This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

Until Octo­ber 6, 2023, I was a much-envied Net­flix con­tent review­er, called a Tag­ger. (Now I am still a Tag­ger, albeit less-envied.) Though I do have a degree in film stud­ies, I’m the one with that cousin in Cal­i­for­nia. I choose words from a pool of about 1,000 to help cat­e­go­rize forth­com­ing movies and TV shows. You’ve read my work: ​“Famil­iar Favorites” or ​“Com­e­dy Movies Star­ring Women.”

But my job as a Net­flix Tag­ger was noth­ing com­pared to the intense role my dear friend Moriya was step­ping into in the months fol­low­ing Octo­ber 7 2023.

It took five three-hour Zoom class­es before Moriya would con­fess that she was trig­gered. Trig­gered as in trans­port­ed back in time to three decades ago. Moriya was forty-sev­en, a decade younger than me, so although we were best friends, I still felt mater­nal towards her at times. This was the moment I was wait­ing for. 

I lis­tened with empa­thy and then tried to con­vince her to drop this ridicu­lous cru­sade to become a vol­un­teer on a hot­line. This vol­un­teer train­ing course was engulf­ing her body and soul and now she had qual­i­fied to take actu­al calls. It did­n’t suit her at all — a woman who could­n’t keep a plant alive, dis­liked dogs, and, well, let’s just say she was lucky her only daugh­ter was so inde­pen­dent. Some­one had to tell her she was­n’t suit­ed for this role before she botched it up.

In Israel, where we both live, it had been Octo­ber 7, 2023, for months. But for twen­ty min­utes, and off and on for a few hours after that, it was 1993 for Moriya. Good. I mean, bad for her, but now I had con­crete evi­dence that years of work­ing on her­self would be reversed if she pur­sued this pivot. 

She did­n’t have to com­pen­sate for hav­ing no sons descend­ing into the ​“Gaza metro” by lis­ten­ing to heart-wrench­ing accounts of oth­ers’ trau­ma on the phone for hours on end, then enter­ing it into some com­put­er appli­ca­tion, expe­ri­enc­ing it all over again. She had no sons at all, no one to grieve. Some peo­ple would con­sid­er that lucky.

“What was the part that trig­gered you?” I did­n’t add, final­ly. 

I did­n’t want her to know that as soon as she told me she’d signed up for this course, I had con­cerns for her. I could­n’t tell my friend what to do, as though she were my child. Instead, I turned over a men­tal hour­glass and titled it ​“Worth the Wait.”

“Binge­wor­thy” would have been cru­el. It would have felt like a harsh cri­tique, a vari­a­tion of ​“I told you so,” and I’d heard enough of that already. There is the promise of always and the promise of nev­er, and Moriya nev­er should have tak­en this vol­un­teer course. This deci­sion would come back to bite her, drag her down into a swamp of mem­o­ries, maybe even make her ques­tion why she came to live in Israel in the first place. From what I’ve heard about her child­hood, even the Mid­dle East was­n’t far enough away.

She should have made sand­wich­es until she couldn’t feel her fin­gers or picked fruit until all she could feel was her back, like every oth­er civil­ian in the coun­try since the war began. But Moriya had a ten­den­cy to tip over the mar­gins. Her skirts were often flared with added con­trast trim or col­or­ful mesh, some­times even ruf­fles. She was the type who head­lined what­ev­er she was doing so that peo­ple looked at her twice: ​“We think You’ll Love These.”

Don’t get me wrong. Moriya is my clos­est friend. We met in a small slice of time when we were both Ortho­dox moth­ers in Jerusalem with a mutu­al goal: seek­ing mom­mies for a rotat­ing play­group. Her daugh­ter and the last of five boys had no more than four­teen months between them. We’ve shared our lives ever since, speak­ing week­ly for hours on the phone, and dai­ly since the war. Until she took this ridicu­lous course and began vol­un­teer­ing. That has to stop.

Today, we’re hav­ing cof­fee on my shoe­box-sized bal­cony in Tel Aviv. From here, we can see the Mediter­ranean Sea and the prom­e­nade. Last year, I would have men­tioned all the tourists, but this year only locals fill the beach­es. With the excep­tion of a few sol­i­dar­i­ty vis­its, tourism has been wiped out.

Moriya is vis­it­ing me from Jerusalem. I’m her no-longer-reli­gious best friend. My love affair with Ortho­doxy spanned fif­teen years — just a year more than my mar­riage. Though late­ly, I’ve been chat­ting with my ex more. Shared sons you can’t locate in com­bat will do that.

These days, when I do my work for Net­flix, I watch on auto­mat­ic, alter­nat­ing between check­ing news or, even more exhaust­ing, try­ing not to check news. No one tells me how lucky I am. The con­tent on my screen between work and real-life blends and blurs. 

For five months, I was known as ​“the woman with four com­bat sol­dier sons in Gaza — God help us, God help them — and one on the bor­der with the North — God watch over us, God watch over them.” The words loop in my mind. Phon­ing Moriya calms me; her com­mand­ing voice has a sooth­ing effect. I need to hear it, espe­cial­ly when the days drift by like heavy stones, the weight of which feels like bod­ies. No col­league has said any­thing, but I haven’t received any ​“Get in on the Action” movies for a long time.

When Moriya and I hang out togeth­er, it’s usu­al­ly like ​“Girls Night In.” That’s nos­tal­gia now. Every­thing has changed. Since Octo­ber 7, there aren’t tags for what we’ve been liv­ing through. ​“Sev­enth Cen­tu­ry Liv­ing Night­mares for You” isn’t in my 1,000-word pool.

Moriya has no one in the army, not even a cousin or a nephew. She moved here by her­self from anoth­er coun­try, so that makes sense. Still, the scent of shame sur­rounds her when she’s asked about it. She bites her low­er lip and won’t look the ques­tion­er in the eye. Then she quick­ly diverts every­one’s atten­tion to me, ask­ing about my boys, espe­cial­ly the one she took care of once a week for two years in our rotat­ing play­group. Then she back­tracks because maybe I’m worn out from peo­ple ask­ing. Then she apol­o­gizes for back­track­ing because she’s wor­ried I’ll think she does­n’t care or used to care but has become numb. Emo­tion­al numb­ness is a real thing that nobody wants to admit they have around here, like it’s 2021 and peo­ple no longer let on when they test pos­i­tive for COVID.

I hard­ly hear from any of my sons in Gaza and my ex is a career sol­dier, in and out of reserve duty since day one. When I do man­age to get a son on the line, all I get about the tun­nels is a weath­er report: they are humid, they are dusty, they are silent. They don’t men­tion how lit­tle shel­ter there is in Israel’s North if one of the dozens of rock­ets fired dai­ly lands any­where near them. With so many explo­sives close by, any­one in the area will be instant­ly blown to pieces. We all knew that going in.

I used to love that I worked alone; now with every­body gone, Moriya is my life­line. Since she’s tak­en this course, when we talk, all we cre­ate is a sog­gy word sal­ad, leav­ing an unsat­is­fy­ing void, yet nei­ther of us hang up, so we’re try­ing an actu­al face-to-face cof­fee: ​“Rugged Real­i­ty TV.”

“The class that did it to me?” Moriya asks.

I had for­got­ten my ques­tion. That’s anoth­er new part of my real­i­ty. My mind runs loose like a way­ward drone. Is there a liv­ing per­son in this whole tiny coun­try who can think straight?

“You want to know what trig­gered me?” Moriya leans in. Her smile is one of sur­ren­der. There isn’t a drop of hap­pi­ness in it. I just have to get her to admit it.

“Mmmh­m­mm.”

“Clothes.”

“Clothes? You’re a seam­stress. Are you try­ing to be ironic?”

“The social work­er said neglect­ed chil­dren often wear the wrong clothes for the weath­er or lack sea­son­al­ly appro­pri­ate clothes. Then I saw myself in the cold— no coat, boots with no lin­ing, bussing to school for forty-five min­utes both ways, every day. And I was back there, freezing.”

Moriya grew up half-naked in Win­nipeg. That’s why she learned to sew. She was a plan­et away from my own child­hood in sun­ny Cal­i­for­nia next door to my cousin who would become a Hol­ly­wood writer, with plen­ty of Net­flix shows on her resume. There’s a ​“Mood Boost­er” tag right there.

“They put out a notice that the media was releas­ing a video tomor­row of the kid­napped female sol­diers.” Moriya has changed the sub­ject. Flip­ping from your per­son­al life to the war is expect­ed among Israelis at this point. ​“You know? Those poor nine­teen-year-old girls on the bor­der. God only knows where they are now.”

“Hope­ful­ly, He’s not the only one who knows.” I mem­o­rized every one of their names and I can see their smil­ing young faces in my mind as Moriya speaks. Some­times their expres­sions merge with those of my youngest son. ​“Go on.”

“They said to be ready for an increase in calls on the hot­line. The video will set off a lot of people.”

My cof­fee lurch­es over the rim of my cup. Hot liq­uid splat­ters around my feet. ​“Oh my God. Are they dis­play­ing them to the whole world?”

“Some peo­ple think the world should know.”

The cof­fee cup slips out of my hand and falls. There’s a crack in it now.

“Are you okay?” Moriya hands me her nap­kin and picks up the leak­ing mug.

“I don’t know.”

We don’t say more as I mop up the spill. In the back­ground, a life­guard yells at some kids to get away from the red flag zone or he’s com­ing in there him­self. This is the fourth warn­ing and there won’t be a fifth.

“So, how do you pre­pare for a phone call flood?” I ask.

“I’m review­ing the class record­ings. This is ridicu­lous. I should be com­fort­ing you. That’s why I came.”

“We all have to com­fort each other.”

The words tum­ble out, but they lack con­vic­tion. The only com­fort in Israel these days alter­nates between raw and glacial, and now even my best friend is pre­oc­cu­pied with the fates of absolute strangers. I missed my cue. Instead of ram­bling about mutu­al help, I should have pressed her about her trig­gered-by-cloth­ing sto­ry and how it was affect­ing her.

“Let me get us some­thing fresh,” she says.

I hear Moriya mov­ing around in the kitchen and then head­ing to the bath­room. I notice her diary stick­ing out of her beach-bag-sized purse. I can’t resist — I pull it out and flip through it, hop­ing to find more infor­ma­tion that might con­vince her to quit this course before she sinks any deeper.

Descrip­tion: Client met with man on Tin­der. Tin­der is an appli­ca­tion for meet­ing peo­ple. They had an inti­mate event. Con­sen­su­al. She dis­cov­ered he used a fake iden­ti­ty. Can we help?

Descrip­tion: Client met a man in a bar. They had drinks and left togeth­er. She does­n’t remem­ber any­thing after that. She woke up naked from the waist down in his bed. Wor­ried he took pho­tos. Can we help?

Descrip­tion: Client said she grew up ultra-Ortho­dox. Some­one did ​“some­thing to her thir­ty years ago” and she can’t for­get it. Many descrip­tive fan­tasies. After two hours, I start­ed to think she was putting me on, that she was­n’t a woman at all but a man seek­ing a female reac­tion to his fan­tasies. I grew uncom­fort­able and want­ed to hang up, but what if I was wrong? Some women have voic­es that are—

“What are you doing?” Moriya asks. She puts the pitch­er of ice water and lemon on the small table between us. 

“Oh,” I answer, ​“this was falling out of your bag.”

Moriya’s lips thin into a line, but she doesn’t say anything.

“It must be hard for you,” she says, her voice soft. ​“So hard. What would I real­ly know?”

As she speaks, she’s rifling through her bag as if some­thing is miss­ing. She brings the bag as close to her face as pos­si­ble with­out pok­ing her­self with a mea­sur­ing tape or a phone charg­er. Band-Aids and spools of thread spill out the sides, and she stuffs them back in. Her vol­un­teer hot­line jour­nal, already buried at the bottom.

“Well, I try not to — ” I begin, feel­ing my cheeks red­den. ​“I mean, as long as Net­flix keeps send­ing me con­tent, I have a lot of dis­trac­tion. I can work as much or as lit­tle as I want. That’s more than many oth­ers have.”

Moriya’s expres­sion sug­gests she does­n’t believe me, not about the mirac­u­lous dis­trac­tion my job pro­vides, and not about my read­ing her journal.

“So does this trig­ger­ing mean you might quit?” I ask. I drain a glass of water and suck on the lemon slice. 

The sun has shift­ed. There’s no shade at all now and we’re both sweating.

“Quit?” Her face clos­es off. ​“You think I should quit?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why in the world would you say that?”

“Your phone’s busy half the time and you seem over­whelmed. You’re a seamstress.”

“A dress­mak­er.”

“You’re not a peo­ple per­son, and you’re clear­ly con­sumed by this in an unhealthy way.”

The sun glares into her eyes, and there are cir­cles of sweat under her arms. We should move inside; it’s a death wish to be out here at this hour.

“What I’m hear­ing is that you tried to phone me and I wasn’t avail­able, is that it? I’m sor­ry. I real­ly am. I know it’s only been a few months.”

There’s so much I want to say. Why am I fum­bling? I want to ask her if she hung up on that man who was pre­tend­ing to be a woman. How long did it take her to fig­ure out he was dis­guis­ing his voice? I want to read the final descrip­tion; the one I did­n’t get to. I imag­ine Moriya in her look-at-me skirt search­ing for the num­ber of the caller. ​“Dra­mas Based on Real Life.” 

I know I tied up the line. How could she have tak­en a shift on Remem­brance Day? Aban­doned me. If she had any­one she could call a son, it was him. She watched him grow up. 

Descrip­tion: The client was unwill­ing to talk or sched­ule an appoint­ment. She asked me to breathe with her. We pro­ceed­ed with the breath­ing exer­cis­es from class. She request­ed that I stay on the line with her and not hang up. Although she refused to pro­vide her num­ber for a fol­low-up, I remained on the call. The wait­ing and breath­ing con­tin­ued until the sky black­ened, like the mid­dle of an eye, and it was tech­ni­cal­ly Inde­pen­dence Day. Then, she sim­ply whis­pered, ​“Thank you.”

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

Sup­port the work of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and become a mem­ber today.