Although Americans have been advised to avoid the Israel-Hamas war, one UC San Diego professor and his wife are on a mission to Israel.
The war is calling back Israeli Defense Forces reservists from everywhere, but Dr. Shlomo Dubnov and his spouse are returning to Tel Aviv for the battle of parental support.
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“The secret weapon of Israel. There is no other place for the Jews,“ said Dubnov, quoting Golda Meir, the first and only woman to serve as Israel’s prime minister.
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Or, in this case, no other place for parents. Five of Dubnov's six children live in Israel.
His daughter Goni is living in a Tel Aviv apartment building with no bomb shelter. She is nine months pregnant.
“She is expecting any day, and now it is becoming a very unpleasant situation," Dubnov said. "Every time there is a siren, she has to run under the staircase because that’s kind of the most solid structure in the building."
Two other children of Dubnov are fighting with the Israeli Army. Dubnov says he can’t fire a rifle, but maybe he can do their laundry.
“One big thing I hope for Israel is that there will be some regaining of trust between the government and the people because I think that was something that was lost and might have led to a lot of these issues,“ Dubnov said.
He says the ambush along the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7 was a shrill wake-up to those expecting or working toward normalizing the Middle East.
“This war became a huge realization, and not for the good. A lot of the concepts of the coexistence, of two states, suddenly were kind of an illusion,” Dubnov said.
He is reminded of what his mother used to say: "Unlike the Holocaust, in Israel, you don’t have to fear your neighbor."
That has changed.
“You fear your neighbor because you never thought the people would be capable of such cruelty. You thought about these stories of never again. No, it’s not never again. It's happened again, “ Dubnov said.
There were happier times. When the kids were young, the Dubnovs performed in circuses. They studied the art of fabric acrobatics.
“It was a lot of fun," Dubnov said. "We did a couple of shows, and the kids performed a lot with the places that were training them. Our daughter still does a lot of this."
This type of air dance requires a strong grip and a little faith. The same strategy the Dubnovs could use to keep the family together.
The professor and his wife are staying with friends in Paris at the moment. There are no available flights into Tel Aviv for at least three days.
