PERSIAN GULF CRISIS

dence in 1948, boatloads
of bewildered Holocaust
survivors had guns pressed
into their hands the same
day they landed — and I
imagine them damn glad to
be the ones holding the
rifle for a change.
change.
I have lived a life blessedly
free from pain and loss, and
to watch my parents
scrambling to put on their
gas masks — they are not
young and the stress can be
doing them no good — is
very hard. My son, 13 mon-
ths old now, is getting used
to his plastic gas-proof tent,
but every time I seal him in
there as he screams "Abba,
Abba," I age another year.
Inside, he takes a swig of
milk, which we've spiked
with a touch of Bailey's Irish
Cream, and laughs as my
wife and I, ridiculous in gas
masks with our thick
eyeglasses held on the out-
side with elastic bands —
you can't wear contact
lenses with a gas mask: one
of many new things I've
learned lately — put on a
show with hand puppets.
When the all-clear comes,
and I take the boy out, I feel
like I'm playing doctor, pull-
ing him from the womb. Will
he have subterranean
memories of these weird
nighttime ceremonies?
We've sealed ourselves
into the room five times now,
three false alarms and two
real McCoys. Every time,
there's that jolt of adrena-
line as we snap into ac-
tion. I grab the plastic pup
tent from the dining room
table and bring it into the
bedroom. My father moni-
tors the radio while my wife
gets the baby, and my
mother soaks towels in
water with bleach. We seal
the door to the bedroom with
tape and stick the towels at
the bottom. We whip on our
masks, pull tight the rubber
straps, shove the kid in the
tent and give him his drink.
On Saturday morning, 7-
something a.m., we're sit-
ting there like a family of
aardvarks as the radio tells
us only what to do, but not
what has happened. If
there's anything more we
should know, they'll tell us,
they say, and begin playing
mellow Israeli pop tunes.
I've heard enough of these
already for a lifetime. It's
like being stuck in an
elevator but the Muzak is
still working.
The phone rings and I pick
it up, shouting hello through

16

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1991

the heavy rubber mask. It's
California calling, a friend of
my wife's, not heard from re-
cently, who is sitting in her
house watching the war on
television like everyone else
in America. She learns that
Iraqi missiles have fallen on
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and

Schoffman:
On high alert.

grabs the phone. This is the
first we've heard of the at-
tack — via a phone call from
Pacific Palisades. It's the
global village gone mad.
No missiles, of course, fell
that morning,on Jerusalem,
any more than, as ABC re-
ported, Tel Aviv had been
hit by nerve gas. One advan-
tage to the view from the
sealed room is that things
here aren't nearly as bad as
they look on American TV.
It struck me the other day
that exactly 600 years ago,
in 1391, the final fall from
glory of Spanish Jewry
began. In that year, masses
of Jews converted under
great duress to Christianity,
a good number of them con-
tinuing to practice Judaism
in secret: the Marranos, or
crypto-Jews, who huddled en
famille in hidden rooms and
performed Jewish rituals.
Jewish experience is over-
ripe with anniversaries and
analogies; the flypaper of
our history never lets us be
unstuck. How is it possible
not to conjure up the Holo-
caust whenever Israel is
lethally threatened? And
this time, with another
megalomaniacal, mus-
tachioed dictator at cen-
ter stage, and poison gas
the dread weapon, the
parallel is unavoidable. No
one knows what designs of
mass destruction Saddam
has in mind, or whether he's
capable of executing them.
No one knows for sure.
One of the many brilliant
elements of Claude Lanz-
mann's epic film, Shoah, is
the way the filmmaker uses

landscapes. Witnesses re-
count unspeakable horrors
against the backdrop of
green fields and forests,
country roads on sunny
days. As if to say: On or-
dinary, even lovely morn-
ings, the worst evil can
suddenly strike.
I am thinking about Shoah
on Shabbat morning, a few
hours after the second attack
on Tel Aviv, and I am stroll-
ing down our quiet
Jerusalem street, trying to
get my son, his sleep
schedule battered but good,
to fall asleep in his carriage.
I notice, as if for the first
time, just how beautiful are
the trees on our block, tall
pines and a huge old
eucalyptus; and the sky
above them, a soft and clear
powder blue with a few
clouds. A man from across
the street, a sabra about 60,
is walking his dog, the two of
them stout and tough-
looking. The dog, as always,
wears a muzzle: Today he

seems an obvious symbol of
the nation, strong but re-
strained, keeping out of the
war.
How are we doing, asks the
man. It's okay, I say. It's
hard putting my son in that
plastic box, though. This is
survival, the man shrugs.
Yes, but is it living? Do I
need to wonder — more than
I did a week ago, more than
perhaps I ever have — if to-
day will be my last on earth,
in order to appreciate the
sunset or a robin's song? I
came here from America to
add meaning to my life; are
meaning and comfort, Jew-
ish values and personal safe-
ty, mutually exclusive?
Sunday is my parents'
wedding anniversary, but I
can't find an open flower
shop. So I buy them a giant
romaine lettuce, the biggest
one I've ever seen; an
emblem, my father smiles, of
our evergreen romance.
These are difficult times,
and it is good that we're

weathering them together.
And it's been easier, so far,
in Jerusalem; we haven't
been hit, and our hotels are
full of Tel Avivis — many of
whom, I'd bet, haven't dared
set foot here since the start
of the intifada — who feel
suddenly safer here than at
home. Talk aboUt milhemet
luxus.
By Monday we have gone
back to work, and the stores
are opening again. We may
have to get used to a small,
omnipresent threat for the
duration of the war, the
government is starting to
say: as if we are all in Kiryat
Shmona, the' Northern
Galilee town that for years
was vulnerable to Katyusha
rocket attacks from Leb-
anon.
The routines lumber back
to life, but the suspense re-
mains, a low, annoying
drone, not the exhilarated
nail-biting of the fourth
quarter of a great game.
Every time we hear some-
thing remotely like a siren
— a vacuum cleaner at the
neighbor's — we jump. In
the dead of night, I suddenly
wake and switch on the

-4

The routines lumber
back to life, but the
suspense remains, a
low, annoying drone.

Civil Defense exercises were staged throughout Israel to prepare
citizens for missile attacks. Here, a Chasid helps his young son put
on a gas mask.

radio, keeping the volume
low. Israeli planes rumble
overhead.
A new day dawns. It's
three nights in a row now
that it's only been my son,
and not the sirens, inflicting
the customary sleep depriva-
tion on me. The morning
headlines are most disturb-
ing. The Iraqi air force is
nearly intact. Saddam has
plenty of launchers left. Not
all the chemical plants have
been destroyed. We see the
POWs on TV. A majority of
Americans believes the war
will take months, or even
longer.
My neighbor, Uzi, came by
the other night to return the
- tapes and pick up more. His
four-year-old trades in Dum-
bo for Sleeping Beauty. I
would like to be more like
Uzi. I put Dumbo in the VCR
and my son in front of the
TV, and lie back on the sofa.
The kid is riveted to the
animals, but though I love
Dumbo, I can't enjoy it: I am
on high alert. If an elephant
can fly, why not Saddam
Hussein?

❑

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