The Only Time I Saw Moshe
I was working in the kitchens of a Kibbutz, Reshafim, in southern Galilee, a few miles from the Jordanian border, preparing food in the strict rhythm of kosher rules.
One day, I was assigned carrot juice duty for a couple of hundred kibbutzniks and volunteers. They’d be coming in from the fields, sweaty, sunburnt, half-spent from working the date palms. All I had to do was juice the carrots and pour the thick orange liquid into a huge bain-marie set in iced water.
The dining hall was quiet when I started pouring from one of the large jugs, so I heard it clearly,
the slap of bare feet on the floor behind me.
I turned.
A young man stood by the serving table, no more than eighteen. Golden-brown skin. Head shaved almost to nothing. He wore only khaki boxers and a silver chain with a dog tag resting against his chest.
In one hand, a two-litre carton of milk, freshly liberated from the kitchen. A trace of it clung to his upper lip, mixing with the beginnings of a moustache.
At his waist, slung casually over one shoulder, was a machine gun.
It pointed, vaguely, in my direction.
He nodded.
I nodded back.
“Bocha-tov,” I said.
“Okay?” he asked, gesturing to the fruit.
“Sure.”
He studied the table for a moment, then picked up a slice of watermelon and bit into it, the red flesh almost touching both sides of his face. He grinned at me, juice running into the milk on his lip, turning it a faint, unsettling pink.
“You are from England?”
“Yeah. Near Manchester.”
“Ah… it rains a lot.” He paused, searching. “I was in Bristol. University. The family I stayed with had friends from Manchester. Always complaining about the… what is the word… little rain?”
“Drizzle.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Yes. Drizzle.”
“I haven’t seen rain since I left England,” I said.
He offered me fruit again. I shook my head and gestured toward the juice. He made a face.
“How long are you on leave?” I asked.
“Two days.” He took another bite. “I just finished the first part of my training. Then back to the army. Kiryat Shmona. Golan. You know?”
I nodded.
Each summer, volunteers were taken up there. A museum visit, too much drinking in town, then a night sleeping in a park near Lebanon. I told him as much.
“Good place to visit,” he said. “Not good if you are in the army.”
“Why? Because you don’t want to be there?”
He shook his head.
“Because I am just Moshe.”
He leaned back against the steel table, the weight of the gun settling into his shoulder.
“I lived all my life here. Then I go to England. Veterinary science. I come back, look after the animals. Usually there is… dispensation. But they forget.”
He shrugged.
“They say you are nineteen. Here is your gun. Go. Fight.”
He lifted the weapon slightly, almost studying it.
“I could stay in England. Finish my studies. Then go. But… you know. I must defend my country. My brothers. What can I do?”
He looked up at me then, not like a boy, not really.
“Maybe I fight. Who knows? One day I go back to Bristol. Then come back here. Perhaps it will still be the same.”
He paused. Looked down the sights of the gun, almost idly.
Then he pushed himself upright.
“I must go. Shalom.”
He walked back into the kitchen, taking the milk carton and the rind with him.
“Shalom,” I said—to his back.
It was the only time I ever saw Moshe.
That night, a few of us went into Beit She’an for beers, following the road that ran along the West Bank. Across the border, the lights of Jordan shimmered through the palm groves, catching the stars and holding them low.
The road was quiet. Too quiet. So we walked.
We found a snake's shed skin in the dust. I picked it up with a stick; it was almost transparent, even in the thin moonlight.
Then the helicopter came.
It tore across the sky without warning, low and violent, its searchlight sweeping the open fields between us and the border. We stood still as it passed, watching it disappear toward the mountains beyond Reshafim.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then the insects returned—louder than before.
You only notice them when they’re gone.
A white Mercedes appeared soon after, with Arabic numbers on the plate. It slowed, stopped beside us, the window grinding down with an old mechanical complaint.
A face leaned out, lined, almost bark-like.
“Good evening, my friends. It is late to walk this road. I can take you to Beit She’an. Please.”
We exchanged a glance, just long enough to acknowledge the warning we were ignoring, and climbed in.
“Thanks,” I said. “Too hot to walk.”
“It is nothing,” he replied. “I see you crazy people here all the time. I like to practise my English.”
“Did you learn it in England?” I asked, thinking of Moshe.
He laughed softly.
“No. My brother has a market in Jerusalem. I work there since I am small. Many visitors. Many languages.”
We drove in silence for a while.
“Did you see the helicopter?” I asked.
“I saw it. I do not know why. But I saw also three army cars going toward Ramallah.”
As we reached the town, he slowed.
“Enjoy your night,” he said. “Do not drink too much. The girls will not speak to you.”
We laughed and offered him a drink.
He looked out across the square, families sitting in the warm air, volunteers clustered around the bar, the sign Volunteers Bar glowing faintly.
He shook his head.
“No. Salaam, my friends.”
We stepped out, thanked him, and headed toward the noise.
I turned once more to watch the white Mercedes pull away, back toward the dark road.
The next morning, Pascal came running in with a copy of the Jerusalem Post.
“Saddam Invades Kuwait.”
We lingered over breakfast longer than usual. Kibbutzniks and volunteers sat in uneasy clusters, trying to make sense of something that felt distant but wasn’t.
We spoke of leaving. Of staying. Of risk.
Only then did we realise the volunteers had a bomb shelter assigned to us.
It seemed absurd.
And then, slowly, we forgot.
Life went on, as it does. Work. Heat. Evenings. Beer.
Three weeks later, the Knesset decided gas masks were not necessary for volunteers.
I left Israel shortly after.
Six months later, back in England, I watched CNN as images flickered onto the screen—an Iraqi Scud missile striking an army barracks near the Lebanese border.
Fire. Concrete. Aftermath.
Still… life went on.
As serenely as before.
I found myself thinking of Moshe then—of the way he had looked down the sights of his gun, as if trying to see something beyond it. I wondered if he had ever made it back to Bristol. Or back to Reshafim.