I am writing this on Sunday afternoon, 21 hours before we are due to fly to Portugal, and I find myself undecided. All day, I have been thinking that, given the situation in Israel, I can’t really not write something about ‘the view from here’. However, for reasons that I will explain, I’m finding it difficult to summon the necessary inner focus to write such a piece.

Last night, I packed our two suitcases. In what is now a familiar routine, this involved gathering from the various bags and boxes stored around the house all that we have acquired to take to Portugal since our last visit: the various foodstuffs we can’t do without and can’t find in Portugal; the various food and clothing items the kids have requested; sufficient gifts for the boys for four Shabbatot and to leave for Hanuka.

As is traditional, Bernice spent the first part of the evening saying: ‘We don’t really have to take this, if there isn’t room’, to which I responded, as per the same tradition: ‘Don’t worry! It will all fit in.’ The novel twist this time was that, having laid everything out on the sofas in the salon, I was not at all certain that everything would fit in the cases, or weigh in at less than 2 x 23 = 46 kg. (At least, that’s how I remember it. When Bernice read this account, she said: “You didn’t say: “It will all fit in”! You kept swearing and saying it would never fit in.” I believe this is what is now known, in the best of circles, as ‘Recollections may vary’.)

On our last trip out, when we retrieved our cases in Lisbon, one of the wheels on one of the cases had been damaged. We therefore left that case in Portugal – we always travel home almost empty-cased anyway – and bought a replacement in Israel. However, when we got the new case home, we discovered it was a little smaller than its predecessor. Not a good move, given the volume of stuff we take.

However, by the end of the evening, I had managed to distribute the goodies evenly between the cases, with all the breakables swaddled in padded clothing and the two cases fairly evenly matched in weight and coming in at a combined weight of well under 46 kg. We had, if I remember rightly, 5 kg to spare. This morning, I switched some contents around, to take more dense items in the smaller case and more airy items in the larger case, so that the two cases were almost identical in weight. I then managed to add items to each case; there is always a certain amount of settling overnight in the cases, in my experience. Goods compact down. With the expansion unzipped on both cases, all was well. We still have the requisite kilo or so spare in each case to take the cheese I will force in tomorrow (although I suspect that this time, rather than leaving it as blocks, I may have to slice the cheese thinly and pack it flat in the zipped compartment at the front of each case).

Today, at 23 hours and 58 minutes before our scheduled take off, I went into the El Al app to attempt to check in online. This ‘quick and simple’ process, including uploading photocopies of our passports, will theoretically make physically dropping off the bags at the airport laughably straightforward.

Being a literate readership, you will have noted the single quotes around ‘quick and simple’ in the previous paragraph, and will be expecting what is coming next. Even before the site opened for check-in, I had uploaded our passport photocopies onto the app. However, when I tried to check in, I was asked to upload them again. When I tried to take photos of the passports, the app informed me that I needed first to give the app permission to use the camera. I had, of course, already done this, but I checked again to make sure. The app refused to be persuaded. Eventually, of course, I went out and went in again…or, rather, attempted to go in. At this point, I received an error message that the site was down.

Hands up all those who are not astonished to discover that the site was also down when I attempted tp access it from my laptop…and also from the link I was ‘helpfully’ sent in an email from El Al informing me that I could now check in online.

Over three hours later, the site is still down. I could, I suppose, attempt to chat with an El Al bot, or call El Al. I’m not sure I have the fortitude to attempt either of these at the moment, so I will probably keep trying the website over the course of this evening, and then start panicking tomorrow morning.

Of course, all of these efforts could prove to be fruitless if Iran, or Hizbollah, chooses to target the airport sometime tomorrow and we find our flight cancelled.

I will aim to update you tomorrow (which will be yesterday when you read this) as to whether we got away on time, or, indeed, at all.

[Update: Having completed writing the blog, I decided, against my better judgement, to try phoning El Al Customer Service. A recorded message confirmed that the entire El Al computer system is down (I begin to suspect hackers), and offered me the option of speaking to a representative. To my astonishment, within 10 seconds a representative materialised on the phone line. Let me repeat that: within 10 seconds, a representative materialised on the phone line. This beats my last waiting experience with El Al by 3 hours and 23 minutes. The rep was able to confirm that all I can do is keep trying the site from time to time, and, in answer to my question, she confirmed that, if the site remains inaccessible, we will be able to check in at the airport, in person, tomorrow.]

[Further update: After a journey that could scarcely have been smoother (other than a little turbulence over the Mediterranean), I am writing this update from the comfort of our bed in Penamacor, where it is not yet 11 pm on Monday. I do love a happy ending, don’t you?]

All of which, I hope, explains why I am not writing about the situation this week. However, I can offer you someone else’s take on events here.

What I have decided to do is to reprint an open letter addressed to Aryeh Deri. Two weeks ago, in an interview with the newspaper Haderech – the official paper of Shas, the Sefardi ultra-orthodox party that Deri was instrumental in founding and leading – he said the following: “If you look at the budget, each day of battle costs us more than the entire annual budget of the entire Torah world. We believe that every day of study prevents more days of battle.”

Let’s take a moment to digest the full outrageousness of this statement.

He went on to say that: those who were attempting to force yeshiva students to enlist in the IDF were “miserable” and did not understand the power of Torah study.

I believe that the story that is looming larger and larger in Israel today, and that, in a certain sense, may prove to be a bigger issue than the direct confrontation with Iran, the horrifying number of deaths of regular and reservist soldiers in recent days, and possibly even the fate of the hostages, is the question of the Haredi draft bill. If you need a quick refresher course in what I am referring to, this article is, I believe, a non-partisan account of the long history of ultra-orthodox draft exemption in Israel.

If the situation with regard to Haredi exemption does not change, it is a very real possibility that significant numbers of those who have served 200 or more days of reserve duty over the last year, who have seen their families suffer the strain and their businesses face collapse, will decide that they cannot sacrifice any more while an entire section are sacrificing nothing, and will refuse to serve a further tour of reserve duty. It is also a very real possibility that many others, seeing no resolution to this obscene civil inequality, will leave the country.

Dr. Tehila Elizur is a graduate of the first class of the Talmudic Institute in Matan, with a bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University and a doctorate from Ben Gurion University. She lectures at several institutions. She does understand the power of Torah study, and she felt compelled to publish an open letter to Deri. I reproduce it here with no comment. It needs no comment.

An Open Letter to Minister Aryeh Deri, on the Eve of Sukkot 5785

Dr. Tehila Elizur

It’s now the eve of the holiday. Your family is surely preparing for the festival. Here’s what our holiday looks like:

My husband, a 54-year-old doctor, is somewhere in the north, mostly unavailable. Since Simchat Torah 5784, he’s been mobilized for a cumulative eight months—Division 98 in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, central Gaza, and now the north. My son, in a Golani reserve unit, is also somewhere in the north—you surely know that wide sector, as you sit with decision-makers regarding the fronts where my husband and sons are sent. A younger son, a regular soldier in Nahal, has been fighting in Rafah most of the time for the last six months.

He called during our pre-fast meal; they were given phones because a soldier from the armored battalion they’re attached to was killed. That’s the procedure—when someone dies, they pass around phones so soldiers can call parents. My sons didn’t fast on Yom Kippur; you can’t fast while fighting. The lulav and etrog are waiting for them at home.

But according to you, my sons and their comrades should leave the front and sit in yeshiva. After all, a day of Torah study replaces days of fighting. By your logic, you should call on heads of Hesder yeshivas and the entire national-religious public to urge their sons to leave the front and return to their yeshivas. You should call on heads of Haredi yeshivas to open their doors, inviting all fighting soldiers, religious and secular, to sit and study. Invite pilots, drone interceptors, command post staff, intelligence personnel, navy, air force, and ground forces to stop all military activity and enter yeshiva. According to you, we can simply win the war without bloodshed, without casualties, without our sleepless nights. Let’s dismantle the IDF tomorrow and all sit and study Torah.

Clearly, you don’t mean this. Neither you nor any of the Haredi ministers and Knesset members. Not the activists, nor the rabbis and Torah leaders. You all rightly expect air force personnel to face missile attacks from Iran and do everything to intercept drones. You rightly expect infantry, armor, and artillery soldiers to clear Lebanese villages threatening northern settlements, intelligence soldiers to provide accurate information, artillery and navy to cover, transport and logistics to transfer necessary equipment, medics and doctors to accompany everyone entering. Like all of us, you’re horrified by what’s revealed in villages across the border and the thought of what would have happened if Redwan forces had joined Hamas on Simchat Torah 5784. You’re as terrified as we are, expecting the IDF to do everything to ensure a pogrom never happens again in Israel. Just like all of us. With one difference—you’re not willing to take part.

I have no doubt that your family’s Torah scholars in Morocco, like my family’s Torah scholars in Poland, would never have imagined a Jewish state where Jewish citizens refuse to participate in the army defending them. I’m sure your grandfathers wouldn’t have conceived of a reality where a Jew expects his fellow to send his family members to fight and risk themselves for him, while he sits protected and safe, fighting not to take part in the effort to protect lives. Especially, they wouldn’t have imagined someone doing this in the name of Torah. If they had heard of a Torah community shouting “We’ll die rather than enlist,” while its leaders dare to sit in government and send soldiers of their people and country to fight, they would surely have torn their clothes and put on sackcloth for the Torah so distorted.

I ask myself how a Jew can send his brother to war while fighting to ensure he and his children don’t take part. How can Torah scholars ignore the obligation of “Do not stand idly by your brother’s blood,” the duty of returning your brother’s lost property, which our sages taught includes his body, and the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. I’m horrified by what I’m about to write, but I find no other explanation—we are not considered “your neighbor” in your eyes. I wish I were wrong. The burden of proof is on you, leaders of Haredi society, yeshiva students and their families, and there’s only one way: Get up, send your sons to the recruitment offices. Accompany them with concern, love, and tears as we do, and tell them as we tell ourselves and our sons: Fulfill the Torah’s obligation to defend your fellows and your people from the enemy’s hand. If you do this, perhaps we’ll merit the blessing “And grant us the blessing of Your festivals for life and peace.”

Tehila Elitsur, Jerusalem

And now I turn to all the Zionist members of Knesset: My appeal to Minister Aryeh Deri is also addressed to you. It’s doubtful whether Minister Aryeh Deri will read it. It’s highly doubtful whether the Haredi political and rabbinical leadership will do what’s expected of them. Either way, my children and yours will continue to defend, at risk to their lives, him and his children like everyone living here. This is the Jewish, Zionist, and moral requirement we’re all committed to. Don’t lend your hand to a draft-dodging law that legitimizes the Haredi position distinguishing between tribe and tribe, between blood and blood. You can’t be Zionist and support such a law. It’s not about 3,000 or 6,000. It’s not about the IDF’s absorption capacity or even the possibility of maintaining a Haredi lifestyle in the IDF. It’s about lives, about the ability to maintain the necessary force now and in the future to prevent another pogrom in Israel. If there’s no change in Haredi enlistment, we might reach high school senior conscription within a decade. On a moral level, this law is not Zionist, not Jewish, and not ethical. Don’t support it.