My grandfather Olek came to Israel from Poland after the war.

He came with nothing. Built something.

That's not a metaphor or an inspiration poster.

That's literally what happened.

Starting from nothing is different from building on something.

He started from rubble.

A new country in the desert. A new language at forty.

A new life because the old one had been murdered.

He never complained about any of it.

That absence of complaint is its own kind of testimony.