Voice from Shlomi

August 6, 2006 - 8:25 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality 

I just discovered this relatively new blog, by “ES,” a Reform Jew living with her family in Shlomi, Israel. Shlomi is so close to the Lebanese border, you can touch it – literally. I once visited Shlomi, and a taxi driver there expressed the frustration of residents that the only way they could ever go was southward. To the north, all the continuing beauty of the Mediterranean and the Galilee hills beckoned to the would-be Israeli tourists, but they were backed up against Lebanon, and could only look and watch and dream that someday there would be peace. My driver said “Someday, we’ll be able to drive from Shomi all the way to Turkey!”

That day has obviously not come, and ES has written several posts about life with constant sirens and sounds of rockets and artillery fire. Her posts are riveting and somewhat chilling in their very simplicity. She doesn’t comment about the war. She just writes what she did that day.

From Friday’s post:

This morning was pretty uneventful, a siren, a lot artillery fire and too much TV . . . .

During the afternoon the wailing of the sirens became more frequent each time followed by a loud bang. The news reports make no mention of Shlomi but auditory evidence and the inevitable gossip of a small town informs me otherwise.

I try to take a shower all afternoon but every time I get ready the siren goes off again. The children have given up on TV and are playing in the security room with my son’s train track. He is bored with a level track so lays in across my daughter’s recumbent body – to create hills. She has nothing better to do so she finds it amusing.

About 4pm the sirens start wailing yet again and there is an almighty crack overhead. Everything shuts down – the blast must have taken out a transformer so we have no electricity.

In the security room the windows are closed for safety and with no ventilator if is too hot even to read. I play a game of rummicub with the children between answering phone calls . . . .

After more than an hour the electricity came back and we have finally managed to shower.

This tidbit from an earlier post made me laugh:

A little frontline humour from the news:

A reporter in Zefat said a man had come up to him complaining that all the dealers and left town: “?I can’?t even find anything decent to smoke.”

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It’s just another panic Monday?

August 6, 2006 - 12:30 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Life 

A blogger in Hadera wrote yesterday about her feelings at hearing the first “booms” in her town:

I can feel how tense I am, and I wonder what we’ll do if there will be more missiles falling in the area. I imagine that we will uproot as well, and head to the relations living south of Tel Aviv. I cannot see a situation where we will stay if things get bad here – just thinking about it makes me nervous. On the other hand, I worry about us leaving, and about something happening to our home. I know it’s just property, just things, but it is our property and our things, all inextricably linked to the memories that make up our life here.

And her stress levels are skyrocketing:

Thoughts are screaming petulantly in my head – I just want it all to be over already! I don’t know how, and I have no solutions, but pretty much anything has to be better than the paralysis that has gripped northern Israel, a region whose borders seem to be moving farther and farther south with each passing day, and all of this death and destruction that just grows worse and worse, closer and closer. I am sick to death of watching our region burn, and I don’t care whose fault it is. Citizens on both sides have suffered far too much, and if I hear one more war mongering talking head I’m going to scream.

Her commute this morning didn’t help matters . . . . some things are the same the world over, whether you live in a war zone or not:

“Okay, I thought. Forget the express train. Sure, you’ll get there faster, but do you really want to spend 40 minutes in sheer, hot and smelly misery, unable to lean on or hold on to anything? Is this the way you want to start the week?” My inner self responded with a resounding “NO”, and knowing that there would be a regular train leaving three minutes later, where I could easily grab a seat, I shuffled down the stairs and headed for the other platform. No sooner had I staked out what I had assessed to be the best spot for waiting (based on a most complicated combination of mathematical formulas, coin tossing and 4.5 rubs on my lucky rabbit’s foot, all in that order), when an announcement was made, relaying the news that the train would be fifteen minutes late.

::snip::

And so, a mere hour and forty minutes after leaving my son at home with a kiss on the forehead, I got off the train and pushed my way through the throngs of soldiers and civilians on the platform, all completely oblivious of the existence of anyone but themselves. By the time I reached the stairs, I’d kicked my share of duffle bags, thrown enough elbows to get several minutes in the penalty box, and received a painful yet colorful bruise on my back, just below my shoulder, from the weapon of a random soldier. Fifteen minutes and one aggravated get-it-all-out-of-my-system rant to my husband later, I slithered into the office building, wilted from the heat and humidity, and essentially feeling like a lettuce leaf that was well past its sell-by date.

I always worry when the week starts off on the wrong foot, and wonder how such an auspicious beginning bodes for the rest of the week (especially after the “alarming” weekend I’ve had). Only two requests, please. Let us be safe, and let there be coffee.

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Now where DID I leave the key to the bomb shelter?

August 6, 2006 - 12:00 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality 

Tel Avivian Lisa reports the following IM exchange with her friend Jill Cartwright:

jill: hi babba …. do you have your miklat [bomb shelter] sorted??

me: lol
it’s locked and hasn’t been used since 1973
and it’s down the block – too far to reach in time
i’ll just take my chances
but i do have the lovely little instruction pamphlet from the homefront command to help me

jill: i had a huge fight with the vaad bayit [building committee head]

me: oh yes?

jill: i finally got him to open ours and it’s disguting .. there are the bones and fur of a dead cat in there
he laughed at me when i ordered him to get it cleaned!

me: what?!
call the municipality
that is revolting.
god, i’m steaming mad just thinking about him
i am starting to think we have a good chance of getting hit, BTW

jill: yes me too
that’s why i’m checking you know where you gonna run
what about ginzburg [my local cafe]

me: i suppose i could go there
i think i’m just going to have to take my chances
the law of averages does comfort me
and you know i’m not one to succumb to psychological warfare

jill: indeed …but humour me

me: lol
i will call the municipality and ask them what they’re doing about our shelter
but i am not holding my breath

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