Living in Interesting Times
I'm very tired right now, so I apologize if this is not too well written. I've had a very long day.
As most of you must have heard by now, Israel is basically at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which borders it on the North. Israel has been very aggressive around Beirut and along southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has been quite destructive to northern Israel. There are a number of casualties, mostly civilian, in both countries, and many more wounded. As you may remember, I moved Haifa to begin ulpan there last week. Haifa is in northern Israel.
On Thursday, after my classes that afternoon I began checking the news obsessively. At this point we had heard about many small communities in the north being hit by katyushas (small rocket artillery used by Hezbollah) and the stories were just coming in about Tsfat (Safed) being hit. As I finally headed to the dorms, I saw numerous groupings of Israeli students in their army green uniforms leaving the dorms with stuffed backpacks. Most likely, they were reserve units being called up for service. As I walked from the parking lots to the dorms, I passed group after group of them walking in the opposite direction. A sea of green leaving the dorms. People who a few hours ago were my roommates had suddenly become my protectors.
That evening, during a security briefing we were having about the situation, a katyusha hit a neighborhood in Haifa. Although the rest of Haifa was not put under any warning, the university and overseas department decided to be extra safe and directed us all to go into the bomb shelters on campus. [Almost all buildings in Israel have bomb shelters, generally in the basement. Almost all apartments built in the past fifteen years actually have their own individual bomb shelters. These rooms are utilitarian, the basement ones are generally used for storage, and the apartment ones are often bedrooms or studies, guest rooms, laundry rooms, and so on. In the university, one bedroom in each suite of apartments is designated as a safe room.]
Into the bedrooms we went. I joked about the irony - the safe room in my apartment in Jerusalem is actually my bedroom, but here I finally needed a safe room and I was stuck in some stranger's room. So we sat in the safe room, me and two other overseas students and an Israeli. We talked and joked, ate and did homework. The room got hot and stuffy very quickly and after not so long we opened the super-thick window, rationalizing that katyushas were not nuclear weapons and besides, we weren't actually getting bombed anyway. Two hours later we were given the go-ahead to return to our bedrooms but remain in the apartments. I went to sleep that night listening to what had by now become the regular night-time noise - helicopters and airplanes constantly overhead. The next morning at school we all had a bit of trouble concentrating during class, but for the most part were none the worse for wear following the previous night's adventure.
After class I went to Jerusalem for Shabbat, and had a thoroughly enjoyable and rejuvenating time, seeing many friends and just having a good time. There was also bad news mixed in, of course. I found out that a friend of mine in a combat unit of the army was currently stationed at the border with Lebanon. I heard from another friend that even if he himself wasn't called up in a reserve unit, if his friends were he would join a random tank (his division) and go up and fight with them even though he "really didn't have time to fight a war this week." Also, multiple times over the course of the day, the phrase came up, "back on Monday, before the war," which was a pretty jarring, if realistic, thing to say and hear. As Shabbat ended I heard about the continued bombing of small communities in the North, two more casualties, and even a number of rockets that hit the resort city of Tiberias, previously considered far enough from Lebanon to not be in danger. Even with all this news, I got on a bus back to Haifa that evening. After all, I had classes in the morning. I did homework with a friend on the bus back and we continued when we arrived at his dorm room in Haifa. We went to bed around one thirty in the morning to the now normal sounds of aircraft overhead.
Sunday is a regular school/work day in Israel and I woke up to the sound of the garbage truck. I looked out the window and crawled back into bed grumbling about the noise. Then the noise seemed a bit different. I got out of bed again to look out the window and the garbage man was still there, but not near the dumpster, and those noises seem suddenly scarily out of place. As my mind cleared of sleep I quickly pulled on clothes as the air raid signals sounded and the announcements were made to get into the shelters. This time we didn't dawdle.
Within moments we were in our shelter with the door closed. This time we didn't only close the super-thick window, we also closed the iron shutter outside of it. The five of us sealed ourselves in and sat in silence as we heard the bombs through the thick walls of the bomb shelter. We soon located a radio in the room. (Remember this is someone's bedroom, but she had actually gone to Tel Aviv for the weekend and hadn't come back). We spent all morning listening to the radio and talking a little bit. Unlike the Thursday night when the time dragged while nothing happened outside, this time the hours flew. Before it was just a pain to be in the shelters, now we could hear why we were there and didn't really want to get out. It was still hot. Really hot. And stuffy. Really stuffy. But no one was about to suggest opening a window. Not this time. As the morning turned to afternoon we became quite good at distinguishing sounds muffled through the thick walls. That was an airplane. That was just a door slamming in the apartment above us. That is a helicopter, but boy it sounds close. And that's another katyusha. Is that another air raid siren? No, it's just from replayed radio sound clips. Was that a katyusha or a slammed door? And so on.
At some point we were allowed to go out for a bit, get some fresh air, and see friends who had locked themselves away in other safe rooms. An announcement was made that there would be a briefing for overseas students at 2 PM. At ten minutes to two, the air raid signals went off again. We were getting good at this. We rushed back to our shelters and sealed the doors again. We decided not to turn on the radio this time, listening to tallies of dead and wounded is not the most enjoyable way to spend time in a bomb shelter. An hour or so later we were given the go ahead to leave the shelters and head to the briefing.
At the briefing it was announced that the University of Haifa was closing. All Israeli students would have their final exams postponed until further notice. All overseas students would be moved, if they so wished, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. No one was permitted to remain on the campus. An hour later four private buses arrived, arranged by the Overseas Department. One bus left half full to Tel Aviv, where some people had family and where many people were headed on their way to get airplanes out of the country. 130 people and all their luggage boarded the remaining three buses headed toward Jerusalem. I joined them.
I am currently sitting in my friend's apartment in Jerusalem. My luggage is in a dorm room at the Hebrew University but I decided I wanted to be among friends tonight and not strangers. It is unclear at this point whether or not ulpan will continue in a few days in Jerusalem, in another city, or what. It is unclear what the next few days will hold for Israel as a country. During the course of my writing this email, Afula was struck but katyushas, the farthest south any had reached before this point. I will keep in touch as soon as I know what will be happening in the next few days.
B'Shalom,
sarah....
May there be peace within your walls / Serenity within your palaces
Psalms 122:7
As most of you must have heard by now, Israel is basically at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which borders it on the North. Israel has been very aggressive around Beirut and along southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has been quite destructive to northern Israel. There are a number of casualties, mostly civilian, in both countries, and many more wounded. As you may remember, I moved Haifa to begin ulpan there last week. Haifa is in northern Israel.
On Thursday, after my classes that afternoon I began checking the news obsessively. At this point we had heard about many small communities in the north being hit by katyushas (small rocket artillery used by Hezbollah) and the stories were just coming in about Tsfat (Safed) being hit. As I finally headed to the dorms, I saw numerous groupings of Israeli students in their army green uniforms leaving the dorms with stuffed backpacks. Most likely, they were reserve units being called up for service. As I walked from the parking lots to the dorms, I passed group after group of them walking in the opposite direction. A sea of green leaving the dorms. People who a few hours ago were my roommates had suddenly become my protectors.
That evening, during a security briefing we were having about the situation, a katyusha hit a neighborhood in Haifa. Although the rest of Haifa was not put under any warning, the university and overseas department decided to be extra safe and directed us all to go into the bomb shelters on campus. [Almost all buildings in Israel have bomb shelters, generally in the basement. Almost all apartments built in the past fifteen years actually have their own individual bomb shelters. These rooms are utilitarian, the basement ones are generally used for storage, and the apartment ones are often bedrooms or studies, guest rooms, laundry rooms, and so on. In the university, one bedroom in each suite of apartments is designated as a safe room.]
Into the bedrooms we went. I joked about the irony - the safe room in my apartment in Jerusalem is actually my bedroom, but here I finally needed a safe room and I was stuck in some stranger's room. So we sat in the safe room, me and two other overseas students and an Israeli. We talked and joked, ate and did homework. The room got hot and stuffy very quickly and after not so long we opened the super-thick window, rationalizing that katyushas were not nuclear weapons and besides, we weren't actually getting bombed anyway. Two hours later we were given the go-ahead to return to our bedrooms but remain in the apartments. I went to sleep that night listening to what had by now become the regular night-time noise - helicopters and airplanes constantly overhead. The next morning at school we all had a bit of trouble concentrating during class, but for the most part were none the worse for wear following the previous night's adventure.
After class I went to Jerusalem for Shabbat, and had a thoroughly enjoyable and rejuvenating time, seeing many friends and just having a good time. There was also bad news mixed in, of course. I found out that a friend of mine in a combat unit of the army was currently stationed at the border with Lebanon. I heard from another friend that even if he himself wasn't called up in a reserve unit, if his friends were he would join a random tank (his division) and go up and fight with them even though he "really didn't have time to fight a war this week." Also, multiple times over the course of the day, the phrase came up, "back on Monday, before the war," which was a pretty jarring, if realistic, thing to say and hear. As Shabbat ended I heard about the continued bombing of small communities in the North, two more casualties, and even a number of rockets that hit the resort city of Tiberias, previously considered far enough from Lebanon to not be in danger. Even with all this news, I got on a bus back to Haifa that evening. After all, I had classes in the morning. I did homework with a friend on the bus back and we continued when we arrived at his dorm room in Haifa. We went to bed around one thirty in the morning to the now normal sounds of aircraft overhead.
Sunday is a regular school/work day in Israel and I woke up to the sound of the garbage truck. I looked out the window and crawled back into bed grumbling about the noise. Then the noise seemed a bit different. I got out of bed again to look out the window and the garbage man was still there, but not near the dumpster, and those noises seem suddenly scarily out of place. As my mind cleared of sleep I quickly pulled on clothes as the air raid signals sounded and the announcements were made to get into the shelters. This time we didn't dawdle.
Within moments we were in our shelter with the door closed. This time we didn't only close the super-thick window, we also closed the iron shutter outside of it. The five of us sealed ourselves in and sat in silence as we heard the bombs through the thick walls of the bomb shelter. We soon located a radio in the room. (Remember this is someone's bedroom, but she had actually gone to Tel Aviv for the weekend and hadn't come back). We spent all morning listening to the radio and talking a little bit. Unlike the Thursday night when the time dragged while nothing happened outside, this time the hours flew. Before it was just a pain to be in the shelters, now we could hear why we were there and didn't really want to get out. It was still hot. Really hot. And stuffy. Really stuffy. But no one was about to suggest opening a window. Not this time. As the morning turned to afternoon we became quite good at distinguishing sounds muffled through the thick walls. That was an airplane. That was just a door slamming in the apartment above us. That is a helicopter, but boy it sounds close. And that's another katyusha. Is that another air raid siren? No, it's just from replayed radio sound clips. Was that a katyusha or a slammed door? And so on.
At some point we were allowed to go out for a bit, get some fresh air, and see friends who had locked themselves away in other safe rooms. An announcement was made that there would be a briefing for overseas students at 2 PM. At ten minutes to two, the air raid signals went off again. We were getting good at this. We rushed back to our shelters and sealed the doors again. We decided not to turn on the radio this time, listening to tallies of dead and wounded is not the most enjoyable way to spend time in a bomb shelter. An hour or so later we were given the go ahead to leave the shelters and head to the briefing.
At the briefing it was announced that the University of Haifa was closing. All Israeli students would have their final exams postponed until further notice. All overseas students would be moved, if they so wished, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. No one was permitted to remain on the campus. An hour later four private buses arrived, arranged by the Overseas Department. One bus left half full to Tel Aviv, where some people had family and where many people were headed on their way to get airplanes out of the country. 130 people and all their luggage boarded the remaining three buses headed toward Jerusalem. I joined them.
I am currently sitting in my friend's apartment in Jerusalem. My luggage is in a dorm room at the Hebrew University but I decided I wanted to be among friends tonight and not strangers. It is unclear at this point whether or not ulpan will continue in a few days in Jerusalem, in another city, or what. It is unclear what the next few days will hold for Israel as a country. During the course of my writing this email, Afula was struck but katyushas, the farthest south any had reached before this point. I will keep in touch as soon as I know what will be happening in the next few days.
B'Shalom,
sarah....
May there be peace within your walls / Serenity within your palaces
Psalms 122:7
posted by sarah @ 5:08 AM
1 comments
