We see men running, talleisim flapping after them in the wind. We run after them, to the makeshift bomb shelters set up behind the shul
“L
ook,” I say to my seven-year-old son. “There’s a rooster.”
We’re in Ashdod for Shabbos, celebrating my nephew’s bar mitzvah, staying on a yeshivah campus. It’s just after Krias HaTorah and we’re sitting outside the caravan-cum-shul, basking in the gentle warmth of the sun. The sweet sound of the bar mitzvah boy’s clear and confident leining lingers in the air; the sweet taste of the candies we threw lingers in the children’s mouths.
The orange-and-red rooster pecks at the grass. My son follows it as it meanders along the path. They both disappear around the corner.
Then there’s an air-raid siren.
It takes a second for the sound to register. A missile attack? Must be a mistake.
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