I don’t consider myself living in a war zone now, although I suppose my descriptions of living outside Jerusalem sound as if I do. The following are excerpts from letters I’ve sent to my sister, Tamah Kushner ’83. I offer them neither as a political appeal nor as a defense; I only want to share my feelings and experiences about what it’s like to live as an Israeli Jew “over the green line.”

Dear Tamah,

I’ve always been one for new experiences. Saturday night, I find myself driving along a dark road surrounded by abandoned buildings. We pass a fluorescent green-lit tower, which I realize is a minaret, a section of a Muslim mosque—not a welcome site in our situation. I look at my husband. “Are you sure we’re on the right road?” I ask him, even though I’m holding the map and navigating. He takes his gun out of its holster, loads it, and hands it to me. “Hold it,” he says. “And look around. Be ready to fire or hand the gun to me.” We drive down the road in silence.

An almost hysterical giggle bursts from my throat. I’m holding a semi-automatic weapon in both hands, when I’ve never even fired the thing. I’m a nice girl from South Jersey. How did I get here?

At an army checkpoint, we ask the soldiers if we’re going in the right direction. Straight on, they tell us. They’re boys of no more than 19, wearing bullet-proof vests, helmets, standing behind sandbags and cement blocks. We’re in a war zone.

But the strangest thing is that my husband is not being over- dramatic or ridiculous. People are shot at all the time. It doesn’t even make the news anymore unless someone’s seriously injured. A youth threw a Molotov cocktail at my brother-in-law when he was driving near Ofrah last week. Thank G-d it didn’t go off. We are living in surreal times, which explains why I am carrying a gun in my lap and whispering the phrases of psalms. We are more scared on this road because it is unknown.

We travel from our home to Jerusalem every day, passing checkpoints where explosions and shootings occur daily. Still, our life progresses as “normal.” We go on with weddings, births, and happy occasions and sit with friends and relatives. We achieve normalcy. We try not to boil over when we hear accusations about the “settlers” or how foreign countries think we should take less action—even though we’re still being killed every day by people who think it’s OK to blow yourself up for a cause.

It was good to talk with you, Tamah, last Saturday night and laugh a bit to relieve my worry.

Yitzchak wants me to get a gun. Now that I finally know how to shoot it, he thinks I’m ready to own one. He doesn’t like the idea of my driving with the kids with no protection. At first, I thought he was crazy. What am I, born and raised in the mall capital of America, going to do with a semi-automatic in my purse? I’m still adjusting to the responsibilities of being a parent.

We first had this conversation on the way to visit Yitzchak’s brother and my new sister-in-law. They wanted us to visit them in their new home near Efrat, with the children. I looked at my husband, but I already knew what our answer would be. As scared as I was to travel that road, we had both agreed that we wouldn’t change plans because of terrorism. This was our family.

So there we were, again, on a darkened road, passing junctions where passengers in cars are shot at regularly.

Then, Yitzchak says gently, “You know, Aviva, if we are shot at, it will be at close range.” I look at him for a moment, not understanding. Then I realize, people come down from those villages, hide in the bushes, and shoot at passing cars. I turn around and look at my sleeping children in the back seat and have a moment of true fear. We ride the rest of the way home in silence.

I am an American. I like being an American. I still get choked up when I hear the “Star-Spangled Banner.” I believe firmly in the democratic process and constitutional law. I respect the flag and am fascinated by our brief history. I vote.

Yet I choose to live in another country.

As much as I am an American and culturally always will be, I am an Israeli by choice. Simply stated, I fell in love with Israel and could not leave; that is why I live in this duality. As a Jew, this is the place I belong.

The past year has been painful, difficult, and challenging. Life has been altered; even though the big picture has changed, the little things affect me most. Like the fear that surprises you when you least expect it, driving next to a bus, sure that it will blow; or taking your child to buy shoes and giving the man on the street a sideways glance, sure that he is the next suicide bomber. My heart starts pounding, I sweat, and the fear bubbles in my throat. I cannot count how many buses I’ve gotten off because I was sure that the passenger next to me was going to explode.

The panic sometimes overwhelms me, but I struggle to get over it and continue with my daily life—or they will have won. I do look at it as a victory or loss, us against them. The irony is that I am surrounded daily by Arab Israelis and Palestinian Arabs who go about their daily lives as I go about mine. The taxi driver, the street cleaner, the waiter, the hospital attendant, the academic, the teacher, the builder are all Arab. We meet everyday, sometimes with a smile, sometimes a wave, sometimes nothing, but we are in each other’s pockets. I wonder at the surrealism of it all, how we can be neighbors and enemies in the same breath. I don’t wish those individuals any harm; in many cases, we work side by side. But in the back of my mind always stands the thought that their nation wishes that my people would get up and go from their land forever.

I feel the little things the most—like debating whether to go to an event because it’s in an area where there’s been shooting, even though there have been bombs in Netanya, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. Where is it really safe?

I knew some of the people killed, although there have always been degrees of separation: a student friend of my husband’s, my neighbor’s brother, and a friend of a friend. Sometimes I’m sure that tragedy is waiting just around the corner; because I have been spared, the next attack will take someone I love.

But through it all, we go to work, come home, and spend time with family. We go to movies, supper, and the park. The light shines over Israel: the hundreds of miracles of last-minute diffused bombs and gunfire that narrowly missed hitting a school bus full of children or the bomb that mysteriously didn’t go off in a place that would have killed hundreds.

I don’t listen to the news anymore. One morning, I wanted to hear the names of those killed in the latest attack. “Maybe I know someone,” I said, “and I will want to go to their funeral.” My husband looked at me.

“What you’re doing there,” he said, pointing to my prayer book, “is much more important. I can see that you’ve crossed the line, lost perspective.” It’s been half a year, and I’ve rarely heard a news report. I do feel much calmer, have things more in perspective. My priorities are relationships with those I love, my own development, my connection to G-d, and my love for fellow Israelis—although they can drive me mad with frustration. That’s my purpose, and everything else must remain in the background.

The truth is that life is uncertain. No matter where we are, sickness, car accidents, trauma, and death lurk around the corner. But we live in our state of denial that keeps us invincible and isolated, until the mirror cracks. When we step out of that isolation we feel, mortality holds our hand as we wake up in the morning and kisses us goodnight as we climb into bed.

In Israel, we feel it more strongly.