I came across this song when it was released earlier this year. It felt somewhat relevant, but I knew that sooner or later it would be even more relevant, it was just a matter of time. The poet Yehuda Amichai wrote the words in 1983, after the Lebanon War, and Sapir Volach's haunting melody captures the unsettling feeling of the song. I had trouble falling asleep in the past few days, not just out of fear of rockets in the middle of the night, but mainly because of the devastating lynchings and riots that have been taking place in mixed cities all over the country, fuelled by extremists from both sides. I've had plenty of encounters with Israeli Arabs over the years, sometimes there was an underlying tension but mostly there wasn't. I thought of when my sister and I went to an excellent Italian restaurant in the Jaffa Port back in March on the first day when restaurants were finally allowed to reopen for in-house dining after 6 long months. The staff was just as excited as we were and I remember how our waiter went out of his way to bring Tahini from the restaurant next door to them when we asked for some with our salad. I don't know when I'll get to go there again, maybe the unrest will die down just like these flare-ups do, but maybe it won't and things won't go back to how they were before.
Give the child a lullaby, sing to him so he'll sleep:
Father has gone to work, father has gone to war
But sleep.
The wolf is howling, the enemy is at the gate, but sleep,
The house is collapsing, the world is going up in flames.
But sleep, but sleep.
Don't tell him about heavenly angels,
Don't tell him about a butterfly
And not about golden birds.
Sing the terrible things in a sweet voice,
Also a plague and a sword and hunger
They are a relaxing rhythm.
Take the lullaby from the child,
He'll still fall asleep, he'll still grow up,
Take the child from the lullaby
And the song will continue on its own in the world
Lag B'Omer has always felt like two different holidays on the same date. I vividly remember my first Lag B'Omer in Israel when I was in the 6th grade. My friends and I had decided to part ways with the class bonfire and make a bonfire of our own. So we spent long afternoons collecting wood planks in a supermarket cart and watched with great satisfaction as it all burned in a bonfire while eating tin foil potatoes and roasting marshmallows. In later years we would opt for bonfires at the beach or ignore the bonfire part completely and just get together since there was a vacation the next day (parents had to work as usual). In one year in middle school, we were sick of the smoky streets and escaped to the movies to watch Kill Bill: Volume 2, delighted that we had found a way around the holiday which had become pretty annoying to us. I only found out from the news that it was a religious holiday marked by a pilgrimage to Mt. Meron where among other festivities, 3-year-old boys had their 'chalake' ceremony, their first haircut. I think that only in the army I learned about the counting of the Omer (I was wondering why so many guys suddenly had beards!) and Lag B'Omer's significance as a joyful day.
This year I ignored it completely and it felt like there were fewer bonfires than usual. I was annoyed to discover that the Minister of Transportation gave permission to let trains run at full capacity just for Lag B'Omer when they had been running at 75% capacity due to Covid restrictions, not to mention the fact that a special train schedule was created with extra trains. I learned that the politicians had come to an agreement to allow unrestricted entry to Mt. Meron, due to the low Covid rates. It goes without saying that Netanyahu has a few days left to form a government and he is dependant on the religious parties. Before I went to bed I saw a news item on the Bonfire celebrations at Mt. Meron. A rabbi was boasting that it was the largest bonfire in the world and that it was a moment of great unity, praising the volunteers who were giving out sandwiches and water bottles. What unity? I thought to myself before falling asleep. I woke up in the morning to see notifications about the terrible tragedy that had happened at Mt. Meron: 44 dead from a stampede (the number later rose to 45), more than a hundred injured, and complete chaos with many children missing. I was horrified by the tragic details but I was also angry. It felt like this was a disaster waiting to happen and that for some miracle it hadn't happened earlier. The Minister of Health said in a press conference that the medical teams at the nearby hospital had trained the day before for such a scenario and were ready to receive the injured. Maybe this was supposed to be comforting but it just angered me even more. An engineer had been at the site the day before and had given approval, even though there were severe reports in 2008 and 2011 warning of a likely catastrophe. But would it have made a difference if the engineer had not given approval? Would it have stopped the mass celebrations? Probably not, and there is not much guarantee that this will not happen again.
I thought of other civil disasters that had happened here, all because of the disastrous 'it'll be fine' mentality, like the Maccabiah bridge collapse and the Arad festival disaster when organizers sold more tickets than the venue could hold, resulting in the death of three teenagers from a crowd crush. I also thought of the religious-secular tensions this past year and when Aviv Geffen dedicated this song to the ultra-Orthodox community in Bnei Brak last April. I had always associated the song with the Second Intifadah but the lyrics clearly talk about internal tensions which we must try to overcome. I am angry at the political leaders for letting this disaster happen and at the same time my heart goes out to the families of the deceased, to the injured, and to everyone who had to witness firsthand this terrible event. We might not share the same religious beliefs but we are all in this together.
Here are Aviv Geffen's words from when he performed this song last June:
I gave an interview a while ago that really raised a lot of discussions, I truly spoke what was on my mind, I truly think that during Corona a lot of thoughts rose in me and of course, I'm changing all the time. I had a friend that I love, a smart friend, a very, very educated man and during Corona, there was a moment that it seemed that this is going to pass by and move on, he said to me "The Corona is already almost gone, now just the ultra-Orthodox in Bnei Brak are dying". And he was my friend and something about it, it hit me and I didn't like it, I didn't like what's become of us and this talk and disqualifying people because they wear a kippah because that's what we've gotten used to, and I said that it's really a disconnect and probably up there the country and the government separated us for years in a brilliant and wonderful way and they succeeded. And I somehow during Corona decided with myself that I don't hate and don't blame one person or another and at least I'll be there to listen. And it's about time that really we, all the people of Israel, we should really be together a bit because anyways there's the Corona outside and a lot of evil as is, and also antisemitism. I'm a secular person, I'm an atheist, and yet I respect those who choose to believe in God, any God, and we need to respect and hold hands. And there are many places where we shouldn't meet, the secularists and the religious, but we need to find the places where we can meet and there are places like that and I'm going to meet them right in those places.
