The Bible teacher is in Givati/ the grammar teacher in Intelligence
The neighbor upstairs is a subcontractor already a month in reserves
The lawyer is an operations officer, she does shifts in the battalion
Her brother is a hi-tech big shot, now a sniper on the roofs of Gaza
The tough bank manager is a deputy battalion commander in Judea and Samaria
Doron is a toy store owner, now a company commander in tanks
And our Amedi, bless him, who usually sings in Caesarea, is a fighter in the Engineering Corps, heroically recuperating after getting wounded in Gaza.
So sings Omri Glikman of [the Israeli reggae band] Hatikva 6 in a tear-jerking tribute to the country’s reservists, with a special shout out to Idan Amedi, the heralded singer/actor who won the admiration of the country for his service – by no means a given – after being badly hurt in Gaza.
The chorus of the song, “Superheroes,” goes like this:
Everyone looks normal, but we are a nation of superheroes, and within each of us is a hidden soldier ready to save the world.
Indeed.
Everyday Israelis become heroes
It has been said of Israel that it is a nation of ordinary people able to do extraordinary things, of regular folks achieving remarkable results.
This has never been truer than now, post-Oct. 7. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, this war uncovered a nation full of people who were not born great, who did not necessarily achieve greatness in their everyday lives, but who had greatness thrust upon them; people who stepped up in times of need and performed and behaved with uncommon courage.
There’s Amedi, and there’s Inbal Rabin-Liberman, the security coordinator at Kibbutz Nir Am, who saved her community with her clear thinking and grit. There is Rachel Edri from Ofakim and her famous terrorist-deterring cookies, and the police officers, reservists, and ordinary citizens who rushed directly and literally into the fire of Oct. 7 of their own accord to save lives.
There are the soldiers currently destroying Hamas’s tunnel capabilities inside Gaza. There is Iris Haim, whose son was one of three hostages tragically shot mistakenly by IDF soldiers, who reached out with amazing grace to the soldiers involved. And there is Elisha Medan, who lost both legs in a booby-trapped building in Gaza but told KAN Reshet Bet, “I’m happy with the body that remained for me – it’s a gift, a new adventure.”
And then there are the unsung heroes: the wives and husbands, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, girlfriends and boyfriends, parents and grandparents of soldiers and reservists in harm’s way who carry on with daily life despite carrying on their shoulders a crushing burden of worry and anxiety.
Folks, like my grandchildren, who bravely dealt with the absence of their father, who was far from home, fighting in Gaza for months on end.
Don’t take my word for it – heck, I am their grandfather – it’s documented.
LAST WEEK, in a festive ceremony with their heads adorned with crowns fashioned from balloons, my three grandsons, aged two to six – Skippy’s boys – received certificates from their Golan moshav attesting to their heroism. They stood there after the ceremony holding the certificates for their mother’s camera as if they were clutching an Oscar.
“This is to certify that Be’eri the hero contributed to the war effort and the security of the State of Israel,” reads the certificate handed out to my oldest grandchild, emblazoned with the official stamp of the moshav.
The certificates, given to a few dozen kids under the second grade whose fathers spent months in reserve duty, continue: “Thank you for days, nights, and Shabbatot when you were separated from your father and made it possible for him to guard and defend the things dear to us – the people and the Land of Israel.”
And I thought I was a hotshot at day camp as a kid when I got a certificate signed by my camp counselor attesting to my skill at archery.
One thing about that archery certificate, however, is that it never engendered a sense of entitlement. You don’t think the world is your oyster just because you have a basic knowledge about how to shoot an arrow.
But receiving a certificate at the tender age of six for being a hero, for doing your part in ensuring the safety of the Jewish people and the Land of Israel? Now, there’s something that could go to your head.
“THE PEOPLE of Israel in its entirety acknowledges and very much appreciates your heroism,” the certificate declares.
Were I Be’eri, I would always keep that nearby and unfurl it whenever my parents were admonishing or annoying me.
Had I ever received such an honor, I would have brandished it whenever my mother told me to brush my teeth, my father told me to eat my greens, or I got scolded for pounding my sibling.
“If I’m a hero,” I’d tell my dad, waving this certificate in his face, “where do you get off telling me to go to bed? I’m a hero, the people of Israel acknowledge and appreciate that. I’ve got the papers to prove it.”
But this is something Be’eri won’t say to his father because his father now has a certificate of his own, even more official looking – this one from the IDF – recognizing and appreciating his contribution during the war in protecting and securing the people and the Land of Israel while fighting in Gaza.
“If you’re a hero for enabling me to fight,” Skippy could justifiably say to his son, though he won’t, “then I’m a superhero for doing the actual fighting.”
Which is precisely what that Hatikva 6 song alluded to. It’s a nation of heroes. But if everyone is a hero, if everyone over the past five months carried some burden, who gets the right of way? How can you curse at the car ahead of you in the traffic jam if, chances are, that driver is also a hero?
How? Simple, because of the realization that even heroes come back down to earth. Or, as Skippy could tell his oldest son, “Heroes, too, have to listen to their parents.”