"This too shall pass" - גם זה יעבור

This is a country where fireworks are confused for firefights, bags at a bus stop are confused for bombs, Arabs are confused for terrorists, security is confused for Apartheid, justice is confused for war crimes, and this is a country where the people are just confused. This is something I have come to learn through my travels so far within the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Living in Jerusalem has allowed me access to a place that has become, in my opinion, the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s a city where people, Jewish, Muslim and Christian, are blatantly hateful. I have learned that here in the Middle East, hate does not discriminate, it encompasses all while slowly destroying every and all hopes for peace. But this city is also beautiful, there's something about Jerusalem I just can't explain it. It's a city that has opened my heart and mind and has cleansed my soul. It's a city that makes me think, worry, pray, and contemplate about its future.

As I look out my window into the night I feel an eerie calm. My window overlooks all of Jerusalem and I sometimes find myself staring off into the night trying to make sense of the ominous silence. I take this time to collect my thoughts, especially about my trip to Sderot.

The trip to Sderot was a long one. Jordan, Wajida and I woke up early Monday morning and hopped on a bus bound to Ashkelon. After almost missing our stop we got off the bus, tired, flustered, and sat under the blistering sun. We waited over 45 minutes and finally caught a bus headed to Sderot. When we arrived in Sderot, a city that was once plagued by daily rocket fire, we walked over to a playground. Right next to this playground was a bomb shelter. This is always shocking to see at first but in Sderot, bomb shelters are the norm as well as a necessity for the safety of the residents of this city.

This is when I met Angelina and Ruti. Angelina seemed like the dominant friend as she was the one who approached me. She had piercing blue eyes and blond hair, she was a strikingly beautiful 9 year old. When she saw me she came up to me and asked, “Where are you from?” I answered that I am from America but she told me I was lying because my Hebrew was perfect. I laughed and assured her that I was from New York with my friends Wajida and Jordan. She seemed very unimpressed by Wajida but definitely took a liking to Jordan. I asked her what she does for fun here and her response was haunting, “We used to play in the bomb shelters when the Qassams fell but now we’re allowed to go outside, its so much fun!” She said this with excitement in her eyes and my heart hurt for her, I could only wish to have suffered and endured what she had endured instead of her. She continued to tell me how the city of Sderot gave the people a “gift” by painting all the bomb shelters and building bomb shelters for every house in Sderot.

The bomb shelters were gifts. I still couldn’t wrap my head around that hours later. For a child a gift should be a toy car, a Barbie doll, a bicycle, not a bomb shelter. We all said goodbye to Angelina and Ruti and continued on our way.

Lawrence Kelemen wrote in To Kindle A Soul, "In the facades we put on for others we demonstrate our potential; through our children we reveal our reality." What is this reality that the children of Sderot reveal? That reality is sordid, painful, and filled with anguish.

As we walked through Sderot we began to search for somewhere to get some lunch. We walked to a small store and met Dudu, a kind hearted storeowner with a constant grin on his face. After I met him I kept wondering to myself, what did he have to smile about? This is a question I did not discover the answer to.

He asked us where we were from, we said America, he laughed and asked what had possessed us to come here, to Sderot? I told him we wanted to hear his story. He smiled at me, he looked so tired, so emotionally drained. He told me that Sderot had suffered for so long, his business struggled because people didn’t leave their houses for years. He told me “they have forgotten our suffering”. I asked him “who has forgotten? The Americans? The world?” He sighed and looked at me only to answer, “Am Yisrael (the nation of Israel) has forgotten our suffering, the Americans and the world never knew our suffering, but those who knew it have forgotten it.” I told him, “I have not forgotten.” We parted from Dudu and found ourselves a place to eat.

After lunch we walked over to the Sderot Media Center and met the Director, a man named Noam Bedein. He spent a few minutes talking to us about the situation in Sderot. I consider myself an Israel advocate but I was just completely shocked by most of the statistics he shared with us, much of which I hadn’t known myself. The most moving part of the visit was when he handed us a stack of letters. These letters were from children in Sderot written and addressed to the children of Gaza.

Bellow is a translation of the first letter I read, the letter that brought tears to my eyes and aching to my heart.

“To the children of Gaza Shalom,
I understand your struggles and your hatred towards us. But have you ever wondered if one day we can be friends? If one day we can laugh, play, and forget all that has happened to both of us in the war? I thought to myself that you might not have an answer for that but I wish that one day there will be peace and we can be friends and everything will be ok.
Together lets make a stride for PEACE!”

After reading those letters, Tom who is currently applying to work for the Sderot Media Center, gave us a quick tour. He took us to the police station where hundreds of rockets are on display. On one rocket “to Al-Quds” was written in Arabic, it was meant to hit Jerusalem. This sent chills down my spine. We also learned that over 2,000 children in Sderot UNDER the age of 16 are on medication for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I remember, as we walked away from the police station, one of us said something I gurauntee we were all thinking, “I wish I could suffer instead of them.” I realized that I would take these kids’ places in a second. I wish they didn’t have to grow up in bomb shelters, I wish they didn’t have a psychotic episode every time a door slammed or a car alarm went off. But I can’t take their places; instead I can make their voices heard. I can’t advocate, I can remember, and I pray for them and their families.

After spending over 5 hours in Sderot we decided to make our way to the bus stop and head back to Jerusalem. At the bus stop a young man named Lidor asked me for a lighter. We spoke for a few minutes and after hearing Wajida and Jordan speak he realized we are Americans. I think it surprised him, the first thing he asked was why we came here to Sderot? I told him “we came for your story, do you have one?” He laughed and said, “I have too many.” He told my about how he had moved to Ashdod right before the Gaza war because the rockets in the Sderot were becoming unbearable. He said that at least 15 times a day the siren went off, this siren was a 30 second warning that sent people running to bomb shelters. “The sirens woke us up at least 5 or 6 times a night, I started sleeping in the bomb shelter with my younger brother, it was easier that way.”

He began telling us about the Gaza war, he said it was a blessing, it was a blessing to finally sleep through the night and not be awoken by rocket fire. But he also told me that everything happens for a reason, “we endured 8 years of rocket fire but it was for a reason now its quiet, I just pray that it lasts.” A few minutes later he hopped on a bus headed to Ashdod but not before turning to us and wishing us good luck.

After getting on our first bus we arrived at the Ashkelon junction. We got off and began to wait for our second bus that would take us to Jerusalem. That’s where I met Sarit. Sarit was wearing a “Gilad is still alive” shirt, which represents the popular movement in this country to make a deal for the safe return of kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit. We spoke for a while about Gilad Shalit and then she asked me where I had been today and I told her Sderot, she was surprised but she wasn’t the first person to be shocked or amazed about 3 Americans heading to Sderot. She told me that she is currently living on a Kibbutz near Abu Gosh and completing a year of community service before she joins the army next year. But before she moved to this Kibbutz she told me how she lived with her family in Ashdod and how before and during the Gaza war the situation had become unbearable. There were rockets everyday, buses didn’t run through those highways because of the constant rocket fire and she practically lived in a bomb shelter for 2 years. “We prayed every day that it would end.” Finally it did. She doesn’t care too much that this might be a temporary lull and that rocket fire will resume, she is just happy that her younger sister doesn’t have to grow up in a bomb shelter.

These people I met, they were strong, insightful and they move me. Their stories touched me, and I can only pray for them. Its hard because as an Israeli citizen I feel selfish living in Jerusalem in a beautiful apartment and walking around with my camera all day while my brothers, my sisters, my nation risks their lives to protect my freedoms.

In my last blog entry I ended off with a few lines from Psalms and I feel it may be fit to do the same here. Give that my internship is religion based and that while in Jerusalem I have found solace in religion I will end off with Psalms 23.

Psalm 23:1-4
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

I will fear nothing while I am here because G-d gave me the strength to succeed. He gave me the strength to explore, he gave me the strength to learn and that I shall continue to do. I have found so much beauty in religion since I have gotten here that praying to G-d has become calming for me. It is a therapy I use on nights like tonight, when I can’t sleep because I await the storm that follows the calm.