by Eleanor Rubin

February 19, 2009

Sderot has never been on my list of “must-see” places. The very sound of the word conjures up a sense of fear and a vision of chaos with men, women, and children running into bomb shelters as the “Red Alert” alarm sounds. Its history has been marked by tragic events and trauma that the city’s residents have endured for the past eight years. The Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey has contributed funds to provide whatever aid we can to alleviate the pain that the Sderot children and their families have suffered from the deadly rain of rockets.

Making a personal visit to that forsaken place was not something I was eager to do.

But last week, I spent a few days on a mission to Israel with several members of the Mack Ness Fund Committee of the Jewish Community Endowment Foundation to review the work being done by our projects in the Negev. A visit to Sderot was on the agenda and, since I was part of the team, I swallowed my apprehension and boarded the bus with the group to travel from Jerusalem to Sderot. It was a beautiful trip. Traveling northwest through the Negev is like traveling through the hills of Tuscany — dense forests, vineyards, fields of blossoming trees made for magnificent scenery.

We were greeted in Sderot by a couple of young men who are founders of an urban kibbutz, some 15 families banding together to form a cooperative community in the center of the city. The families live in individual houses on tree-lined streets, which were peacefully quiet except for a friendly dog who seemed glad to see us. The children were in school. A computer business founded by two members of the kibbutz provides employment for some of the community members and for others living outside the city. A social welfare agency that employs some of the residents tends to the needs of families and their children with counseling, socializing, and programs for individuals with disabilities. The kibbutz is building a home for the elderly and disabled, in which every room will be secure so that in case of an attack, the residents will not have to flee to a bomb shelter.

We sat with a group of social workers and psychologists from the Israel Trauma Center. They told us of their work to provide respite for children and families in order to calm their fears and deal with the ever-recurring nightmares. They told us of the trauma individuals suffer due to the uncertainty of their and their loved ones’ safety in just stepping outdoors and the fear they feel every minute of every day. They spoke of the 3,000 volunteers from the REUT organization who worked with the municipality, manned the call center 24 hours a day, spent time in shelters with the children, and did cleanup in houses that had been hit. These professionals and volunteers are truly dedicated to their work and some have come to live in Sderot out of a sense of compassion and to lend their services to this war-stricken city.

We walked up a rocky, dusty hill to the highest point in the town and looked across the valley to Gaza. It is a stone’s throw from Sderot. We saw the Gaza beach and the Mediterranean and, to the north, the cities of Ashdod and Tel Aviv beyond, not more than half an hour away as the crow flies. It was a sobering experience.

The residents of Sderot are true heroes. They have chosen to remain in their homes despite the ever-present dangers. There is no talk of evacuation, as there had been in the past. Others have moved to the city to show their support for the people and to express their conviction that Jews not be intimidated into giving up or giving in to enemies who have no respect for life, their own or anyone else’s.

These heroes of Sderot are on the front line, protecting the Land of Israel, and must be understood and supported. While Sderot alone was being attacked, its citizens felt abandoned, that most of the rest of the Israelis were uninvolved. Their sense of isolation has somewhat abated as the result of financial support from many individuals and federations as well as visits by groups like ours. After rockets were launched into Ashdod and even Beersheva, there has been a greater understanding of what the people of Sderot have endured. We in America can only imagine what life has been like for these families.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone to Sderot. I recommend a visit; you will gain an understanding of what some of Israel’s citizens face and how they manage to go on with their lives, filled with determination and belief in a peaceful future.

When danger is no longer a constant presence and life gets back to normal, much work will need to be done to restore people’s emotional health, upgrade children’s education, and bring joy back into those lives that have been sorely tested. I know we will be there to help.

Eleanor Rubin is cochair of the Mack Ness Fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Foundation, an arm of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey.

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