However they get there, bottom line is that our children know what’s happening
It’s a sunny June afternoon and my youngest son is sprawled on the living room floor along with a few friends. I’m in the kitchen shaping burgers. The boys have unloaded boxes of Playmobil and staged a scene featuring various vehicles and figures, helicopters and an airplane. The game seems tranquil enough that I only have to check on them occasionally.
Then the play session gets louder, more animated. There is something very intentional and intense in that affected helicopter buzz. The high childish voices are barking now. Take the hostages! Grab them and get them out of here before the Arabs shoot!
A raw burger lies limply in my hands as I focus on the drama taking place in the living room, a not-too-inaccurate reenactment of the hostage rescue that took place in Gaza a few weeks ago.
I consider the world that these second-graders inhabit, the events that are their reality and the fodder for their play sessions. My own brothers used to play “Hatzalah Man” growing up in Brooklyn. They also reenacted dramatic lifesaving rescues. Maybe the scene taking place in my Jerusalem home in 2024 isn’t all that different.
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