I’ve been interviewing politicians and diplomats for over four decades and have a confession: I take a particular shine to those who show any interest in me at all.
I know that sounds egocentric. Why, after all, should the prime minister of Israel, the senior senator from Arizona, or the ambassador from India care anything about my personal story?
We’re there to talk about enriched Iranian uranium, Washington’s position on the settlements, or the scope of Israel-India security cooperation.
I used to always chuckle when, following an interview with a prime minister – Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, or Benjamin Netanyahu – I’d call my dad and the first thing he would ask was, “Did he ask anything about you?”
“Sure,” I’d joke. “He asked how my father is enjoying his new life in California.”
Then I’d explain that these were not informal, friendly conversations, but formal interviews with aides present and under serious time constraints.
And still.
How much weight a small human gesture can carry
People tend to connect better when there is some sign of mutual interest – even if it’s feigned, even if it is just one question or one comment. Everyone, as the saying goes, wants to be seen. Even from the subject of an interview. Even if that subject carries an impressive title.
Which is why one moment from a recent interview with Naftali Bennett stayed with me. It had nothing to do with his views on Iran, Gaza, or the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft. He asked about my sons and daughter – how my boys were doing in miluim (the reserves), and how The Lass was coping with her husband again in Lebanon.
It did not change my view of his politics, nor does it amount to an endorsement. It did, however, remind me how much weight a small human gesture can carry.
THE LAST three years have been rough on everybody. But there is a scale. Bereaved families, the hostages and their families, and those injured in this long war – along with their families – have borne the heaviest burdens.
Then there are the young conscripts fighting day and night, the reservists who leave behind jobs and families, and those waiting anxiously for them to come home.
The list of those deserving recognition is long. When a friend or colleague asks about a son in Syria, the question means something. It is recognition. It says the person asking understands that this is an abnormal situation that cannot be easy to live with.
Three days before Yom Kippur, I received a WhatsApp message from my daughter that I had been anxiously awaiting since three days after Passover.
Over a picture of my son-in-law in uniform, smiling next to another smiling soldier, The Lass wrote: “The last unit from Battalion 3 is leaving Lebanon. Finally.”
And with that message, my son-in-law’s latest miluim stint came to an end. After nearly three months, The Lass got her husband home, my granddaughters got their father back, and The Wife and I felt a heavy stone lifted from our hearts.
We could relax, at least for a little while, for the first time since three days after Passover. That was when The Youngest began a stint in Lebanon. On his second day there, his company commander – a close friend – was injured in a drone attack. My son took over the position.
From then on, worrying about someone exposed in Lebanon was a constant in our lives. For some six months, the fear was always there, and a prayer for their safety was constantly on our lips. Constantly. Now we have a break – at least until February, when it will all start again, as The Youngest already knows the date of his next round.
AFTER OCTOBER 7, we had three sons and a son-in-law fighting in Gaza for nearly five months. At one time last year, we had most of the bases covered – one son in Gaza, another in Syria, and a son-in-law in Lebanon. The perfect trifecta. To show how topsy-turvy everything had become, when The Lad said he was going to Syria, I was jubilant – this seemed the safest place to be.
All this takes an emotional toll as well as a physical one. For the third consecutive year, The Lass’s husband was in the reserves during August, when the children had no preschool or other framework. That meant The Wife and I pitched in more than usual with the granddaughters.
“Honey, I think I have mono,” I kvetched to The Wife one night when they were all over and finally went to sleep. “I feel exhausted.”
“You don’t have mono,” she smirked. “You’re just not used to doing this anymore.”
Indeed. I put them in their pajamas and felt like I needed a nap. It was exhausting. At times, it was also poignant.
At one point, two of them were playing make-believe, one pretending to be the mother and the other her daughter.
“Where’s Abba?” the make-believe daughter asked.
“In miluim,” my five-year-old granddaughter, playing the mother, replied. This was understandable, since her father has been in the reserves for a good chunk of her life.
Kalman Liebskind wrote two years ago that Israeli society is divided, but not in the way traditionally assumed: Right and Left, religious and secular, supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rather, he wrote, it is divided between those who go to sleep every night worried about sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers serving on the front lines, and those who live free of that fear.
When someone asks the parents of soldiers or reservists how their children are doing in Lebanon or Gaza, and how they themselves are sleeping at night, the question acknowledges a reality that often remains invisible: the worrying at home.
The soldiers and reservists bear the greatest burden. But their parents, spouses, and children carry a heavy weight of their own.
When a friend, neighbor, or colleague asks, it is appreciated. When a leading politician asks, it can shape the impression he leaves behind. Perhaps it shouldn’t. But it does.■