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The
one exception, his best friend Cuba, wouldn't go near it. Actually Cuba was
quite a rebel. Hard to pin him down, he was top of the class in everything
(before Joel showed up and displaced him in academics), and he was also the
toughest kid in the entire school. On Yom Kippur, Cuba liked to ride his bicycle
all around while eating an apple. Anyway, this is not about Cuba, he'll have his
day some other time. Joel would basically be the man to see when the shofar was
blown. Not a chauffeur joke, but funny anyway. Nobody else had cigarettes in
their pockets, it was forbidden. They were all teenagers, smoking cigarettes and
having a drink now and then, basically because it was forbidden. So, at the end
of the Yom Kippur day, Joel would be quite popular. The girls would flock all
around him and he would trade cigarettes for kisses. It was not a great trade -
after not eating, drinking or brushing their teeth for 24 hours, the girls'
mouths were certainly not a great trophy. Still, Joel was not that popular with
the girls usually but on a couple of Yom Kippur occasions he managed to get to
second base and once he even got to third. No home runs but he was quite happy
to reminisce once in a while when masturbating at home.
-%-
The guests, a couple from across the road, and two of Joel's co-workers, arrived
around two o'clock, just as the Egyptian and Syrian armies were commencing a two
front attack against the Israeli borders. A lot of soldiers were fasting and
praying so the defenses were very undermanned. The sneaky attack came as a major
surprise to the IDF. At least that's how it was later presented to the masses.
The major intelligence fuck-ups were covered-up nicely in the way that
politicians are known to do.
Joel checked on the grape leaves and pronounced them not yet ready. They sat
down in the living room with a bottle of wine just chatting about nothing in
particular. A car drove by out in the street and then a second one. Haifa is not
a terribly religious kind of town so they didn't pay much attention. At some
point though, the air raid sirens went on. Someone suggested that they were
under attack.
"Nonsense," said Joel, "it's just to remind us of the suffering of Jews in the
Soviet Union or something."
More cars drove by.
"Still, there's a lot of traffic for a Yom Kippur. Something is up," added
Hannah.
"Come on," retorted Joel, "I'd be one of the first to be notified if anything
happened."
In Israel everyone is a soldier. After serving
the three year tour of duty everyone is in the reserves until the age of 65.
Joel was a tank commander and in the event that a war broke out he would be
activated immediately. Almost as soon he finished uttering those words, there
was a knock on the door. Joel opened it revealing a stranger who asked:
"Joel Lupovici?" Getting an affirmative answer, he
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