It’s the Yamim Noraim. It’s nearly three o’clock in the wee hours (and whether I stay awake just one more hour, I will be able to take in the shout to prayer from the neighboring Arab village). My daughter is en route to the Cave of the Machpelah. What Jewish mother could sleep? 

 

Last

year, we nixed the trip to Hebron. In fact, years earlier, when that teen and I came to Jerusalem, not as olim, but as tourists, we additionally skipped the trip to that sacred city (though we did wind up in an equally insalubrious place, the Old Jewish Quarter of the Old City. May Hashem Protect the settlers there.

Dr. Hannah Joy