Waiting

28 years ago this year a young woman got on a plane and flew to Israel, alone, to make a new life for herself. Growing up in a very small Jewish community and after many wonderful holidays in Israel, she wanted to see what it was like to live in the Jewish State. So that young woman got on the plane, studied hard in Ulpan (Hebrew language school) to learn Hebrew and got herself a job working in the field of graphic design.

That young woman was me.

The years passed and I met Richard and gave birth to two boys. I set up my own small business working from home, creating paper art which made people happy. I toured and hiked around Israel and blogged about it, sharing my experiences with others. I wanted everyone to see the country I loved. אין לי ארץ אחרת - I have no other country - so the song goes. And I believed it. I believed I was bringing my sons up in just the right place. I was bringing them up in a land where they could be proud Jews, where they were free to spend hours outdoors, hiking and swimming and simply enjoying themselves. They were not, like I had been, the only Jews in their class. They learnt Hebrew and Bible studies, the history of the land and much, much more. Truthfully, their school education was not what we hoped it would be but it was a compromise. I truly believed that, despite their education, they were better off living here than abroad.

21st May 2022 changed all of that. On 21st May 2022 we lost Gadi, our youngest son. I still find it hard to write those words today. Gadi was serving his time in an elite unit of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) as a tank driver. He was home for a long weekend, having been on his base for 21 days previously. I have written his story before. Inexplicably Gadi chose to end his life after “a negative interaction with the Police”. (These were the words used by the IDF in an end of year news article about suicide in the Israeli army.)

What did Gadi do? We understood at the time that he had been caught smoking weed in the park with a friend. Weed. In bars and cafes across Israel, the air is thick with cannabis smoke. For years, smoking weed has been socially permissible in Israel despite being technically illegal. Patio tables in cities like Modi’in and Tel Aviv are dotted with people openly rolling joints and lighting up without a second thought.

Richard and I didn’t like or approve of it but what harm was Gadi doing that night? It was late, the park was empty besides Gadi and his friend, they were just having a bit of, albeit foolish, fun.

3 hours after being released by the Israel Police onto the street, Gadi was dead. For over a year we waited patiently for the army report investigating the events of that terrible night. We really, really wanted to understand what happened to Gadi. We hoped that somehow we would get some kind of answers to our many questions and then at least we could begin to grieve.

Last month we were finally presented with the army report. We got 5 pages of nothing.

The report lacks details, has factual mistakes and there is a huge black hole about the entire interaction between Gadi and the Israel Police. In fact, the Military Police failed to even interview them. In a whole year.

At one point the report refers to “Levi”. They didn't even bother to check Gadi's name. Crucially, we did learn that there were no drugs or alcohol in Gadi’s body at the time of his death. None whatsoever.

On one side of the report it is written, "that his [Gadi’s] commanders and friends described him as a good soldier, sociable and loved, with a joy of life and a sense of humour." And on the other hand, he committed suicide. Why? What happened to Gadi that made him turn from someone who had plans for the near and far future to someone who commits suicide? The elephant in the room is of course the Israel Police.

Now we are struggling just to get the investigation material so that we can fill in some of the (huge) holes in the report and decide on our next step. The army is “working on it”. Surely all the details and facts should have been collected for the report from the beginning? Goodness knows what they are working on now. Are they perhaps trying to cover something up or do they hope that if they take long enough, we will simply give up and stop asking?

Gadi did nothing wrong. He was a smart, creative and sometimes silly young man, but he did nothing wrong.

אין לי ארץ אחרת - I have no other country. Could this happen elsewhere? Perhaps, but I rue the day I set foot on that plane and came to a land where the police and army fail to look after a young man who is risking his life to protect them and their families.

* This post has been shared on Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) and My Corner of the World.