Tanya White

I will say something that may make many of my Diaspora friends uncomfortable: there is a fault line running between us that most of us never speak about. It is not Netanyahu. It is not the war. It is the siren that will sound here on Tuesday morning — and the fact that, for them, it will not. For me, growing up in London, Yom HaAtzmaut meant a short tekes (ceremony) and dancing organized by Bnei Akiva and Mizrachi. Yom HaZikaron barely registered.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... When my youngest daughter was 5, she didn’t want to go to kindergarten. A friend recommended a book called The Invisible String. It tells the story of two children who can’t fall asleep. Their mother gently explains that an invisible string exists between them and everyone they love. You mean to say there’s a string connecting us to Daddy at the office right now? Yes. And Aunt Sarah in Australia? Yes. And even Grandad in heaven?

We don’t do much “God talk” in my house. I grew up in a yekke household — we spoke about kashrut, Shabbat, all the practicalities — but not about God directly. Then we moved to a Yemenite moshav with a Chabad rabbi, and everything shifted.