Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Let me speak with him.”

“This isn’t about Benjy.”

“Oh my God, did something happen to Jacob and Max?”

“No. They’re fine.”

“Do you promise me?”

“You need to go home.”

Little was known, which made what little was known terrifying. An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 had struck at 6:23 in the evening, its epicenter deep under the Dead Sea, just outside the Israeli settlement of Kalya. Electricity was out in virtually all of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. It seemed that the most badly damaged areas were Salt and Amman in Jordan, as well as the West Bank city of Jericho, whose walls crumbled thirty-four hundred years before, many archaeologists have argued, not from Joshua’s trumpeting but from a massive earthquake.

First accounts were coming in from the Old City of Jerusalem: the Crusader-era Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional burial place of Jesus and the holiest site in Christianity, which was badly damaged in a 1927 earthquake, had partially collapsed with an unknown number of tourists and clergymen inside. Synagogues and yeshivas, monasteries, mosques and madrassas, were in ruins. There was no news about the Temple Mount, either because there was no news or because those bearing it withheld it.

A civil engineer was being interviewed on NPR. The host, a sultry-voiced, probably short-and-bald Jew named Robert Siegel, began:

SIEGEL: We apologize, in advance, for the audio quality of this interview. Normally, when phone lines are down, we use cell phones. But cell service has been disabled as well, so Mr. Horowitz is speaking to us by satellite phone. Mr. Horowitz, are you there?

HOROWITZ: Yes, hello. I am here.

SIEGEL: Can you give us your professional assessment of what’s going on right now?

HOROWITZ: My professional assessment, yes, but I can also tell you as a human being standing here that Israel has endured a cataclysmic earthquake. Everywhere you look there is destruction.

SIEGEL: You are safe, though?

HOROWITZ: Safe is a relative term. My family is alive, and as you can hear, so am I. Some are safer. Some are less safe.

Why the fuck can’t Israelis just answer questions? Jacob wondered. Even then, in the midst of cataclysm — the word itself sounded like classic Israeli hyperbole — the Israeli couldn’t just give a straightforward, un-Israeli response.

SIEGEL: Mr. Horowitz, you are an engineer for Israeli civil services, is that correct?

HOROWITZ: An engineer, an adviser on government projects, an academic …

SIEGEL: As an engineer, what can you tell us about the potential effects of an earthquake of this magnitude?

HOROWITZ: It is not good.

SIEGEL: Could you elaborate?

HOROWITZ: Of the six hundred fifty thousand structures in Israel, fewer than half are equipped to deal with such an event.

SIEGEL: Are we going to see skyscrapers topple?

HOROWITZ: Of course not, Robert Siegel. They have been engineered to withstand even more than this. It’s the buildings between three and eight stories I’m most worried about. Many will survive, but few will be habitable. You have to realize that Israel didn’t have a building code until the late 1970s, and it’s never been enforced.

SIEGEL: Why is that?

HOROWITZ: We’ve had other things on our minds.

SIEGEL: The conflict.

HOROWITZ: Conflict? We should have been so lucky to have only one conflict. Most buildings are made of concrete — very rigid, unforgiving engineering. Buildings like Israelis, you might say. It’s served a booming population well, but couldn’t be worse-suited to the current situation.

SIEGEL: What about the West Bank?

HOROWITZ: What about it?

SIEGEL: How will its structures respond to such an earthquake?

HOROWITZ: You’d have to ask a Palestinian civil engineer.

SIEGEL: Well, we’ll certainly try to—

HOROWITZ: But since you’re asking me, I have to imagine it has been completely destroyed.

SIEGEL: I’m sorry, what has?

HOROWITZ: The West Bank.

SIEGEL: Destroyed?

HOROWITZ: All of the structures. Everything. There’s going to be a lot of fatality.

SIEGEL: In the thousands?

HOROWITZ: I’m afraid that as I speak these words, tens of thousands are already dead.

SIEGEL: And I am sure you want to get to your family, but before letting you go, could you offer some possibilities for how this will play out?

HOROWITZ: What time frame are you asking about? Hours? Weeks? A generation?

SIEGEL: Let’s start with hours.

HOROWITZ: The next few hours will be pivotal for Israel. It’s all about prioritizing now. Electricity is out countrywide, and will likely remain out, even in the major cities, for several days. As you can imagine, military needs will be the first priority.

SIEGEL: I’m surprised to hear you say that.

HOROWITZ: You are Jewish?

SIEGEL: I’m not sure why that’s relevant, but yes, I am.

HOROWITZ: I’m surprised that a fellow Jew would be surprised. But then, only an American Jew would question why being Jewish is relevant.

SIEGEL: You’re concerned for Israel’s safety?

HOROWITZ: You aren’t?

SIEGEL: Mr. Horowitz—

HOROWITZ: Israel’s tactical superiority is technological, and that has been greatly diminished by the quake. The destruction will cause desperation and unrest. And this will develop — either organically or deliberately — into violence. If it hasn’t already happened, we’re soon to see masses of people flooding the borders into Israel — from the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria. I don’t have to tell you that Syria already has a refugee problem.

SIEGEL: Why would they come to Israel, a country most in the Arab world view as a mortal enemy?

HOROWITZ: Because their mortal enemy has first-rate medical care. Their mortal enemy has food and water. And Israel is going to be presented with a choice: let them in, or don’t. Letting them in will require sharing limited and precious resourses. For others to live, Israelis will have to die. But not letting them in will involve bullets. And of course Israel’s neighbors will have a choice, too: take care of their citizens, or take advantage of Israel’s sudden vulnerability.

SIEGEL: Let’s hope the shared tragedy brings the region together.

HOROWITZ: Yes, but let’s not be naïve while we hope.

SIEGEL: And what about the long term? You mentioned the generational view?

HOROWITZ: Of course, no one can know what will happen, but what Israel is facing here is something far more threatening than ’67, or ’73, or even Iran’s nuclear threat. There is the immediate crisis of needing to secure the country, rescue citizens, get food and medical care to those who need it, repair the electricity, gas, water, and other utilities quickly and safely. Then there is also the work of rebuilding the country. This will be a generational challenge. And finally, and perhaps most daunting, will be the work of keeping Jews here.

SIEGEL: Meaning?

HOROWITZ: A young, ambitious, idealistic Israeli has many reasons to leave Israel. You have an expression, “The straw that broke the camel’s back.”

SIEGEL: Yes.

HOROWITZ: Thousands of buildings have fallen on the back.

JACOB: Vey iz mir.

Jacob hadn’t meant to say anything, and he certainly hadn’t meant to say vey iz mir . But then, no one ever means to say vey iz mir .

“This is bad,” Irv said, shaking his head. “Really, really bad in about a million ways.”

Jacob’s mind teleported to apocalyptic tableaux: the ceiling collapsed onto the trundle in Tamir’s old bedroom; women in wigs trapped under slabs of Jerusalem stone, the ruins of the ruins of Masada. He imagined the marble bench in Blumenberg Park, now shattered stone. It must be a catastrophe, he thought, but he meant it in two entirely different ways: that it certainly had to be, and that he wanted it to be. He couldn’t acknowledge the second meaning, but he couldn’t deny it.