I say achi too much. My friends tell me. My wife tells me. Translated literally, it means “my brother,” but it’s basically the Hebrew equivalent of “bro,” which is to say, it usually means nothing. I use it on people I have known for 20 years and on people I met four minutes ago.
There is a restaurant around the corner from our apartment called HaAchim, “the Brothers.” We eat there often enough that I stopped hearing the name a long time ago.
Our older son, Eitan, is three and orders the fries, which, as far as he’s concerned, is the entire point of the place. I was there Wednesday night with friends and found myself reminiscing about previous visits. We have had countless meals there. With my parents when they visited, and we’ve celebrated birthdays. My father had his Air Force reunion there the last time he was in Israel, a table of men in their seventies who had not seen each other in fifty years.
After October 7, HaAchim printed T-shirts, one for each of the communities in the south that were attacked that morning, and sent the money to those places to rebuild. During the campaign for the hostages, the restaurant closed on days there were major protests. Everyone who worked there went to Jerusalem to demand a hostage deal. A shuttle left directly from the restaurant. Think about it: a small Tel Aviv restaurant gave up a full day of covers because there was somewhere more important to be.
There’s a little shop attached to the place. For a long time it sold a tote bag with hostage Carmel Gat’s name on it, with the money going to her family. When they started selling it, we were still saying “bring her home.” Then she was murdered in the tunnel in Rafah with five others. They kept selling the bag, and they only took it down a month or two ago. We just marked two years since her death.
