The train raced along the tracks toward Jerusalem. I lifted my head and looked around.
Scattered in the seats around me were fascinating specimens of Israeli society.
A religious-Zionist woman, an Ethiopian soldier, a Tel Aviv girl, a Chabad Hasid, and a Lithuanian Haredi. Each one absorbed in their own world.
A Breslov Hasid passes through suddenly, encouraging everyone to smile and handing out some small booklet. The religious woman cooperates politely and takes one. After him, someone appears calling everyone to Mincha prayers in the last car — the Lithuanian and the Chabad Hasid join him.
A friendly girl sits down next to the soldier. She's from Galgalatz and offers to dedicate a song to someone he loves. When she leaves, it suddenly turns out that he and the Tel Aviv girl served together at the same base, and they spend the rest of the journey trading shared memories.
Difference is a matter of definition, and all those around me probably have far more in common than it appears at first glance.
—
The train races on past the traffic jams, the planes lifting off toward the sea, and the sun setting behind the fields.
The landscape shifts to scorched remnants of groves — a sad reminder of the fires that raged here last summer. New shoots are already visible pushing through the soil and from the blackened trees, stubbornly insisting that life blooms everywhere.
The body of the last hostage returned from Gaza not long ago, and on one of the traffic signs along the highway someone has written *"and the children shall return to their borders."* The same orange letters used to report road congestion, but carrying a story so moving that only Israelis will understand it.
I find myself tearing up suddenly, and glad I was born here — despite everything.
—
The train pulled into the station and the spell broke.
Shouting by the doors, shoving on the exit steps, and someone cutting the entire elevator queue without a trace of shame.
It's a bit like a relationship, I thought as I stepped out into the cold Jerusalem air. We are truly close only because we argue often enough, and the key question is whether, in times of crisis, we find comfort in being together — or whether the bond between us frays.
This war, too, will end, and the television screens will go back to giving us endless reasons to hate one another. But in the small moments when we meet face to face and "they" become "you" — there is love between us, and it will always prevail.