Breaking News

It begins with my phone, which it shouldn’t, because it begins on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath), and I shouldn’t be checking my phone (I shouldn’t even be awake now, after midnight). I most definitely shouldn’t be surrendering to my social-media addiction, checking the platform formerly known as Twitter even as I can, somehow, summon enough resistance to refrain from actually clicking and typing and posting. Which do I see first? In my memory, it’s a video clip (or is it a photograph?) of a white van (or is it a pick-up truck?), and I see men with guns (or are they rifles?), and the text that accompanies the image is no longer altogether complete, but I see “Sderot” (which I know to be a city near the Gaza border), and I see “terrorists,” and in that instant as I focus on my phone in New York I know (don’t ask me how) that this is no ordinary moment, and that utter devastation lies ahead.

This piece emerged from a memory-focused writing workshop conducted by Writing on the Wall.

The accompanying artwork to this piece was made by Dan Harris.
Dan is an artist based in New York, specializing in traditional Jewish papercutting artforms, reimagined for the modern era. An ardent Zionist, Dan seeks to use his Jewish art to bring joy, tzedakah and bitachon to all Jews, and to encourage those around him to do the same. He is an Art Editor and Illustrator for Green Golem: The Zionist Literary Magazine.