Reflections from Costa Rica: A War Then, A War Now

It is the first week of June 1967. My mother is pacing back and forth, consumed by fear. Her daughter—my sister—is studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Mom is in another world, crying, trembling, convinced that the end of the Jewish people is near. “What will happen to my daughter?” she pleads. “Haven’t I suffered enough?” She had lost her entire family in the Holocaust just twenty-two years earlier.

This is what I experienced in my household, as a ten year old boy in the midst of the Six Day War. A war in which, for preparation, Israelis were digging mass graves in the public parks expecting the worse.

I am currently in the idyllic country of Costa Rica taking a vacation and looking out on the ocean and the mountains. Stunning, beautiful and breathtaking, right?

Wrong.

In the middle of this respite, war has broken out again. Another war in Israel. And suddenly, paradise fades. My vacations are normally productive—I clear personal and business tasks, reconnect with my wife through light conversation, politics, and the unique rhythm of a long-married couple. But now, my focus has shifted entirely. I think of Israel. I think of my sister, her husband, their children, my fifty-plus cousins, friends, and landsmen—from my own generation to the newborns.

Many of my relatives—cousins, nephews—have been called up. I tried reaching out. Some couldn't answer; they were already rushing to bomb shelters. The ones I did speak with were upbeat, spirited. They thanked me for calling. But it was I who was grateful. They are the ones standing at the frontlines—fighting for the survival of the Jewish people.

I can’t sleep. I wake every two hours to check the news from Israel. I told my wife I’ve stopped following all other news. I don’t care about political sideshows or constitutional crises. I care about one thing: our survival—and the survival of a nation reborn after 2,000 years in exile.

Without Israel, I believe Judaism would not have survived after The War—at least not as a living, breathing people. Perhaps only as scattered remnants, like the Amish. After the Holocaust, Judaism was in shambles. Israel gave it breath again. But that’s a story for another day.

Am I becoming my mother? Maybe. But in hindsight, she suffered what we’d now call a nervous breakdown. Or as psychiatrist Thomas Szasz once put it, "a normal reaction to an insane world." I understand her now. I, too, am consumed—not by panic, but by purpose. By identity. By the fate of Klal Yisroel, the Jewish people.

Ironically, a week before this war began, I booked a round-trip ticket to Israel for late July. I don’t know if the airports will be open. I pray they will. But more than that, I pray that one day, all Jews will return to Israel. Our final hope. Our redemption.