Loree Sandler

My middle son, Ian, and his girlfriend, Helena, are medical students in Israel. Their third year into a four-year program, we finally planned a visit. Fall, 2023.

“Direct flights are a fortune,” Bob reported. So, we switched planes in Switzerland going out, booked an Airbnb in Germany for the way home. Ian and Helena would join us.

On our first night in Tel Aviv, I burst into a fit of coughing at dinner. Everyone did. Together with the wait staff, we stumbled into the street.

Rumors and sirens followed. Our coughing was from pepper-spray, the result of an altercation. Scary, but contained.

In the morning, we met Ian’s tutors at Ichilov, the hospital where he did rounds. “We love your son,” they said.

We walked to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and immersed ourselves in an exhibit: “Amos Gitai: Kippur, War Requiem.”

It had been fifty-years since the Yom Kippur War, but Bob and I learned for the first time how surprised Israel was by the attack, how unprepared.

Our days were a magical blur. A modern train to Jerusalem’s Old City. The historic shuk. A Bauhaus tour through Tel Aviv. The beach, Pita Panda, Shabbat. We skipped the anti-government protest but discussed political turmoil – Israel’s and America’s.

“How lucky are they to be here?” Bob and I marveled, the exceptional education almost beside the point.

Soon after reaching Berlin, the four of us watched a car hit a biker near our al fresco table. There was shouting, a standoff. Scary, but contained.

For the next three days, our young guide Tal (an Israeli native), had us hopping on and off public transit. We explored the Urban Nation Art Museum, Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt, the Berlin Wall Memorial, Platform 17 Memorial. We lingered over Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) scattered across the city and wandered through Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We peered into The Empty Library, shivered at a KinderTransport sculpture. We hung on Tal’s every word.

We also sampled coffees, croissants, and chocolates. We hoisted steins of beer at a garden near the zoo, devoured potato pancakes the circumference of our heads. We delighted in mouthwatering bahn mi, and cut a line for schnitzel, urged by the owner where Tal was a regular.

On our final morning, we shopped.

“I could probably find these at home,” I mumbled over Birkenstock boots, buying them anyway because VAT.

On October 5th, Ian and Helena took a train to Warsaw for more sightseeing.

On October 6th, Bob and I flew home.

On October 7th, we awoke to a family group message:

“Crazy shit happening in Israel right now. Surprise attack from Hamas. Hundreds of rockets and militants entered the south….”

Ian was texting from Poland. Their flight to Ben Gurion had been cancelled.

Days later, he was home in Chicago. Helena was home in Portland.

“School wants us back November 7th,” Ian reported.  

Heartsick, we drove him to O’Hare. He returned to a country forever changed.

Life here has changed as well.  Every day that I lace up my boots, I think about hostages. I think about Gaza and Hamas and Israel and Germany. I think about tunnels and bomb shelters and gas chambers. I think about senseless deaths, unspeakable destruction, history. I walk and walk and can never forget.