friends abroad. It's such a small thing but it really matters

Every single Israeli knows someone who was hurt in a terror attack and yet, it does not get easier.

He was stabbed 20 fucking times this week, just walking in the street when three Palestinians attacked him.

And I'm here in Tokyo's alleys and I feel sick, I feel heartbroken and enraged, nothing in this world is right.

Israeli politics be like, great, the radical right wing party that wants to take away LGBT+ rights is likely going to crash and burn in our coming elections but the radical right wing party that's all about racism has managed to normalize a conversation in Israel about expelling "non-loyal" citizens. What the fuck?

The urge to become a radical leftist grows.

Me: my mental health during my birthday is fine, I've outgrown the doom and angst

Also me: spends 20 minutes crying about causing the small lizard I found in my sink to detach its tail

Oh my god, I was trying to help it go outside and it must have been so frightened and now it'll take months for its tail to grow, it only wanted to live in my sink, what have I done?? Am I a bad person???

Uni adventures:
I wrote my final Politics essay about the very subject that made me want to study Politics in the first place; Israeli civil-military relations. This feels right.

Uni adventures:

We've reached that part of exam season in which I start to have very vivid dreams about failing classes and going through the emotional process of accepting it. I wake up with "It's okay that I failed this class, I can hand in an appeal. My appeal will include...". It takes me ages to remember this was a dream. There's no grade. I didn't fail.

Oh, why does my brain feel the urge to do this?