As the days of peacetime blur into forgetfulness, I begrudgingly sink into this new normal of alerts, sirens and check-ins. The irony is that with all the arrow missiles and ballistic warheads moving at the speed of sound, I’ve been forced to slow the fuck down.

You see, the small amount of work I had ‘till now has dwindled to a virtual halt. Our school set up a ‘zoom lite’ schedule for the kids—a minimalistic schedule, in confidence that ‘bagrut lite’ matriculation exams would replace the regular ones. Now I’m not even sure if the exams will happen at all.

So my usual 6 hours of teaching got rescheduled to almost zero; my subject isn’t a top-tier one in any case. I feel little need to spend time creating online lesgreensons, when AI can simply revamp the ones sitting in my drive from COVID-19. God help me. I’ve created some great review materials, but my 12th graders show little interest/motivation in looking at them. You can lead a horse to water. But I’m not judging anyone these days.

Yes, the timing could have been better. I’m supposedly on sabbatical and all the courses I enjoyed got moved online. What a joy. And now, Israel is supposedly on Passover vacation. Two weeks where there is officially no school and less work. But let’s make something clear for those who didn’t get the memo: nobody is getting a break from anything. This war doesn’t do breaks. Only deceiving lulls for a few hours, which is hardly the same thing.

Passover is usually family time—an occasion for trips and hikes. My friends talk about getting in their cars and heading to the Negev or somewhere that isn’t home, but who are they kidding. The highway is a scary place right now. During a siren some drivers carry on driving oblivious, while others stop by the side of the road. That alone is a recipe for disaster. The North, usually the go-to for Israeli families during spring break, is being pounded relentlessly. In our tiny country, the map of “safe” places is shrinking, and we’re running low on ideas.

So I wake up in the morning, thankfully with no little ones whining for choco and their iPads—and my day is strangely empty. No work, no projects of any import, no courses and, worst of all no plans—neither for the near or distant future.

And whenever I get my teeth into something, like a row on WhatsApp with disgruntled teachers, some impossible verbs in Arabic, or the one interesting documentary on Netflix, there it goes. The alert. Gee thanks. As if I had forgotten.

It’s official, our nation is clean out of panic cards—all we can do right now is low-grade grumbling resentment. As the siren goes off, we make swift calculations. Should we take our coffee/our phone/laptops/favorite pillow/gin and tonic into the safe room or leave it outside? Usually it comes in with us as we sit there in smoldering silence. The only remark you might get is “that boom was loud.” In fact, when I go to our safe room and hear NO booms, I feel strangely dissatisfied. I want my money back!

The worst is a siren without a pre-alert. That is simply rude.

My brain is on permanent strike. I can’t look at pictures of dead soldiers, hear of injured children, see pics of rubble and flames, and I don’t want to hear Trump or Netanyahu’s “reassuring” address to the nation.

Of course I care, it’s just my nervous system is shot to pieces.

Is there a proverbial light on the horizon to this wonderful month-long marathon watch shit show? Yes. Definitely.

If it wasn’t for the war, I wouldn’t have started playing around with wool and, in the process, discovering that I have more patience than I thought. Facebook decided I was in need of soothing punch embroidery. In a hypnotic AI induced trance, I ordered a set. Punch embroidery is a type of embroidery that is done on one side of the canvas only with a special punch needle that looks like a pen. And you literally punch the wool in. I love it, it’s aggressive, just like me at times, and yet it’s delicate. The feel of the wool grounds me in a way that is hard to explain.


I like my punch embroidery – shame the colors don’t match my green wall

Problem is, punch embroidery kits are hard to get your hands on. I’ve completed three kits and last word from AliExpress is my latest purchase hasn’t even been shipped yet! Something to do with the Strait of Hormuz, no doubt—geopolitics interfering with my craft projects again.

I also started doing a bit of watercolor painting. I am not a new Matisse by any stretch of the imagination, I’m just a middling drained Israeli woman trying to stay afloat.

this one was inspired by my trip to India

All this is teaching me that joy doesn’t come from quick fixes, but a slow and steady rhythm. And the slow flow is reaching into other parts of my life, too. I’m more than willing to prepare a dish with a complicated recipe—I made risotto last week and spent an hour pouring the home-made broth cup by cup into the gently bubbling rice. I didn’t even have to watch Seinfeld to distract me.

Today I did a full hour yoga flow with my favorite online instructor. In the past once I got to 30 minutes, I was climbing the walls (almost). But when you haven’t got much to do, and the war won’t end any faster either way, something shifts.

The second thing war is teaching me is to prioritize family. Being at home, away from colleagues and friends means those I spend the most time with are my loved ones. My daughter, Rachel, is back from college for the “vacation” and her long-awaited flight to the US was cancelled (no surprises there). We actually did a joint project—a real first. We painted the hallway dark green. The product was far from perfect (it looks much better when you squint) but the process—from choosing a color together to making our purchases, to framing photos for the hallway, applying primer, taping and setting up and cleaning up huge splats of green paint from the floor—was just as bonding as the layers of paint. Would we have done this had there not been a war? I hardly think so.


our green wall – mixed reviews- but we don’t care too much

My elderly parents relocated to Jerusalem three months ago and I am eternally grateful that I do not have to endure yet another war with them far away. They now live close enough for impromptu breakfasts and lunches, which could not have happened when they lived in the center of the country. We thought that the proximity would create a breeding ground for petty rows, but surprisingly our rendez-vous have become more relaxed than in the past.

On Wednesday evening it looked like our family seder plans would have to be scrapped. My oldest daughter, Kayla and stepdaughter, Hodaya, together with their partners and family had barely left their homes in the center of the country when the sirens started. And they just didn’t stop.

As Kayla and her partner crouched in a ditch between two buildings, rain pouring and booms overhead, they seriously considered turning back. Meanwhile, my husband’s daughter, her husband, and their ten-year-old neurodivergent son were sheltering on level -3 of a nearby mall parking lot—they’d only just left home when the sirens began. One siren is scary enough; five is something else entirely.

They all arrived at my door later than planned, shaken but smiling and hungry. Our table heaved with delicacies that had been prepared with love, dedication and patience (Avi made pickled tongue—a dish he’d been preparing for the past week). I was so relieved that they’d made it that all the little things I usually make a big deal about when I’m entertaining guests became instantly inconsequential.

War or not, I’ve begun to ask myself where we’re all hurrying to. Nowadays, when we make tentative plans, we know that the outcome isn’t a given at all. I think when this is over (hard to imagine it now), I will miss the slow rhythm of the lulls between sirens. There is so little that matters right now. But my sanity must take a priority. But wasn’t that always the case?

And so I set my phone aside, I allow the news updates to wait their patient turn. I thread my needle or dip the brush in paint and take a deep, cleansing breath. There is still a lot of beauty in the world. My son might call me, just wanting to check in. Or my mum wants the risotto recipe. I’ll send her a picture of my embroidery. It’s not great, but it’s mine and it took time.

Deep down, I know that this too will pass. As all difficult things do. In the grand scheme of things, when the world flips on its axis at the touch of a button, I’m as caught up in the undertow as everyone else.

I can, however control my thoughts and reactions. I can gently tend to my frayed nervous system with threads and watercolor. I can fill my heart with love. I can limit the poison of rage and fear that threatens to leak into the walls I am carefully constructing. And I can develop the ultimate winning skill—patience.

Ella Ben Emanuel teaches high school Diplomacy Studies and English in Tzur Hadassah and lives in Jerusalem. She’s a mother, grandmother, educator, writer, and occasional actress and comedian. With over a decade of teaching experience, she recently began publishing essays and fiction on Substack. Her writing explores education, identity, motherhood, and life in Israel, blending personal reflection with cultural insight and wit.