Real people, not statistics

This morning, one of our friends here in Neve Daniel sent me this e-mail:

Hi – I am sitting here crying because one of the women murdered tonight was my son’s gannenet. Yehuda is six and is mentally retarded – his teachers are our world because they bring him such joy when the world is such an overwhelming and confusing place. Cochava was an angel, and we were with her an hour before she died – she was on her way home from the gan welcome back orientation when she was murdered.

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Standing by my bike on the slopes of Mount Hermon, I felt the sweat freezing to my body. I think it was at that time I decided that no way would I ever ride the Alyn 5 day charity ride again. Not a chance. Don’t even ask. After all, biking is a recreational hobby, right?

Why on Earth should one’s hobby make one miserable. As I tried to clean the mud out of my nose later that night, I felt comfortable that after riding Alyn for four years and raising over ten thousand dollars for the children’s hospital, I had done my share. Let someone else take over.

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For those of you reading this who may not be aware, I am a Jew living in the town of Neve Daniel — what most of the world would refer to as a West Bank Settlement. I am very comfortable with my rights to this land and do not feel that anything is amiss with Jewish settlement in the heart of Judea. I have no desire to displace Arabs or undermine their lives. I spend my free time riding bikes, not chopping down someone’s olive trees.

The region I live in has both Jewish and Arab towns. From the news, you would get the idea that we are constantly at war with one another. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some terrible acts in the five years we have lived here. People have been killed in gruesome terrorist acts including a young man from Neve Daniel. We are aware that many Palestinian children are indoctrinated to hate Jews from very young ages.

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Not sure if the sun was setting or rising here

The sun is rising and my legs are burning from the accumulated lactic acid of the night’s running. We just passed 50 kilometers and still have another five to go.

Three of us are left from the four who started out together. I really feel like walking a bit or maybe taking a nap inside one of the hay bales we keep passing in this never ending field. I tell the other guys that I can’t keep up and they should just go ahead. But they slow down insisting that we finish together.

Not wanting to make them walk, I speed up and try to imagine how nice the finish line will feel. For some reason, all I can think about is eating a bowl of tomato soup. I promise myself that within an hour, somehow I will find a bowl and either eat it or soak my feet in it.

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Me and CD Zlotnick after the race

This morning I found myself in the Alon Shevut pool getting ready for the start of my first triathlon. Triathlon? Oh yeah, that’s the crazy sport where lunatics swim, bike, and run because they can’t kill themselves by just doing one of them. Of course, this is not the ultra crazy Iron Man. Just a little Friday morning fun.

My original plan was to train like crazy and hope that everyone else who showed up were fat guys from Queens. (I think this is actually Lance Armstrong’s Tour De France plan.) The first part of the plan worked out.

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