Israel

I have friends in Israel. They're not close, but they are people I can drop a line to, whom I see on a fairly regular basis.

And now they're within a hundred miles of a war that has the potential of becoming the catalyst for a world war.

One of my friends recently relocated his family to Israel. He's an Israeli national and his child needs some very specialized medical care. Because his parents and his in laws are there, and because the medical care is subsidized, he made the decision to move his family there this past summer. He makes frequent visits to Chicago and the last time he was here I asked if he felt safe. He told me that for the most part he felt as safe as he did in Chicago but that all Israelis have grown accustomed to the possibility of an outbreak of war at any minute.

Now that there is an actual war that appears to be escalating, it's personal in a way that war has never been before. People I know could be seriously hurt and even killed in horrific ways.

I'm ashamed. To have reached such a late stage in my life and been relatively untouched by the realities of the world is an embarrassment. The inconveniences and indignities that I've suffered in my life are nothing by comparison. My sister had a pre-marital pregnancy. My father died unexpectedly of a heart attack. I've had a couple of bouts of unemployment. I really, really wanted to be cast in the touring production of Beauty and the Beast...and didn't get the job.

And these are the MAJOR disappointments/dramas of my life. They are in no way the things that I obsess over and work myself into a frantic lather over on a daily basis, like how can I lose twenty pounds and stop my hair from going gray?

As an American, living in a major city, I am completely insulated from the realities of the world. I'm completely pampered beyond anything that anyone else in the history of the world has ever been and not only do I take my privilege for granted, I'm almost willfully unaware of things that happened in more than a five-mile radius from my home.

Shameful.

I'm angry. I'm angry at people who have to resort to violence. I'm angry at people who are willing to use other people's lives to achieve...anything. I'm angry that there seems to be so little gratitude for the life of ease that even the poorest American has compared to those families who are having their homes destroyed by bombs delivered from miles away. I'm angry because I don't what I can do about it.