As we approach the nine-month point in the war, Israel is a different place than it was this past Sukkot, when I last wrote. But to Israelis, more importantly, the world has changed – and not in a good way. When you turn on the news in the morning, too many days begin with the dreaded words, “Released for publication…,” which means that the family has been notified and now we can tell you. Nearly every day, Israeli papers contain two depressing things – another casualty among Israeli soldiers and details on antisemitic incidents around the world. Those antisemitic incidents are in the usual places but also in places that Israel thought were liberal democracies and should be supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, not calling for attacks on Jews. The average Israeli now believes that there is no place where it is safe to be a Jew – not in the “goldena medina” and not in Israel. Being Jewish remains a difficult state of affairs.

We made aliyah 16 months ago. For the first 14 months, everyone asked: How are you adjusting, and how is your Hebrew? Can you read the newspapers and understand the TV news? And when are coming back for a visit?

The answers to those questions were always quite simple: We are doing fine and not encountering anything that we cannot handle (sometimes with some help from children, grandchildren, or strangers). My Hebrew is better than it has been in 40-plus years, but I am far from fluent. I can manage, though, in almost every normal circumstance as almost all Israelis “have some English” – or so they think. I can struggle with newspaper articles, as long as I have Google Translate and a dictionary for Shabbat. I catch enough of the broadcast news to know what they speaking about – but not to the extent that I would go out and make an investment based on my understanding of what was said. That one is a real struggle, but everyone insists it is the best way to continue to improve your Hebrew. As for the final question, around Sukkot, we were talking about a visit – but that ties into the other questions.

Writing about my father, Irving J. Abramowitz, is very difficult. It is difficult because he was a modest person who would not want a “big deal” made of his passing. It is difficult because, to me, he was my father; growing up, I thought everyone’s father was like my own or did the things that my father did for us. As I grew up, I realized just how special a father I had.