Oct 15th 2023

I sent this update to one of Ariel's teachers, and as more of you are reaching out, asking about us and Ariel, I figure posting it here will be beneficial.
Ariel is, first and foremost, physically unharmed.
He is still in Israel and we are trying to get him back home, but it is not simple. Getting to the Airport can be dangerous. The airport itself is a Hamas target, and so, is unsafe, not to mention over crowded and chaotic. As for flights, many are delayed or cancelled, and so planning is difficult. We were trying to get him on one of the Qantas flights, but this has proven fruitless so far, and so we are looking toward alternative solutions.
All that aside, Ariel spent the first few days of this atrocious war in Tel Aviv, in and out of the bunker room, with rockets sometimes landing way too close for comfort. He was relocated to a safer place further north a few days ago (we are eternally grateful to all those helping us and Ariel, no matter what is needed), where he is now with family and friends, and doing his best to assist in relief efforts for families coming up from the south.
Obviously no place is safe. Israel is a small country both in terms of population and geographic size, and so every place you go you will be close to a border, and everyone you know, is either supporting mourning friends, mourning someone themselves, or anxiously (for lack of a better word) awaiting news. However, he is a strong, passionate, brave boy, and as his mother, who has grown up in Israel, I understand many of the situations he is facing. Many other situations, horrifyingly and ironically, are new even to us Israelis. It is tragic that he is having to face such an unfathomably gruesome reality first hand. For a kid who has never even heard a siren until a week ago, I think he has been extremely brave, and I am so very proud of him, and how he has handled himself.
We are hoping to have him back home with us very very soon.