December 2, 2012             A Visit Near Gaza

Unfortunately it is very late and I am exhausted.  Not only were we on the bus by 7:30 am, returning to the hotel at 9:30 pm, then a short visit with Lisa Mendler and her husband Zach, but I got almost no sleep last night.  My message will be short and I hope I’ll be able to fill in some gaps tomorrow with more detail.

          The morning started with a visit to the City of David which is a an archaeological site outside the walls of the Old City and was probably the oldest part of biblical Jerusalem.  We were guided through an old drainage tunnel that removed water from the city and brought it down to a storage area for later use.  We also spoke about the historical implications as well as some of the political issues that have arisen with this excavation.  We started our walk outside of the Old City and emerged from the tunnel near the corner of the Temple Mount by Robinson’s Arch where the western wall meets the southern wall.

          We then drove to the northern Negev to the area most affected by the latest rockets from Gaza.  After lunch near Yad Mordecai we went to Moshav Netiv HaAsar and met with a resident Raz Shmilovitz  who is both a farmer (mostly cherry tomatoes) and a tour educator for Da’at (ARZATravel).  He spoke of the difficulty of the situation for the past 12 years living on the border of Gaza and having no warning time when rockets and mortars are shot.  Sometimes the Red Alerts are heard after the rockets explode.  He spoke of the psychological effect this has had on the all the residents and yet most have stayed on the moshav, only moving out during the latest incident.  We saw the different shelters and reinforced buildings and rooms all over the moshav.  We went near the fence overlooking Gaza and even saw Palestinians on the other side in an area where previously they were kept away.  Raz spoke of the number of  times the cease fire has actually been broken last week.  Although it is fairly calm now we were given instructions of what to do if we heard the alarm.

          During that period he was unable to tend to his crops so we spent time helping to weed around his tomato plants in the green house.  All 12 of us were on the ground, pulling weeds, something I don’t even do at home.  He thanked us saying that even the short time we worked saved him or added a day of labor of a full time worker. We also sampled some delicious cucumber and tomatoes.

          From there we went to Kibbutz Kfar Aza and met with Chen Avraham.  Although she lives on this kibbutz where she grew up, she works a few days a week in Jerusalem for the Israel Movement of Progressive Judaism (Reform).  Not only did she add to the difficult psychological situation but she described how this once moderate left wing political leaning at this kibbutz had mostly swung to the right even causing hard feelings among members of the same family.  She told how her own sister has been traumatized and is not what she once was.

          During the recent “war” she described how the majority of the kibbutz evacuated to other locales except for a small number of people who managed the kibbutz and a few who refused to move.  She described how a rocket landed right outside of her grandmother’s window and had she been in the room might have been killed.  We also went to an area that looked out into Gaza. These two communities are only a couple of the many that surround Gaza and have been under intermittent attack for many years.

          Our next stop was near Sderot, one of the hardest hit communities over the years.  We went to the Sapir College –Sha’ar HaNegev campus which not only the locale for this college but a senior center, a community center, an elementary school and a fairly new high school..  Our hosts were Shem and Nati.  Shem spoke with pride of this new high school that was created as a safe place and a center for students to connect with their Jewish heritage.  The buildings themselves serve as shelters with signs that say when you hear Red Alert stay in the building, rather tan go to a shelter or secure room.

Both of them spoke of the local Reform congregation that has been created.  Nati told us how they need a rabbi to attract others but they do get up to 50 people from the surrounding kibbutzim and other communities for Kabbalat Shabbat.  They now occasionally us the auditorium that looks like a synagogue at the high school but is not called a synagogue.

From there we drove into Sderot proper to have dinner.  We found a small typical Israeli grill restaurant not because of the food quality but so that we could help their business which as suffered not just recently but over the years.

At all of these visits we were thanked simply for being there.  We were invited to come back whenever we are in Israel.  On our return to Jerusalem I contacted Lisa and Zach and they came by for a visit.

Tomorrow a meeting with Anat Hoffman, services with the HUC students and then up to the Golan and the Syrian border.