Letter: Dealing With Israel’s Realities

Ironies fill Israel these days.

On Friday, June 16, at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, Border Police Sgt. Hadas Malka was knifed in the back. She tried to get her gun out, but she was stabbed several more times and fell to the ground before her attacker was killed. She died shortly thereafter at Hadassah Hospital.

The next night, several women at the Jewish settlement of Yizhar in the West Bank became dehydrated and required medical aid. A call went out. An army ambulance arrived, and the medics took care of the women.

As they left to return to their base, the medics’ ambulance was stoned, breaking windows and leaving large dents in the body of the vehicle.

Oh, well, just another 36 hours in Israel.

— Rabbi David Geffen, Jerusalem