July 7 Jerusalem

In Danny Brom’s class at Hebrew University, I met a therapist from Sydney who treated many people after the December 2025 terrorist attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration. One of her clients lashed out in a long tirade against Israel after learning the therapist would soon be traveling there. The encounter left the therapist feeling ill.

I was grateful she shared her story. It helped me see that this behavior is showing up in therapy settings more than I realized, and that I am not alone in being affected by it.

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Sarah Rose and I had such a lovely visit today at her sanctuary in the German Colony.

Set among trees in a beautiful historic neighborhood, her apartment is utterly quiet and peaceful. Her dog, Mystic, is happy and friendly, and the views are soul-sustaining.

I ordered Sarah’s book on Amazon and got to see some of the beautiful handmade jewelry she creates. It will be wonderful to see her in Marin next month.

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I then made my way to Hebrew University’s leafy Givat Ram campus to visit my friend Neriah.

We met last June during our frequent visits to the Inbal Hotel safe room. I was a hotel guest, and Neriah lived across the street in an apartment building whose residents used the Inbal shelter as needed.

Though there were hundreds of people in that safe room, we often ended up sitting near each other. I learned that he was completing his master’s thesis in computer science—focused on making AI models run more efficiently while using less computing power and energy—while also doing reserve duty in the IDF.

His life thus alternated between studying and teaching at a beautiful Jerusalem campus, where his research required deep mental focus, and living on remote IDF bases, where military duty demanded full physical alertness. He said it generally took him about a week to readjust each time he shifted back to the other context.

We remained connected on WhatsApp every few weeks after I left Israel last summer. In 2025, he spent 107 days on reserve duty—far longer than the standard 70 days usually expected outside wartime.

This year, he went back on duty in April and is scheduled to be at one of the new IDF bases inside Lebanon through mid-September. It almost didn’t work out for us to see each other this year, but right before I was scheduled to leave, he got word that he had a few days off. He came back to Jerusalem, and we were able to connect after he met with his thesis advisor.

He feels very fortunate to have such a patient advisor, someone who understands Neriah’s frequent absences and prioritizes his safety over the contributions Neriah’s research makes to the professor’s own work. Not all students are as lucky, he told me.

I asked if different people rotate in and out with him in Lebanon. No, he said. During his mandatory three years in the IDF, which began in 2017, and during every subsequent period of reserve duty, he and the same 20 guys in his unit have always been together. He described them all as his best friends, and said they know absolutely everything about each other. They joke that they are closer to each other than to their own families.

As we parted ways, I gave him a large bag of mixed raw nuts and some dried fruit. He said he would share them with all the guys and tell them they were from his friend Deborah.