by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

February 19, 2009

While the ceasefire in the war in Gaza has eased tensions in Israel, for Sael Abecassis the battle for hearts and minds goes on. Serving as Israeli emissary with the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, he wages an ongoing campaign to help people in this area see past media images to the human reality facing people in his home country.

In his role as shaliah, he speaks and runs programs at venues throughout the region. He teaches cooking classes — currently he is giving a course at the YM-YWHA of Union County — and shares Israeli music, history, and other cultural riches with children and adults.

But his most urgent task has been to open hearts to the Israeli side of the Middle East conflict. And that was his theme when he spoke at a brunch on Feb. 8, hosted by the National Council of Jewish Women, Union County section.

Abecassis told the NCJW women — assembled at the Westfield home of Sue Fischer — that he believes the international media has not fairly portrayed what happened during the recent war or in the years before that.

His grandparents’ house in his hometown of Sderot was hit by a missile in January, during the fighting. The elderly couple has not been allowed to move back in — not because of the condition of the house but because they are too frail to be able to reach a shelter within the 15 seconds required when the “red alert” sounds.

Every time an alarm goes off, he explained, it means a missile is going to hit somewhere. That was the reality he lived with through his teen years and early adulthood.

Serving with the army in Gaza a few years ago, just before the Israeli withdrawal from the territory, Abecassis saw where Hamas had set up rockets, some installations just a mile and a half from his house.

He said Israel believes the organization now has missiles they received from China that have a range of 25 miles. That means — as was proved in the recent fighting — that they can reach the cities of Ashkelon, Beersheva, and Ashdod. He stressed that one million Israelis are now in the range of fire.

Funds from the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey and the community have helped finance mental health services for children in hard-hit areas, provide better protection at local community facilities, and offer some with respite breaks in safer parts of the county.

Israel is fighting three wars, Abecassis said — one against the terrorists, one a diplomatic war, and one against the media, “which is giving all its coverage to the Palestinian side of the picture.” To help counteract that imbalance, he asked all those present to write to their representatives in Congress and to newspapers expressing their support for the people in Sderot and other besieged communities in Israel.

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