I'm not sure what day it is anymore. I guess this is what happens when you make such a quick trip overseas. There is no time to be jet lag, as we have been going non stop. What have we done?
We began Tuesday evening with dinner at Lilyot and hearing Professor Uzi Rabi from Tel Aviv university talk about the politics of the changing Middle East.
Wednesday began with hearing from Itamar Marcus the director of Palestinian Media Watch. We also heard from Lee Perlman, managing director, program and planning JFNA global operations: israel and overseas. He spoke about JFNAs emergency preparedness and the coalitions that have been built with Jewish organizations during and in the aftermath of the Gaza operation. Then we headed south. We first visited a JAFI absorption center at Ibid. They are currently housing a nd working with new slim/immigrants from Ethiopia. Many of these new slim arrived just before the rockets began falling and some arrived during. We learned that JAFI officials actually go to Gondar to help prepare them before they arrive. So, they knew about the tzeva adom and what to do when they hear it. We heard from some of the olim, although it was through double translation - amharic to Hebrew to English. We also visited a gan, a preschool classroom and played with some of the kids. Following t7he visit to Ibim, we toured Sha'ar HaNegev, a regional world ORT high school. This school is just a few miles from the Gaza border. These students live on the kibbutzI'm and moshavim around the region. For those in St Louis, this high school is similar to that of Megiddo high school, although it is much newer. What is interesting is that though they are a secular school, they chose to build a Beit Knesset in the center of campus, showing that Judaism is central to their identity. We met with students and it was here that we hear Yael's story. Yael was born in Gaza and her family lived there until the disengagement when they moved into Israel to a southern kibbutz. She has lived her life with the tzeva adom and rockets falling but said that this time it was so much worse for her. Her family went north but constantly worried about her friends.
We toured the campus, which is amazingly secure. The buildings are built to serve as safe spaces so that kids don't have to go into bomb shelters or a safe room, ma'amad.
Following our visit to the school, we visited Netivot. Netivot is a small town in the south. It is predominantly a religious community with a large number of Moroccan Jews. There we divided into two groups and had lunch in the homes of families in the community. The women in these homes are part of the Jewish Agency's ethnic cooks program, which helps women turn their cooking skills into a business. The food we had was amazing. I also had homemade Arak, which her husband had made. Arak is an anise flavored liquor which is incredibly strong. This one was also made with cherries.
During lunch we heard about Youth Futures, a program of the Jewish agency that helps at risk kids. During the Gaza operation they also took kids out of the south for respite days. We heard from to young boys, 10 and 11, about their experiences during the operation.
we then visited Tatzpit Kobi, a look out point in Sderot from which we could see Gaza. We had a security briefing from a Sderot security officer about the operation and Sderot. We could see how chose Gaza is. We also saw that there is an electrical station nearby in Ashford/ashkelon and Hamas likes to fire rockets at it. The problem is that the electrical station powers the region, including Gaza. Sadly, when they hit the station the power has to be shut off while things are fixed and Hamas blames Israel for cutting power. We learned that kids don't get to play outside or do regular outdoor things kids would do because they can't be too far from a bomb shelter.
We ended our day with dinner at Prime Grille in Tel Aviv. We heard from participants in Otzma and Otzma's decision to not send them south in the midst of the operation. We also heard from Rabbi Meir Azari of Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv, part of the IMPJ and Emily Levi-Shochat, of the Masorti movement in Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment