The start of the inevitable Iranian retaliation to Israel’s stunning series of airstrikes caught me in the shower Friday night. Upon hearing the familiar sound of wailing air raid sirens outside, I quickly grabbed a towel and casually joined my wife and sleeping children in our youngest daughter’s bedroom, which also doubles as our fortified safe room. We know the drill already.
But as I sat in the dark in silence, to the faint popping noise of nearby explosions, it wasn’t the hundreds of deadly drones and missiles heading our way I was thinking about. It wasn’t the potential for a lengthy, devastating war either. In truth, I was thinking about Brian Wilson.
All day long, I had been listening to the greatest hits of the just departed Beach Boy legend. And while it’s true that I greatly admired his music and deeply empathized with his mental health struggles, there was a more profound reason why his sunny songs had become my internal soundtrack on this particularly dark day.
As a former long-time Middle East war correspondent and self-diagnosed news junkie, I have been undergoing a prolonged, albeit inconsistent, media detox. There is no escaping the news in Israel. I still skim the headlines daily and sometimes fall into old habits and down media rabbit holes. But since it’s not my job anymore to constantly follow what’s going on, I’ve often chosen to detach from the news rather than drown in it like I have long been apt to do. This has been a particular goal throughout our surreal and seamlessly eternal post-Oct. 7, 2023, reality. It is just healthier for the soul.
So, leading up to Friday’s madness, I wasn’t preoccupied with the latest Israeli political drama, the most recent casualties in the endless Gaza war or even the murmuring about another, far more ominous clash with Iran. My mind was on the brilliance of Brian Wilson.
It was more than the typical escapism. It was a longing for a different time, the one before our country and our lives were turned upside down 20 months ago. News of Wilson’s passing took me back to better days. To June 8, 2016, to be exact. That was the night Brian Wilson performed in Israel as part of his worldwide tour celebrating 50 years to the Beach Boys’ iconic “Pet Sounds” album.
It was a different Israel I was remembering. An Israel before the attempted judicial overhaul, before the trauma of Oct. 7, before the hostages and this awful, never-ending war. That night was all about the “Good Vibrations” I was getting from witnessing one of my musical heroes in concert just 15 minutes from my home in central Israel.
It was these songs that were playing in my head as I hunkered down “In My (safe) Room” at home as missiles pounded down on nearby Tel Aviv and its environs, destroying residential buildings, killing three people and injuring over 170.
No, I wasn’t naive enough to think “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” if life in Israel wasn’t like this. I wasn’t even thinking “God Only Knows” how much worse it could get. It was a lesser-known song from that masterpiece album that I couldn’t stop mouthing: “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.”
It’s a theme I’d been pondering for some time, especially while wrapping up the final draft of my upcoming book, Zaidy’s Band. (Scheduled for publishing in November by the University of Toronto Press). This part memoir, part historical biography, and part mystery tells the story of my decade-long journey to uncover my grandfather’s service during the Second World War. It also explores the unique contributions of his fellow Jewish “Band of Brothers” in the defining moments of their times, namely, the war against Nazism and, shortly after, the battle to establish Israel.
Throughout the process, I’d managed to forge several significant relationships with members of that “greatest generation.” That kinship often translated into wondering whether I’d have found a better fit back when things seemed simpler, back when history was being made.
But I quickly realized that what began as a romantic ode to the perceived importance of the past had become strikingly relevant. The same dilemmas the men and women of that generation faced – faith, belonging, courage, and sacrifice – continued to resonate today, shaping the Jewish experience in the face of renewed antisemitism worldwide and the continued challenges facing the Jewish state.
If the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and their aftermath taught us anything it was that Israel’s well-being – perhaps even its existence – was not to be taken for granted. In many ways, Israel’s 1948 War of Independence never really ended. We were still living in the shadow of those times.
In retrospect, we always have been. Looking back at that supposed magical Brian Wilson concert on June 8, 2016, I seemed to have forgotten that even as I was blissfully watching him perform on stage, a pair of terrorists were opening fire at an indoor market in nearby Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis. Even those supposed “good old days” were marred by violence, as have most of our 77 years as a country.
There is no need to look back: We are still living through historic times of our own. We have yet to reach the Promised Land, and it was probably foolish to think that we ever would. The current escalation with Iran simply marks a new chapter in this endless pursuit.
It’s far too early to say whether a full-fledged war with our most dangerous adversary will get us any closer to that vision or perhaps eliminate it completely. It just seems like every time, the stakes get higher, the threats more dangerous, and those distant booms keep getting louder and harder to ignore.
Aron Heller is a Canadian/American/Israeli writer and broadcaster and a former longtime AP correspondent and journalism professor. You can follow him on social media and read a selection of his work at aronheller.com.
