Everything has been contributing to the sense of living in an isolated society facing terrible odds, monstrous enemies, and few allies.  So many of us know the names of every hostage and their families, and their grief is felt as if it is our own.  This morning at the grocers the conversation flew to the identification of the bodies of the Bibas children. 

I was the only one who couldn’t participate – Suddenly I pictured my aunt, who saw her two babies bashed against a wall.  It was not that I didn’t identify with all the people in the store, but that a different dimension was exposed.  We’re reminded that we’ve been through this before, and we thought we had returned home to a safe place.  The grief is multidimensional – and pretty unique.

 My aunt, Malcah, became a partisan and was killed during a mission.