Life in the Missiles' Path

This article originally appeared in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix (21 Nov 2012). If you prefer, you may read the original here.

(The article below is an example of how Sal Caputo makes me look good on paper, which is handy for my first ever publication with a news site.)

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I’ve lived in Be’er Sheva, Israel, since Aug. 27. The city is unique with its large mix of Mizrahi Jews, Arabs and Russian immigrants. After the school year began, there was a welcome addition of English-speaking college students to the mix. What’s most prominent to me about life in the “capital of the Negev Desert,” however, is our proximity to the Gaza border, which is about 40 kilometers/30 miles away.

I’m here with 26 other native English-speaking teachers in Israel, volunteering for 10 months in a program called Israel Teaching Fellows. We live together in an apartment complex, three participants to each apartment. My group teaches English to Israeli students in Be’er Sheva.

At the outset, we were warned that Gaza sometimes sends off rockets that come our way. We were introduced to concepts like mammad (bomb shelter), air raid siren and 60-second time limits. Because we are 40 kilometers from the border, we know we have 60 seconds to find shelter when the air raid sirens begin. We also know that we must wait in the shelter for 10 minutes once the siren has stopped.
In September, I learned for the first time what that new vocabulary was all about.

Jump forward about three months and you find a group of Americans (and a Canadian) well-versed in the art of taking cover at ungodly hours of the night. We know about listening for booms and hoping that, when we hear one, it is the Iron Dome engaging a missile instead of the impact of a missile on homes. We even know about daytime experience with dodging missiles.

It’s incredibly frustrating to receive urgent emails from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate General about the escalated situation three months after we’ve been dealing with the reality. Be’er Sheva wasn’t really even in the news until Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari was assassinated. The lack of previous coverage made it feel like our problems weren’t worth the world’s time.

But since early September, Be’er Sheva had dealt with air raid sirens on at least five occasions before the assassination. One of those sirens went off, for the first time, during school hours. Schools generally close the day after a siren, though students are often nervous days later. We are fortunate, however, to have the aid of an Iron Dome battery in our city, as some nearby cities had theirs moved to other locations. We also have the benefit of living in a newer apartment building, which provides a mammad on each floor.

Since we are not actually at war with anyone, we never know when to expect an attack. Sleep is almost certainly affected, and most of us are jumpy at the slightest, unexpected noise. My biggest discomfort is being shuttered into the mammad, yet I deal with the claustrophobia because being afraid is better than getting blown up. Things have escalated enough that my program has evacuated us from Be’er Sheva to Netanya. And all the while the missiles followed us north. I feel I’ve abandoned my students in the south, and I worry about how frightened they must be on both sides of the fence.

We hope the evacuation will be temporary, but that depends on a cease-fire. The program won’t allow us within 40 kilometers of the Gaza border while things are so escalated. We’re actively looking for volunteer work in the meantime, and making educational YouTube videos for our students.

More than anything, I want peace: I want the children on both sides of the Gaza border to know a night’s rest without the fear of attacks. I want all families to be safe and whole in their own homes. And I want to get back to my students in the south. After all, they’re why I’m here and why I’m staying.

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Elisa Llewellyn is a resident of Phoenix. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Arizona State University.

Happy Birthday! I got you some missiles, hope that's ok...

My new year as 28 year-old adult started out with a bang. Literally. I was on the train to Tel-Aviv  when my madrich called (sounding a bit panicked) asking about where I was. It concerned me, since he knew about my trip but I knew something was really wrong when he sighed in relief when I said I was no longer in Be'er Sheva. Apparently, Hamas' military chief Ahmed Jabari was assassinated and Israel was expecting an escalation in missile attacks in retaliation. I was told to enjoy my trip and not worry too much about what was happening at home, but I needed to call ahead at the end of my trip to find out where I would be staying. [I should've realized at this point that if my Israeli madrich was considering the possibility of an evacuation, things were getting pretty bad.]

I tried not to worry overmuch when I met up with one of my Israeli friends and his girlfriend in Tel-Aviv to see a movie. Since Oren and I are both November babies, it was the perfect opportunity to hang out. And we did have a lot of fun eating "craps" and playing in the arcade. We ended up seeing Sky Fall, which did a good job keeping me distracted. I stayed the night in Tel-Aviv with an amazing family (aunt and uncle to my Bus Buddy Jess) who ended up taking me to the Carmel Shuk (shopping center) and even dropped me off at the bus station when it was time to start part two of my trip: the Mifgashim Shabbaton weekend in Beit Shean. It's a tough call, but that shuk was the highlight of my first solo trip to Tel-Aviv: I ended up buying a great purse, watch, and sunglasses for only 195₪!

When I got to Beit Shean, I got a call from my friends back home in Be'er Sheva; they were being evacuated as expected and I would likely meet up with them in Netanya at the conclusion of my trip. The mifgashim itself was fantastic. I met amazing people from around the world (including Israelis), ate fantastic food, made great friends, attended services at a Sephardic beit knesset and kicked my own butt on that bike ride. I was definitely feeling the ride days after the event, but it felt so great to challenge myself - and make good use of my hydration pack's helmet net!

I did end up meeting my friends in Netanya, only to realize I'd left my purse on the chartered bus from Beit Shean (classic Elisa behavior, unfortunately). Lucky for me, my friend Morgan rescued the purse. Because the evacuation happened after I'd already departed for my weekend, I only had about two days' worth of clothing, medicine, and contacts. Since I'd left my purse behind on the bus, I had no money to purchase replacements of anything for at least a day. I should've realized then what a sign all of it was, but it was just such a relief to see that my friends were safe and relatively happy.

To Be Continued ...

[But don't worry, things worked out in the end!]

!שנה טובה

I'm being "adopted" by a host family for Rosh Hashanah this year! The High Holy Days have always been my favorite of the festivals - not just because of the food, but I really get a lot out of the self reflection. Yom Kippur services are actually at the top of my list, if you can believe that - though really, it would be accurate to say the Days of Awe are at the top of my list.

My adopted family is really nice and they're coming to pick me up in a few hours. I'll be staying at their home for the full three days and we'll be walking to synagogue together for services. I was really worried that I'd struggle to find a synagogue I was comfortable with for the holiday, so I'm super relieved this is not the case.

Also, I'm super excited to announce that my mobile phone has been successfully updated to Android 2.3.5 (no hacking necessary) and I have Hebrew support on my phone! I won't be using my phone during the holiday, but it was fund sending out Shana Tova greetings in Hebrew to a few friends this morning.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and I'll put together an update Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. I hope.

'sup on the way to ulpan

On Wednesday (12/9/12), we took the Metrodan bus line to our first day of Ulpan at Altchul. We've had a fair amount of time to get used to the bus system that is utilized pretty heavily in a surprisingly compact city. This time around, I was able to avoid the "standing room only" area of the bus by taking a seat at the back of the bus.

I was seated between two boys, who were riveted to the conversations I had with my fellow ITF members - I'm assuming it's because native English speakers are a bit of a novelty here. A cool moment happened when my friend Josh boarded the bus. By way of greeting, I said, "'sup, Josh?" Immediately following my greeting, I overheard the boy next to me (who had to be between 11 and 13) say under his breath, "'sup"- I knew we had unwittingly taught this kid how to greet his friends with the very informal version of "what's up?"

I've decided to be proud of the accomplishment, since it means students like him will be more eager to learn English in the classroom. Maybe. I'm most proud of myself, however, for curbing my desire to explain to the boy why I used such an abbreviated slang form of greeting. In the end, it really doesn't matter where the word comes from, just that he and his friends are probably using 'sup as we speak. Not sure if that's the instrument of change we really wanted to be, but there it is.

The Ulpan itself ended up being more of an assessment day, which is to be expected. I was placed in the beginner class, though they added a note that I know most of the alphabet. I've been working on my Hebrew study books and I hope to surprise my Ulpan instructors with my increased knowledge. As much as I'm familiar with block, I knew little of script at the time of the assessment - at the moment I now know double what I did then. I really want to take that course by storm! We also did some basic learning about Rosh Hashanah greetings (which I already knew).

Perhaps next time, I'll tell the story of how we got our רב-קו (rav-kav or bus passes). It was a bit on the amusing side :)

your people shall be my people

I first set foot on Israeli soil mid-March 2012, during my birthright trip (taglit). It shocked me before I left for Israel how I could possibly love a place I'd never experienced in actuality, but I managed to surprise myself further when I stepped off that plane: it was a homecoming. The sense of belonging struck me again and again with each location visited. But I feared the feeling was somehow tied up into the magic of birthright and would vanish with the jet fuel.

Six months later, I was exhausted beyond anything I've ever felt in memory from the long trip from Phoenix to New York, then New York to Tel Aviv five days later. But that fatigue couldn't hold back my smile as I walked through Ben Gurion Airport, looking for the rest of my group. That feeling of belonging was just as strong as before, and I was more than ready to take on the newest challenges on my list:

• Learn to read and speak Hebrew - as fluently as possible!!!
• Get my bearings in a town I've never experienced - that largely doesn't speak English
• Teach Israeli children to speak and read English as a Foreign Language

My first experience of Israel was that of a tourist: we hiked a lot (and I do mean A LOT) and we troured much of the country by bus. I happily surrendered my American money for tchochkes for myself and others - not to mention the delicious 8 shekel falafel. This time around, though, I'm living in Israel as a foreign resident, a member of the community, and a volunteer in the educational system. I look forward to giving back to the people, the country I love in a meaningful way - and I'm eager to continually test my comfort zones while living in a culture very different from my own.