– by Yahav Zohar – August 20th, 2025 –

In Jerusalem, too, this has been one of the hottest summers on record. It’s a harsh season in
a harsh place, but if you’re going to be in this country, Jerusalem’s a good choice. We’re up
in the hills, and right at the edge of the desert, so our evenings and early mornings still have
a refreshing coolness to them. The Iranian and Yemeni missiles have been aimed mostly at
Tel Aviv and the Haifa port, and left us pretty much alone.

“While the Israeli state falls deeper into moral and economic bankruptcy, Jerusalem, to all appearances, continues to function. New tram lines are under construction, and the streets and parks are well-maintained and clean.”

Early mornings the dog takes me for a long walk through the quiet city, often leading to
Wadi Rababa, also known as Gay Ben Hinom, just southwest of the old city, at the foot of
Mt. Zion. There, in the place where ancient Judeans passed their sons through fire in a
dangerous forbidden ritual, I sit on some stone steps and read the day’s news the dog races
across the wide, well-maintained lawns or frolicks in the sprinklers.

Wherever you are in the world, in every moment of peace and beauty, somewhere there
are atrocities going on, people being massacred. Cities destroyed. Most people, most of the
time, do not concern themselves with these. The same, I guess, is true for Jerusalemites
today. But of course, we are nearer than most. Late at night, when it is very quiet and the
sane are all sleeping, window panes rattle in their frames. Huge explosions are bringing
down tower blocks in Gaza, fifty miles away. These are the two thousand pound bombs the
US continues to send and Israeli pilots continue to drop on a landscape of profound,
unprecedented devastation, on sick and starving people in tent camps and make-shift
shelters.

Sometimes we stop at the dog park to socialize. While dogs wisely concern themselves with
sniffing each other, some of us humans try to talk. Parents are running out of summer
holiday activities with their kids, everything is too expensive and crowded. There’s a new
show on Netflix my neighbour recommends, thinks it’s funny, though she has to admit she
fell asleep mid-episode last night. No, she didn’t hear the thuds; maybe she slept too deeply,
maybe her newer aluminum window frames don’t shake the same way. Yes, it’s terrible, the
war, all the death and destruction. And it’s been going on so long, hard to remember a time
before it. Hard to imagine how it ends.

Some of us, who still go to protests, talk of the low turnout last Saturday, or plans for next
week’s march, blocking a road or otherwise disturbing the peace. The peace, however,
seems mostly undisturbed. Our most common dogpark conversation, all these last 20
months, has been variations of that: how strange it is that most of us still go to work, take
kids to ballet and soccer and back, while the war goes on so close, while our hostages suffer
in tunnels.

If there ever was a war, I say one morning, it is long over. There is no army on the other side,
just the occasional sniper or improvised explosive device. For a long time, the army hasn’t
even been claiming to target militants. Gazans are dying of hunger and infectious disease in
their tent camps or getting shot while racing to grab the little food there is. This time, I do
not say genocide, I’ve said it before and found myself arguing legal definitions.

Yes, says another neighbour, it really is horrible. There are a few moments of silence broken
by a fight among the dogs. Owners rush to break them up and are rescued from having to
say anything more. Perhaps it would be better if we went home now, its time for work soon

anyway. Like cartoon characters who have walked off the cliff but not yet looked down we
go on about our business.

• Yahav Zohar is a Senior Partner and tour guide with the Green Olive Collective