“Pillar of Cloud” © D. Yael Bernhard
In 2012 I traveled to Israel with my ten-year-old daughter to participate in the olive harvest, and to research my picture book, The Life of an Olive (Heliotrope Books, 2016). We were welcomed at Kibbutz Gezer, halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and joined the harvest crew for a week of olive picking. Conversations were lively in the olive grove as we combed the multicolored fruit from the trees with hand-held rakes.
On the third day war broke out, as Hamas began firing hundreds of rockets on southern Israel, just as they did last Saturday. Rockets rained down on Sderot, Ashkelon, and other towns and cities close to Gaza, as well as Ashdod, just a bike ride away from where we were. We knew the kibbutz was too rural to be a direct target, but it was still unnerving, to say the least, to hear rockets landing within earshot – and to feel the ground shake beneath our feet when two days later, missiles began hitting Tel Aviv.
Israel responded with air strikes aimed at the rocket launchers in Gaza, in a military operation nicknamed “Operation Pillar of Defense,” alluding to God’s guiding presence in the Bible as a pillar of cloud in the crossing of the Sinai desert by the ancient Israelites. As the world criticized and blamed the modern State of Israel for defending herself, I experienced firsthand what it’s like to live in a country the size of New Jersey, surrounded by enemies that are sworn to its destruction. Yet the composure of my Israeli hosts was astounding. There was no hate in their hearts for their Arab friends, many of whom were also olive growers, and even their counterparts in Gaza. Nor were they as worried as I was, having lived through multiple attacks just like this before. We continued picking olives, the fragrant tranquility of the trees standing in stark contrast to the situation at large. The sound of olives pitter-pattering onto the tarps spread on the ground mingled with the screaming sound of rockets in the distance. There’s no place as peaceful as an olive grove, as the leaves exude sweet-smelling terpenes and healing compounds such as oleuropein, known for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial benefits. And there is no tree in the Middle East that lives as long as an olive tree; if tended and pruned by humans, a single tree can live for over 2000 years, witness to the rise and fall of whole civilizations. The subject of my book is one such tree, a fictitious olive in the Galilee. It was sobering to contemplate the passage of time in relation to the long-lived trees that yielded their fruit to us now. They will outlive us, and hopefully the blind cruelty of terrorist organizations such as Hamas.
My daughter continued to play with the other girls at the kibbutz – all of whom are in the army now – and seemed largely unperturbed by the situation. Unlike me, she was able to sleep at night, breathing steadily beside me while I lay ready to spring into action if the sirens went off. We would have less than 90 seconds to get into the closest bomb shelter. In our Catskill Mountain home we have no flight paths over our valley, and only the sounds of owls and katydids at night; but here in Israel, the searing sounds of the IAF (Israeli Air Force) fighter jets overhead cut through the night as steadily as ocean waves. In my half-dream state, I imagined them as porpoises arcing through the ocean of dark sky, and this image began to form. The olive grove, in its ancient wisdom and steady forbearance, became a blanket of safety that covered my daughter and me. Beyond the kibbutz, the rolling hills of central Israel recede toward Jerusalem in the east and Tel Aviv in the west, with pockets of communities dotting the land.
When a missile from Gaza hit Jerusalem in an unprecedented strike against the city that is the third holiest site to all Muslims, the headlines exploded and I knew it was time to leave. We were scheduled to spend a week in Jerusalem after our week of picking olives. My daughter was almost as tall as me, and though I might have been able to carry her across a grassy lawn into a bomb shelter in the middle of the night, I could not count on her to wake up and cooperate on such short notice to descend into one in the basement of a city building.
So we exercised our privilege as American citizens, and after a harrowing journey to Ben Gurion airport, flew away to safety. Passengers on the flight were dazed and silent. People spoke in hushed tones of friends and relatives lost, injured, missing or dead. One woman with a toddler who had come from the Eshkol region near Gaza was especially traumatized. I felt incredibly fortunate. At the same time, I also wanted to stay, and sink deeper and deeper into the land of Israel with its rich and ancient culture, its strong and determined people.
“Pillar of Defense” was a short war, lasting only 8 days, but even the fours days that I experienced were enough to leave me with a new understanding of life in Israel. My daughter and I returned a year later, and I completed my research in Jerusalem while also showing her historical and cultural sites. I had visited many of them before myself, but found my perception had changed: experiencing history firsthand brought these exhibitions alive in a way that I could only express in this painting. In my imagination I slept soundly, blanketed by the earth under the roots of the olive grove, those silent witnesses to human history.
The original painting is for sale; please inquire for more information if you’re interested.
Praying for the people of Israel, and the victims of tragedy in Gaza who are innocent.
D Yael Bernhard
https://dyaelbernhard.com
D. Yael Bernhard is a professional illustrator, fine art painter, writer, arts-in-ed teacher, and health & nutrition coach. She has illustrated and/or written over forty children’s books, many with educational and multicultural themes. Her work has been featured by religious publishers, environmental causes, and healers and midwives all over the world. Find her art at the links above, and visit her illustrated nutrition newsletter, The Art of Health, here.