Editor’s Note: City Dads Group blog contributor Gidon Ben-Zvi, a resident of Jerusalem, asked us to reprint this piece he originally wrote for The Algemeiner. “I think your readership would benefit from gaining a glimpse into the lives of average Israeli parents coping with difficult questions as war descends upon them,” he wrote in his note. We agree.

Teaching Your Children About War: An Israeli Father Struggles to Get It Right

It’s 3:36 a.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. I’m tossing and turning right now. Our little country is in a fight for its life. Yes, we’ll prevail. But the cost will be terribly high, almost unbearable.

We keep hearing fighter planes as they jet south. The Lebanon-based Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, is saber rattling. They have launched a couple of dozen rockets into northern Israel. In a skirmish just inside the Israeli border with Lebanon, three Israeli Defense Forces soldiers were killed in a battle with Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

The Israeli Air Force has started to hit terrorist targets in Lebanon and Syria, and is increasing its bombing runs over Gaza.

My wife and I continue to work, or at least go through the motions, at home. Our children are home as well since all schools have been closed since the Hamas invasion began.

To maintain some semblance of sanity, my wife and I continue to get in our morning jogs. In our neighborhood, folks continue to walk along the Louis Promenade, buses continue to run on Hanassi Boulevard, and street cleaners make their daily rounds. But people’s faces have gone pale, and no one seems to stay out for long.

For the sake of our children, we’re fighting not to be overcome with grief. To keep our children feeling safe, we’re trying our level best to explain what this war’s about. We tell them it’s OK to be nervous and scared. Yes, Hamas is out there. We remind them, however, that the fighter planes — and all those soldiers down south — will protect our little family and all of Israel’s families.

It’s a fine line, acknowledging to your kids the sheer evil that has been perpetrated while encouraging them to try and live through this longest, darkest of days with a sense of hope.

A good father’s job is to be a role model, to establish a set of values for his children to live their lives by. What values am I imparting to my kids right now? What lessons am I trying to teach them to make some kind of sense out of the greatest national tragedy to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust? How on earth can the murder of babies, entire families, young people, and the rape of women be turned into a teachable moment?

To the best of my ability, I’ve been trying to teach my kids that the big life comes at a big price.

I left a different kind of life in the United States. Had I stayed, I eventually would have started to earn well, saved up some money, padded my 401(k), and become a homeowner — no doubt moving to a well-manicured, secure suburb.

Maybe I should have stayed in Los Angeles.

On second thought, there’s no place else I’d rather be. In life, there are observers and participants. I chose to throw my lot in with the latter, come what may.

Why? Well, this is part of what I try to convey to my young children: you only get one shot at this thing called life. So why not live it gloriously? A life with a sense of mission, a sense of purpose, and — most importantly — joy.

We Jews have managed to create a free society that promotes human dignity and thriving out of malaria-infested swamps. In a part of the world widely mired in ignorance, intolerance, and persecution, Israel shines bright as a beacon of hope, an outpost of enlightenment, a country where all its citizens are limited only by their innate talent and ambition.

When my wife told our neighbor living in the new apartment next to ours that we have no built-in safe room since our building was constructed pre-1990s, she opened her home to our family.

“Come to our place whenever you need to. We’re all in the same boat.”

Our neighbor is an educated, successful, warm-hearted, Muslim woman.

The lesson I’m trying to teach our four little children is that what you believe in is worth fighting for. Israel is worth fighting for. All we can do in response to the savagery is fight the good fight, emboldened by the knowledge that — ultimately — right makes might.

Originally published Oct. 13, 2023, on The Algemeiner. Photo: © altanaka / Adobe Stock.

About the author

Gidon Ben-Zvi left behind Hollywood starlight for Jerusalem, where he and his wife are raising their four children to speak fluent English – with an Israeli accent. Ben-Zvi’s work has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Algemeiner, American Thinker and Jewish Journal.

The history of humanity is cyclical, and generally, I’ve viewed its nadirs from a safe, temporal distance. It’s a wheel of power-hungry men, only concerned with their own purposes, spinning endlessly for thousands of years. But now, as a nuclear-powered dictator attempts to march across Europe, starting a Ukraine war, I feel its crushing force.

I’ve been holding my phone, consuming too many videos on Twitter of Russians and Ukrainians at war. The wheel grows heavier, spinning faster. The lighthearted jokes about World War III aren’t nearly as funny as nuclear tensions rise and countries across the world are choosing sides.

The last time I felt the weight of war this heavily I was in sixth grade, and my brother was on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. My family huddled around the TV, watching the grainy footage of air raids in Iraq, and the once-distant world of combat and conflict was alive in my home. The sobbing of my mom is still loud in my ears while my dad and I shrugged, feeling powerless to help.

The wheel spun as I learned about Scud missiles in my sixth-grade class the morning after. The wheel spun while we purchased yellow ribbons to tie on the tree. It spun as we bought banners to hang on the house.

I felt the wheel these past two years as the United States confronted a global pandemic with nothing but ideology and dissent, sparking racial tensions, and highlighting social failures we’d rather not confront. We eagerly tear ourselves apart because piss-poor leaders seek to divide us only to serve their own selfish pursuits, all at the cost of us, and all threatening the future of the children to whom we’ve devoted our lives.

War in Ukraine takes lives for one man’s lust for power

I’m not proud of some of the videos from the war in the Ukraine that I’ve recently watched. I’ve seen the faces of the dead.

They seem so young. Just kids. Kids sent to fight either at the service of a dictator or against one, but both youthful victims of war.

These are sons who once only worried about which classmate would pick him for the schoolyard game. These are daughters whose main concern was how long it took to get her turn on the swing. Now they’re the fallen. Blood spilled because the powerful said so.

I’m desperate to know how I can protect my children from meeting the same fate. How can I stop the wheel before it rolls over their innocent lives with crushing indifference? Better yet, I feel one, overwhelming goal: “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

I’m also compelled to confess my hypocrisy. Why haven’t other world crises brought me to this emotional state?

The unending turmoil between Israel and Palestine.

The civil war in Syria.

The genocides and civil wars consuming many parts of Africa.

The concentration camps and genocides in China.

Maybe I resonate with Ukraine because they look like me. Could I be guilty of not having empathy for people of different cultures and colors? Maybe, and it’s hard for me to type that sentence. Maybe the war in Ukraine is scarier because it has the ability to directly impact me — selfishness I’m sad to admit.

Will you break the wheel? Will your kids?

Whatever the catalyst may be, the fire burns, and my rage at the wheel is nearly blinding. My own apathy and inaction will be the demons I’ll confront, but what about my kids? What about your kids?

We’re parents raising the next generation of cannon fodder. How do we protect them from the machinations of geopolitics? How will they be more than pawns in the hands of the powerful? What can we as parents do to stop this wheel and rescue our children, and by proxy all children, from being consumed by the generational inheritance of wars and endless bullshit?

I have no answers, my friends. I’m spent. Empty. Maybe you feel the same. Hug your kids a little tighter today, and every day after.

You know your kids deserve more from you. The world desperately needs a generation with fresh ideas and renewed vision and courage. But can it come from me? Can it be from you? I hope so.

Let’s renew our commitment to the next generation to do our very best to rescue them from our failures. We may not be the first to confront the world’s great challenges, but maybe we can find a little spark of optimism. Maybe that spark can start a fire of hope, one that gives us all the courage to stand up to the wheel, and break it once and for all.

Break the wheel photo: © AlphonseLeong.Photos / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: With Memorial Day approaching, we thought the time was right to address war and our children. NYC Dads Group member Mike Julianelle presents his point of view here. Please leave yours in the comments.

Saturday Night Live ran a parody once of the earnest and sentimental “my kid is joining the military” commercials. Only instead of the man’s daughter joining the army, she joined ISIS. The target of the bit, to these eyes, was the commercials themselves, not the war and not even ISIS, but some people got upset.

Similarly, controversy erupted over this winter’s American Sniper, a Best Picture nominee and huge box office hit. Some thought the film fudged the facts, others felt it was pro-war propaganda that removed any shades of gray from the discussion. Of course, anyone who dared criticized the movie – including funnyman Seth Rogen – was basically accused of treason, despite the fact that there is no correlation between criticizing a film and criticizing the troops or the military.

War is a highly politicized topic, especially a war as amorphous and infinite as the one in which we’re currently embroiled. Which probably makes this post a bad idea.

First things first: I support the troops; I love America and Ford and apple pie and Credence Clearwater Revival; I take my hat off during the national anthem; I pledge allegiance to the flag and so on; and I hate terrorism and ISIS and think they must be stopped, somehow.

Just not by my son.

I don’t want my son near a military recruiting office. Not in a million years.

He’s not even five. He’s too young to express an interest in joining the army, nor do I have any reason to believe he ever will. I don’t care how horrible ISIS is. I don’t care if Hitler is unfrozen and building a zombie brigade. I don’t care if the creatures from Independence Day return to finish the job. I’ll sooner freeze my son in carbonite before I let him suit up and join a war. I won’t let my son join the military.

This is pure selfishness on my part. My stance doesn’t take into account his desires. Right now, he’s still young enough that I don’t need to; I still have control over him. And so I’m allowed to exercise my most selfish qualities, long before any potentially selfless qualities he may develop – selfless qualities that Mom and Buried and I are trying to develop – get in the way.

In 10 years or so, my son might be a stalwart American patriot. He might want to join the armed forces. He might want to serve the country, he might want to be a part of whatever fight we’re inevitably a part of when he’s a young man (maybe even this same one). Maybe, God forbid, there will be an inciting incident that awakens his patriotism, or maybe he’ll grow up under the spell of movies like American Sniper and ads like the ones in which a Marine vanquishes a dragon (for some reason), and he’ll want to join up to protect the American way of life, or defend the world from terrorists or dictators. I have no idea.

But I f*cking hope not.

And even if he does want to, if he feels compelled, feels that joining the military is his calling, I’ll do my best to talk him out of it. I might even break his legs to keep him from going. That may sound gross to many of you, but again: I don’t care. I’m more than willing to be the bad guy here, in your eyes and in his.

I don’t care if he’s brave and I’m a coward. I don’t care if he’s selfless and I’m selfish. I don’t care what positive learning experiences he’d be losing out on, what an amazing man he’d escape being shaped into by not suiting up. I don’t care even care how proud it might make me to see him develop into the kind of person who would willingly put himself in harm’s way for the cause of a greater good.

I’m totally cool with sacrificing some pride so long as it means not sacrificing my son.

This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, or the worthiness of the fight, or with which side is right or wrong. Only an asshole would blame soldiers for the politics of war, and only an asshole overlooks the contributions our troops make every day toward keeping all of us safe and allowing people like me to write selfish posts like this. I respect those people for putting their country ahead of themselves, even more so because I don’t know how they manage to do it. This is in no way intended as a slight toward anyone who currently serves, or wants to serve, or wants their children to serve.

This is merely one parent, wanting to protect and keep his child out of harm’s way for as long as possible. For the same reason, I won’t let him play with guns, or ride a bike without a helmet or use heroin. There’s just too much risk. It’s ridiculous and unfair to compare those activities to joining the military; I know some great people who are who they are because of their service, and I am well aware of the benefits, both tangible and intangible, that separate it from the things I mentioned above. But, again, I can live with my son missing out on those benefits, so long as my son is living.

This whole thing is moot, anyway. I know it will eventually be out of my hands, and my efforts will be irrelevant, and this post will be meaningless. Even now there are countless things I’m powerless to guard him against, and when he’s older, I will hardly have the option. I’m not a helicopter parent, I won’t be accompanying my son to college, and I can’t be looking over his shoulder forever.

I’ll be proud of my son no matter what he does, whether he opts to join the military one day or not.

But I’ll also move to Canada tomorrow if that’s what it takes to keep him out of a war.

A version of this first appeared on Dad and Buried.

Among the photographs from my 2003 deployment to Iraq is one that sticks out. There’s a woman in uniform, not unlike every other picture I have of persons I served with there. But then there’s this guy.

He has no BDU t-shirt or DCU pants; he’s in a white cotton button-up with rolled sleeves and blue jeans. He’s sitting on a dusty cot next to our tent, his arms out, his lips pursed mid-sentence, and he’s smiling. He’s holding a shawarma wrapped in plastic he’s brought from his home to give us a break from the MREs we shared at lunch every day under our camouflage netting-covered “porch.” His name is Muhammad.

Muhammad was our translator. His father and uncle had been killed by the defeated regime, and he was supporting his siblings and cousins with the $10 a day and MREs the U.S. Army gave him in exchange for helping us communicate with the guys making $1 a day who filled sandbags and cleaned our outhouse or those other guys stuffing canisters with mortars trying to kill us. Muhammad was important.

Most of the soldiers assigned to the area stayed away from the young Iraqi, but I found him fascinating. I learned how he was taken by henchmen for being too sick to stand when one of Saddam Hussein’s sons passed on the street, but they felt sorry for him and, a few minutes later, tossed him out of the back seat just down the road. I’d ask him the questions I was sure I wasn’t supposed to ask, like about Islam, terrorism, and the chemical weapons drums we’d found not far away.

During one of our many shared meals, I asked him this:

Me: Are you glad we’re here? I mean. Look at your country. It’s practically destroyed.
Him: Yes, but is good.
Me: How?
Him: Once we were afraid.  Now we have courage.  Once we were weak, but now we are strong.

That conversation helped me keep my head up for the months that followed while serving in country in ’03, the years that followed when everyone on TV spoke of the invasion having been in vain, and the months comprising my second trip to Iraq in ’07.  An Emancipation Proclamation it was not, but it was the motivation I needed to feel good about the time I spent away from home, a family, and the semblance of normalcy a life here gives in comparison.

* * *

A few summers ago, I went to Washington, D.C., for a week of annual training in the form of eight hours a day of briefings and PowerPoint slides. At one of the morning breaks, I approached a veteran major who had mentioned during one of the talks that he’d been to Camp Anaconda in 2003.

Me: You were there in ’03?
Him: Yeah. You been there too?
Me: I have … got there in May ’03 after a couple months in Kuwait. When did you arrive?
Him: Summer … late July or early August.
Me: Holy shit … are you from Texas?
Him: Yeah, were you part of the team from Tennessee?
Me: You relieved me!  Wow … I’ve never been happier to see someone as I was to see you get off the plane to signal my getting to go home.
Him: You look really different …
Me: I was 27. I had a shaved head, hadn’t started practicing law yet, and didn’t have children …. Hey, was there a translator there named Muhammad?  Young guy … looked sorta like a tanned Tom Cruise?
Him: Yeah, I remember Muhammad. Smart kid! They, uh … they actually … killed him.
Me: What? Who?
Him: The insurgents … they found out he was helping us and …
Me: …
Him:  Were you …
Me:  I … gotta take … (pretended cellphone was vibrating and walked outside).

And then I realized I’d never thanked him.

Not for his tolerance of my nosiness; not for his sharing his food and culture with us; not for his service to our side; not for his friendship.

Thank you to every veteran for your brave service to our country and especially to you, Muhammad. Happy Veterans Day.

A version of Veteran to Remember first appeared on Dadcation.