Israel, Day 1: Tel Aviv

“You have the feeling sometimes in Israel that you live in Russian roulette.”

Sagiv Jehezkel, an Israeli soccer player detained in Turkey for showing solidarity with Israel

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An easy flight, 6.5 hours of sleep (God bless Xanax) and four episodes of “Mad Men” and a pre-boarding meeting with Sam, who made aliyah two years from Connecticut; who hooks me up with his friend with communities displaced after October 7 - we are talking between 120,000 and 150,000, living in hotels, creating all-new ecosystems, not without challenges. Chaim, the host of my Airbnb, had 45 cancellations immediately after October 7.

“How do you say it, it’s a mess,” he says; that the country is at the point where they know how they got in a war but not yet how to get out. The tone is, What are you going to do? Very Israeli, mirth mixed with steel.

“You know though what they say,” says Yael’s dad Ronnie. “If you don’t believe in miracles, you are not from Israel.”

Ronnie had earlier told me about Sagiv Jehezkel, an Israeli soccer player playing for a Turkish club who, upon scoring a goal, displayed a message of support for Israel. This did not go over well with Turkish authorities, who detained him for “instigating hatred and enmity among the public.” (He has since been released.)

It’s uncertain times, or as Yael’s mother Liora put it, “You have the feeling sometimes in Israel that you live in Russian roulette.”

I’ll be in Israel, reporting on stories you may not have heard much or anything about, for the next two weeks. See you here xx