Kids in distress
Residents of Tkuma, near Sderot, stand at the scene of a rocket attack on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuters)
With the inappropriately named ‘cease-fire’ dissolved, and dozens of Kassam and Grad missiles fired toward the southern city and other Gaza area communities (not to mention Ashkelon) in the last couple days, the situation for families and their kids on Hannuka vacation is pretty intolerable.
Most of them are stuck at home day and night, a scenario which has become commonplace over the last seven years of regular attacks from Gaza. That’s why the work being done by the REUT-Sderot Association is so important.
They organize trips for Sderot children to enable them to get out of their stressful situation for a couple days and enjoy ‘normal’ life in other parts of the country. This non-political, non-partisan organization estimates that it costs about NIS 6,000 ($1700) to pay for a group of 100 children and accompanying staff.
Helping them out isn’t negating the terrible conditions that the children of Gaza are living under, but it is focusing on the fact that the children of Sderot haven’t been living in a bed of roses either. And it doesn’t look like the situation is going to be improving any time soon.
If you’re outside of Israel and want to contribute, you can do so at The Mitzvah Heroes Fund.
In israel, you can do a bank transfer directly to their account, or send them a check.
Reut Sderot Association, P.O.Box 339, Sderot
Banking details for “Reut Association”: Bank Leumi L’Israel
Branch Number 941, Kikar Hanasi, Sderot
Account No. 10390098
Teapacks retires…
Referencing the once flourishing music scene they once called Sderot the “Seattle” of Israel due to the influential bands coming out of the area. The most popular of these bands was Teapacks who went on to be one of the top selling bands in the country and even represented Israel at the Eurovision song competition. Now before I moved to Israel back in 1997 my taste in Israeli music… was…uh…misguided. I’ll save myself the embarrassment and hold off on the listening habits of a previous life. I have my army buddies to thank for getting me in line.
When I was enrolled in Ulpan (intensive Hebrew course) I listened to Teapack’s earlier albums endlessly. They were an amalgamation of ethnic music and rock with somewhat witty lyrics. I learned a tremendous amount of Hebrew transcribing their lyrics. Their live show was always better than their records and I had the opportunity to see them probably about ten times.
As is the case with bands that have integrity, their sound evolved. My music tastes evolved as well and I no longer connected to their more disco pop oriented sound (though their lyrics remained filled with humor and wit). They are widely known for their song “Push the Button” which they performed at Eurovision in 2007 which was all about the threat of Nuclear destruction. I didn’t get it and certainly couldn’t connect with lyrics such as “I wanna see the flowers bloom/Don’t wanna go kaput kaboom.”
After over 18 years as a band, ten albums and numerous hits Teapacks is calling it quits. And not a moment too soon.
Baruch Obama
Barack Obama had quite a whirlwind trip here yesterday. He met with three past prime ministers, the current prime minister and pretty much everyone who wants to be prime minister. It was as much as a photo opportunity for Israeli politicians who want to be seen with the possible next president of the United States as it was for Obama.
Obama was received quite well as he was shuffled from meeting to meeting, with a visit to Yad Vashem, a quick stop in Ramallah, an important visit to Sderot and a predawn visit to the Western Wall. Personally, I think the most important aspect of his trip was his visit to Sderot. Obama delivered his only speech of his trip there (and said all the right things of course). As a result, Sderot’s plight will get mentioned in nearly every newspaper in the world today and all three major television networks in the states surely mentioned it last night.
Politics here unfortunately tend to be single-issue oriented. I think we, as Jews, need to wake up and realize that while the security and peace for Israel is important for the America, it is not the number one issue. Yair Lapid nails this in an excellent column in Yediot this week.
Foto Friday – Sderot Through the Chameleon’s Eye
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Life, Movies, War
A lot of stuff happened this week in Sderot that you wouldn’t have expected. An antique car rally blew into town, for instance. Who knew? An international film festival opened. I wasn’t there but fortunately, photographer Rafael Ben-Ari was, and this week’s Foto Friday comes courtesy of his news photo syndicate, Chameleons Eye.
My last encounter with Sderot was the inauguration of a portable above-ground bomb shelter. And yes, five minutes after we arrived on site, there was an air raid and we had 15 seconds to run into a dingy stairwell for shelter, (the port-o-shelter not having yet arrived). Some interesting thoughts flash through your mind when you’re struggling to climb over a fence in heels while your bosses sprint vigorously ahead with nary a look backwards, none of them printable. Thank goodness there was someone – a photographer as it happened – who turned around to lend me a hand. A hero. 10 minutes later we were all back on the street again. That’s life in Sderot.
So, in between the rockets, here’s what went down this week. The 7th London to Jerusalem JNF Car Rally started in England on May 18th. Participants drove via France, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, then came by ship to Israel and toured around the country. On Sunday they visited Sderot. Yesterday they were in Jerusalem. I know because I saw this particular car. My cab driver and I were both very thrilled.
Actually, come to think of it, I had another encounter with Sderot this year, when the folks from Hangar 11 at the Tel Aviv Port invited Sderot shop owners to bring their businesses to Tel Aviv for a few days. I couldn’t find a thing I wanted to buy until I saw the woman selling subscriptions to the Sderot Cinematheque. The deal was that they would donate it to a schoolchild in my name. I was charmed by the idea of fostering the next generation of effete little cinema snobs, not to mention keeping a kid off the streets and out of harm’s way, and immediately purchased one.
This week’s 7th Cinema South Film Festival premiered three new Israeli films at the Cinematheque and a host of local celebs made an appearance. Rafael has pictures of them on his site. He also has plenty of pictures of rocket blasts and their physical, political and spiritual aftermaths. But I liked this photo because it’s just a bunch of people having a good time.
This coming week will be Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. In recent years, this holiday tradition of not eating meat has been coopted by Israel’s dairy companies, who’ve turned it into a cheese eating orgy. But down in the southern region of Hof Ashkelon where Rafael lives, grain still ripens in the fields as the moon waxes, becoming ready to be gathered – just as it was 3000 years ago – and you understand this is a holiday of early summer harvest.
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