South of the Border- Israel and Gaza

Dispatches From the New Frontier

By Carolyn Horowitz Amacher, May 2006

The gift was tiny enough to fit in my palm, just the type for a light traveler on a two-week trip to Israel. I was to deliver a charm necklace imprinted with “Dream” to Ginat, one of our Israeli teenage counselors from our Partnership 2000 Region of Hof Ashkelon, from her summer host family. Ginat planned to visit me in Jerusalem along with Hadar, our other teen counselor from the Region who lived at Kibbutz Carmiya. The host fretted that she did not have a gift for Hadar and I offered to pick one out.

As it turned out, Hadar, still in high school, was not able to make the two-bus journey to Jerusalem and I assured her I would visit her on a return trip to Israel. Ginat so loved the charm that I noted to myself to pick out a matching one for Hadar when I got back to California.

Ginat’s extroverted manner captivated many during the summer she spent with the Jewish community of Orange County, but it was Hadar I was taken with. Her quiet and introspective nature brought Israel to life through her stories, expressions and laughter. Yet as the time for her departure approached she seemed to shrink back as much as Ginat grew more jubilant around the notion of her future – beginning the army and reuniting with her boyfriend.

I knew Hadar was returning to her loving family and friends, and the leadership of her school’s student council. Yet I felt Hadar’s trepidation, not verbally but through her demeanor, which grew more and more quiet. Her Kibbutz sat just 5 kilometers from Gaza, and she was fearful that the Israeli army would no longer be “behind the fence,” a flimsy barrier between her world and another, and what lay beyond that fence scared her. Her Kibbutz was within range of rockets and artillery that could harm her four siblings, her parents, her friends, and the youth under her care as “madrichah” or counselor. A nature lover, she perpetually guided her youth movement members outdoors, yet the outdoors had become more precarious to her following the Disengagement.

Nearly half a year since her departure, Hadar and I have corresponded and she has openly expressed her growing fears about the vulnerability of her Kibbutz and encouraged me to communicate this reality to others. Generally she starts with “Hi, How Are You!” and then it goes like this: “Our lives are so tense...it’s been scary with rockets falling near to my Kibbutz almost every day…we’re not really protected even in our own homes and the most scary thing is that we should have the ‘safe room’ but we don’t…it’s become a serious problem…the alarm system they installed works only seconds before the rockets are hitting the ground…we’re really hoping for some peace…it’s making our lives insufferable…I wouldn’t wish this on anyone….I miss you. Have a great weekend. Shabbat Shalom.”

These are the dispatches from a teenager’s bedroom on the new frontier.

Upon my return from Israel last fall, I came upon the artisan who sold the charms and she was displaying a new line with Hebrew. I picked out my gift for Hadar – a charm imprinted with Shalom. “You must take this one too,” said the artisan, pointing to a charm with a Hebrew word I found unfamiliar. “It means Happiness,” she said. “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing both of our Hebrew was limited. I thought happiness was “Smechah,” I told her. She said this was a synonym, clinching the two-for-one deal. I took the twin charms, planning to send them immediately to Hadar, but as things go they sat on my dresser.

My nearly five-year-old son Sam was also taken with Hadar and has been drawing pictures for her since she left. He knows she lives in a beautiful place in a land for the Jewish people that he is eager to see for himself. One picture was of rainbows, one of the desert, and one of the sea in the Land of Israel, a Land that lives in his imagination. He knows that one day (soon) he will get to see this land. He knows that Hadar has a big family, loves school and her friends.

A couple months ago Ginat sent a picture of herself in her army uniform which I proudly showed to Sam, whose first reaction was alarm that she had a gun. So now Sam knows that the Land of the Jewish people has to be protected by its own people as well so everyone is safe.

Two days ago Sam displayed a picture he had drawn that we had to send to Hadar - an “Israel airplane” to take her up to where she is safe. With a strange sense of urgency I folded the picture in an envelope for Hadar and vowed to send her the charms right away. But I had to verify that Hebrew word I didn’t know – Did it mean Happiness? That night I combed through my son Ezra’s Hebrew-English dictionary but couldn’t come up with it. So I Instant Messaged my friend Tammi, who has a great command of the Hebrew language, and transliterated the word, spelling it in English phonetically with the message:

“WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN – DOES IT MEAN HAPPINESS?” It was late and with no immediate response I shut off my computer – I would check it out the next day and send off those charms with Sam’s picture.

Yesterday morning I turned on my home computer as Sam and I were lingering before leaving for his preschool and my work at the JCC. Tammi, who played host and guardian to our Israeli summer camp counselors, had sent me a story from the Jerusalem Post. The subject line said: “I e-mailed Hadar.” I opened the story that read: Three Israelis - including a 7-month-old baby boy - were wounded when a house in Kibbutz Carmiya south of Ashkelon suffered a direct hit from a Kassam rocket late Friday afternoon.
The baby, who was reported in serious condition as the result of a head wound, was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. Two adults were evacuated in moderate to serious condition to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Army Radio reported.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” Sam asked me. I told him that our friend Hadar in Israel was probably afraid because a rocket had hurt some people near her house. I took out his picture of the airplane and told him not to worry and the picture would make her feel better. I put the charms in my purse and vowed to send them immediately.
Throughout the day yesterday my mind returned to my young friend and her dispatches from her bedroom. I wished I could help her feel safe. Certainly inscriptions of “Peace” and “Happiness” would say a lot. “I’ve got to get this in the mail, I thought.”
Midday I picked up an e-mail Tammi had forwarded from my colleague Kathleen at the Jewish Federation, which read: “The baby who was hit was going to be OK, he was now listed as light-to-moderately injured.” I read on what Kathleen had written and was stunned. “The baby's name is Osher, which in Hebrew means ‘HAPPINESS,’ she wrote. I pulled out the charm from my purse and read the Hebrew once again to be sure – it was a perfect match. OSHER. Yes it did indeed mean Happiness.

I will put the charms in the mail.

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The Disengagement
By Carolyn Horowitz Amacher, August 2005

Whenever I get blood taken, I tend to pinch the opposite arm in an attempt to distract from the pain. The sensation of self-inflicted pain feels much more bearable than the pain out of my control.

Today I sat as on observer to a newspaper interview of an Israeli young woman – Hadar - who serves as JCC summer camp counselor from our ‘sister’ community of Hof Ashkelon in Southern Israel. As she began her first person account of the effects of the disengagement on her home – Kibbutz Karmia – just outside of Gaza, I found myself pinching myself harder and harder as she delved deeper into the dilemma she faces when she returns next week.

Hadar said that upon her return home she faces an uncertain future. Uncertain as the geography has changed since her arrival to Orange County. Her Kibbutz sits just 5 Kilometers from Gaza which will now be part of a new “Palestine”. I calculated that my quick daily run would have taken me that far into a new territory, a new land, a new country, a new entity, not yet understandable. Certainly not traversable.

The reporter probed – what will it be like? For Hadar, it was about geography. As much as she yearned to share her ideology emanating from her Labor Party youth movement, which espouses Democratic principals, she kept returning to her physical fate. The close proximity of the Palestinians. Would the fences keep terrorists out? The sounds were often scary– the rockets – so close by. And ultimately the infiltration –which she knows will come to her Kibbutz eventually. I pinched myself harder.

“When I took my youth, as their counselor, on a hiking trip a rocket fell right near us,” she said softly. “We were so lucky. It brought back my fear – I’ve had to deal with it a lot lately. It used to be would could push back the fear – it would only surface just once or twice a year. Now it’s much more frequent. At least five times this year already I’ve been so afraid.”

Hadar described her Kibbutz, rural and natural. The place her father was born. A place he could not leave. Home. And her mother: Constantly fearful and wanting to move “up north.” How can she live like this – with four younger brothers and sisters, the youngest an infant?

Hadar described feeling afraid on a recent outing with her father – they received a desperate phone call from her mother that there was an infiltrator on the Kibbutz. They sped home, hearts racing. I pinched myself harder.

And after that a rocket fell outside the Kibbutz gates. “We were so lucky,” she said. The fear returned.

Now the army won’t be in there –in Gaza - beyond the fence – for protection, she explained.

“So where will you feel safe?” I asked. “Where is that place?” I wondered if that place existed. She had an answer. Zichron YaAkov. Right smack in the center of Israel. Near no border. It made sense to me. But how far to venture out before the fear comes back? And everyone can’t live in the middle of the country.

“So how do you feel about the prospect for peace?” the reporter continued on… She smiled. I saw the other side of Hadar, hopeful for a moment. “We have to believe – what other choice is there?” she said.

But the fear came back. “I just want to live my life, with out these worries.” She described wanting to have freedom, to go out, to be a teenager, for her siblings to have their childhood.

The reporter looked at me. “So why do you have counselors here?” he asked me. I gave my usual explanation of raising awareness about the Jewish nation, of offering experiential learning about Israeli culture, of building relationships. But what I thought was: “To give her a rest – to give Hadar a break – before she returns.”

“Will this work out – will the government’s plan work? Will the Roadmap for Peace come to fruition?” the reporter asked Hadar. I had to jump in: “The government doesn’t know! No one knows yet”. Maybe Hadar will know – maybe she’ll help figure this out for all of us. She will need time – particularly the two years before she enters the army – to process and get comfortable with her new geography and new borders. But first, let her rest a bit before she returns. And I noticed my arm had a puncture mark I hadn’t even felt…..

Another Israeli counselor, Shlomit, has an angelic quality and quiets children not by raising her voice but by speaking in hushed tones. Even more effective is her means of reaching people through dance. As she gestures and sways she creates an effect that resonates with all – an effect of spirit.

Can spirit outweigh fear? I’m not sure. But if anyone can lend spirit to an environment it is Shlomit. Today as she was walked toward Camp on a misty California morning, she handed me a Hamsa (symbol of a hand) she had made for me as a goodbye present. She also handed me her address written on a piece of paper.

I will be in Israel next month and plan to see Shlomit and invite her to a meeting with one of her favorite Israeli musicians – Gil Ron – whose father now lives in Orange County – and who wrote Shlomit’s favorite song titled “Salaam” (peace – in Arabic.) The song’s Hebrew refrain “Od Yavo Shalom Aleynu” means “Peace will come to all of us.” This has become our JCC Camp’s theme song, thanks to Shlomit.

Today is Shlomit’s last day. I looked at her address scrawled on a piece of paper and was stunned: Zichron YaAkov. “Shlomit – you must feel very safe there,” I said. She nodded. “I have an idea – why don’t I come to your house. I’m bringing Hadar with me.”

Of course, she replied, and we walked through the sunlight into the Camp Opening. The stage was set up for a festive goodbye to Shlomit. As the music sounded, Shlomit began her dance, and all of the children danced along with her to honor her and say goodbye. And as the music got louder and faster, there was a cacophony of “Od Yavo Shalom Aleynu” I saw Hadar dancing next to me and in her face I did not see fear. I saw spirit, and it was much more powerful. “You’ll come with me next month to Shlomit’s house in Zichron YaAkov” I whispered and she smiled as we danced together. I have to believe that when I join Hadar and Shlomit in Zichron YaAkov next month that the spirit will win, will overcome the fear.