Tuesday August 5 - Sderot

Tuesday August 5

Leaving Sderot...
I am suddenly struck with a most heartbreaking realization.  Sderot is a ghost town. Well, yes of course it is a city.  There are close to 22,000 people living in Sderot.  But you don't see a soul.  There is no one outdoors.  No chidren, no children in the parks, no children in the gardens. No adults or teens biking, strolling or power walking.  Sure it is a hot summer day, but there is a beautiful breeze and it really is a great day to be outdoors.  But no one is.

When I share this thought with Tzivia, the Rebbetzin with whom I spent the
afternoon, she adds that the children of Sderot are different to all other children.  They do not ask to play outside or to go to the park.  They don't pull out their bikes for leisurely rides around their beautiful city. Though technically they are safe (?) as there is a Miklat - a bomb shelter every 50 feet. You see every house has a government built bomb shelter (more about that later) .  Every park has creative "child friendly" bomb shelters, (see image) more about that later... most shops have bomb shelters and if they don't have a bomb shelter there is the "best place to be in the store" that serves as a bomb  shelter,  bus stops ARE bomb shelters, there are "just as you walk down the street bomb shelter"  then there are community centers that are bomb shelters (don't even try to imagine your local JCC) the entire Chabad house is a bomb shelter...getting the idea here?  Kids
don't play outside, life is not normal and has not been normal for 14 years.
The children in Sderot have no childhood.  They are tzevah adom - colour red
babies and have never known a childhood free of terror.

There is a special clinic in Sderot to treat trauma and shock.  It is a clinic with professional psychologists, and psychiatrists, and therapists of all kinds. They treat the people who are depressed and in shock, who have been psychologically hurt by the constant rockets that rain down on Sderot. In response to my question if people leave, Tzivia (who incidentally is Rabbi Levi and Freidy Brook of Chabad of Waukesha's first cousin), tells me that there used to be 24,000 people in Sderot but about 4000 people have left over the past few years. Though there seems to be a recent rise and now there are closer to 22,000 people.

Imagine that number of people who live under a constant threat of missile
fire. Tzivia, for whom our visit was a breath of fresh air, and who was so thrilled with the Milwaukee C-teen hand drawn posters that she kept to decorate the bomb shelters around the city, (see photographs) told us the story of their missile miracle.  Missile miracles abound. 

Their missile miracle happened when she and the family were away for a rare visit in Jerusalem.  She, Rabbi Pizem and the children were visiting friends and as Tzivia would have to be in a distant city for a course the following day, they decided they would not return home that night but would spend the night with family.

That night a rocket landed in their garden in Sderot and destroyed her bedroom.  The roof which held the water tank (the equivalent of an indoor boiler) and the solar panels, everything collapsed into the bedroom where everything was destroyed.  The main bedroom wall was demolished...The Pizems who are the Chabad emiserries to Sderot are generally always home.  Miraculously, they were away that night Thank G-d.

On behalf of the Milwaukee community we brought games and toys for
the local children to play with.  School never properly ended and camps have
been cancelled.  So the summer months are long long days of keeping children
occupied and safe for mothers in Sderot.   Dads, have been called up for miluim - they are reservists and Tzivia's neighbor, a young man was called up for miluim just yesterday and told he would be away for up to four weeks. So these toys were greatly appreciated along with the support and the beautiful posters filled with words of encouragement that the teens created and Rabbi Mendy sent along with me.

I promised more about the bomb shelters built by the government in every home.  Tzivia showed me the government built bomb shelter.  It is a room about nine feet long and eight feet wide.  The entire family must sleep there on nights when rockets are launched at Sderot.  There are no warning leaflets sent by Chamas to tell the Pizems to expect rockets on any given night....The old bomb shelter was about 6x4 and the government was unhappy with those specs so they built them a bigger room!!

And more about the park bomb shelters.  A long concrete catterpillar snakes
across the children's park.  An exact replica of the first, just about 7 feet away.  It is tall enough for a man to stand in.  It looks like a it is just another piece of park equipment, though you do wonder at the length of the thing and the hight of it, until you read a sign that says: 

 'You must go in past the orange line".  Indeed a painted orange line about three feet into the catterpillar that goes around the inner circumference, indicates that you are only safe from rocket fire if you stand past that line, further into the caterpillars belly.

Like I said, no one really plays in the park.  Play is for indoors only. Outside play is for children who live elsewhere.  In Sderot outside and inside the children worry.