Sderot Playground
Sderot Memorial
Gaza
WINGS!!!
Remember me? Probs not since I haven't blogged in over a month. But I'm back! This weekend I traveled to the south of the country with a few of the other fellows from Rishon for the Masa Security and Diplomacy Shabbaton. We met up with the rest of the group in Tel Aviv, then headed to the first stop on our tour--Sderot. If Sderot sounds familiar to you it is probably because it is located less than a mile from Gaza and bore the brunt of the attacks from Hamas during the summer. Residents of this city have less than 15 seconds to get to a shelter when they hear the air raid sirens. As you can imagine, this limited time frame doesn't always allow people to get to safety. While there, we talked a lot about what normal means. To the residents of Sderot, it is normal to have a bomb shelter next to every bus stop. However, just because something is commonplace doesn't make it normal by any means and not surprisingly many of the people that live in Sderot suffer from PTSD. They also feel alienated from the rest of Israel and receive a large amount of donations from diaspora Jews. During the visit, we stopped at a typical playground where instead of the equipment you would expect to find, there was a bomb shelter in the guise of a giant painted caterpillar. Next we saw a memorial in the center of town, erected for the victims of bombings. One such victim was a 15 year old girl who laid on top of her younger brother to shield him from an attack. To say hearing this was moving is a huge understatement. The final stop in Sderot was a large memorial and park with a lookout from which Gaza was visible in the distance. After leaving Sderot we went to the hotel in Beer Sheva where the rest of the seminar would take place. While there we had workshops on asymmetrical warfare, terrorists of the middle east, and the Iranian nuclear deal, as well as talks from Tal Shalev, a diplomatic correspondent for i24 News and Abeer Natsheh, a member of One Voice Palestine. We talked about what a two state solution would look like and the intricacies of the conflict. All of the talks were very interesting though I definitely left at the end of the weekend more confused than ever, but certainly with more information than I had before. On a completely different note, the fellow that I teach with (Mona), and another Masa participant and I, went to a wing place for dinner on the way back from the seminar. I had buffalo wings and sweet potato fries and felt like I was back in the States for a little while. I will definitely have to go back since they have a lot more sauce flavors that I want to try. This Thursday is Thanksgiving and my roommates and I are having a cozy celebration in our apartment. My job is the sweet potato casserole. Wish me luck and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
