This week, after the earth shook, the rift in the nation changed.
From now on we were no longer left-wing, right-wing, secular or ultra-Orthodox.
That day we were divided into those who felt, trembled, jumped out of their beds in the middle of the night and bombarded with messages "Did you feel?"
On WhatsApp, for those who... well, sleep.
I and many of my acquaintances belong to the second camp.
The sleepy, sleepy one, the one who warmed the house to the end but didn't feel at all the swinging lamps and the raging cats.
Many, many hours passed since the disaster happened and until we even knew it had happened.
And it's a big disaster that left many victims, and people shocked and destitute, and people in a small country nearby, who immediately start thinking about how to help and how to make sure that it doesn't happen to us either.
20 and a bit years ago I boarded an IDF helicopter as part of a military expedition that set up a field hospital in Turkey after a devastating earthquake. It was in November 1999, three months after the earthquake in which the lovely Shiran Franco was saved, when there was an aftershock in Doja, about 120 km away "M from Izmit, where the epicenter of the previous earthquake was.
Israel the champion with aid opened another field hospital there, a second one, to help with routine treatments, and I joined as a medic.
What do I remember from there?
Mostly sooty children with superficial injuries, mothers who gave birth prematurely due to the stress, and a hungry boy who kept coming to the military dining hall and explained that he came here because he had no point in going to school.
We were closed in the temporary tents, we showered with mineral water bottles because there was no running water.
Only when they took us out for a tour around us did we discover ruined and dusty houses, complete remnants of a life that disappeared in an instant.
These are scenes that flash before my eyes every time Israel takes out a field hospital, and they came up again at the beginning of the week when the ground of Turkey shook again.
But if they don't make me prepare an emergency box with cans, I guess those who haven't seen or experienced - are even less prepared.
Judging by the random conversations we've had in the last few days, the level of surprise for a person who wakes up and realizes that a disaster happened at night that he was completely unaware of, is enormous.
It's a feeling that we fell asleep on duty, that we are at zero readiness level.
Because who really knows what to do when the ground is shaking?
People in Ness Ziona reported that their bed bounced from side to side, a neighbor wrote that the lamps swayed, but here there are entire families that only swayed to the other side under the duvet.
As the scale of the disaster becomes clear, it becomes clear that we all fell asleep on the watch.
We only know, and this is also a rough estimate, that there will be an earthquake here, and that we have no real ability to defend ourselves.
"It could happen in a day, or months, or years," the experts warn, giving us zero preparedness.
The State Comptroller's reports over the years endlessly warn that there are not enough plans to protect buildings, or general preparedness for earthquakes, but this situation does not really change. There are tsunami warning signs on the beaches. Every winter there is a storm here, but each time we are surprised anew that nature Acts like nature.
The main problem is that we don't know what to do, and try to hold on to the safe things.
We are already used to entering the MMD, unfortunately. Only that in the event of a shaking earth, I make a note to myself, the door is supposed to be left open, so as not to be trapped. If you do not have a protected area and there is an alarm, the Home Command advises to go to the stairwell or go to the innermost room in the house . Unless it's an earthquake, then it's better to run outside. Now we can only hope that if we feel the ground drop under our feet, we'll know that it's nature and not the son of injustice that has come to kill us. If a disaster must happen, let it be one in a hundred, it's too early for the apocalypse.
At the beginning of the week my eldest son, who is close to the age of mitzvah, saw the news headlines with intense curiosity.
Without saying a word he entered the room, tied a field mattress and a thick blanket with a rope, threw a change of clothes, socks, a flashlight and some games into a backpack, "so that the nurses have something to play with, if we have to run away."
He was not afraid.
did not enter into anxiety.
He went to practice, that we would have something to wear.
I looked at his big eyes, worried without worrying, and along with words of reassurance I offered him to add a portable charger to the bag.
We are a reformed country, I said, they will surely take care of us for food, water, blankets.
Even for toilet paper.
People are sure to have leftovers from the Corona era, so stockpile it in quantities.
But without the mobile phone, we may not even know that the earth shook.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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