Ordinary Lives Lived by Extraordinary Women

They live ordinary lives. Three are special education teachers, one an elementary school instructor. Another practices Chinese medicine. One’s a retired nurse. A seventh a midwife. The eighth is an occupational therapist. They are women of modest professions, living modest, ordinary lives.

And then an airplane or a helicopter flies overhead and they wonder if an attack is imminent. Or they hear, make that feel, an explosion that rattles the foundation of their homes. Was it a rocket or the vibrations from a powerful Egyptian charge meant to destroy an underground Palestinian tunnel from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai?

They're home now, back on the kibbutzim delicately nesting next to the southern tip of Gaza, on the border with Egypt. For the two weeks spanning the end of April and the beginning of May, these eight women came to America as guests of Shalom Yisrael. Why? For some well-deserved rest and relaxation, for aside from their ordinary day jobs, they are trauma care first responders when the ordinary lives of their fellow kibbutzniks become anything but ordinary when bombs and rockets hail from across the border. 

Most everyone who met them, including Congresswoman Nita Lowey, wanted to know why they lived on the edge of peril, why not in a more secure spot in Israel. The Eshkol Regional Council from which they come is the most targeted land area in Israel. When rockets are launched from Gaza, they have perhaps 15 seconds to seek shelter, assuming an alert is sounded. They are too close to Gaza to be protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Houses are being retrofitted with safe rooms. 

Yet, they do not dream of leaving. Their response echoed what we have heard time and again from people in our own country. Their choice is no different than that made by Americans living in tornado alley or along the Gulf Coast ravaged annually by hurricanes or the Rockies that even in the second week of May was treated by Mother Nature to globs of snow. Or those who warily watch waters rise above levies each year to wash away homes. They live there because it is their home, whether they grew up there or recently relocated. It is beautiful, they said. With a real sense of community. That helps explain why the population of the Eshkol region has grown 35% over the past five years. 

The region is important agriculturally. Sixty percent of Israel’s produce is grown in the 32 communities of the council that shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt. They live 90 minutes south of Tel Aviv but don’t lack for culture. Within the 190,000 acres of the Eshkol Regional Council, its 14,000 residents enjoy 10 art galleries and museums, nature and heritage sites, youth and elderly recreation centers, and a 930-seat cultural hall. 

They strive to live a normal life in an abnormal place. Sometimes, neighbors hear voices from under their homes. Quickly they call the military. Tunnels from the Gaza Strip are a constant concern. It took a few days, but the women soon acclimated to the sounds most Americans take for granted. They realized they didn’t have to look up when a jet streaked overhead, though, to be honest, even Americans twist their heads at the whop-whop whirring of helicopter blades. 

For five years I have been involved with Shalom Yisrael, a volunteer organization that for 29 years has hosted Israelis during the spring, at first soldiers and victims of terror, but for half a decade ladies such as these, women of valor and determination who leave their families when danger erupts to tend to the needs of their community. 

And yet, of the 40 women I have met, I can think of none who does not crave peace and friendship with their Palestinian neighbors, who does not want a return to the time before Hamas seized control of Gaza and put an end to commerce between the two peoples, to visits to beaches reputedly among the most beautiful in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Living as they do on the precipice of conflict, as targets of terror, they are nevertheless dovish citizens of Israel. Not for them are Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s and his cohorts’ hawkish demeanor. They don’t have a solution. They just hope one can be found. 

The ladies returned to Israel last Sunday, Mother’s Day. Normalcy has returned to my routine. What passes for normalcy in the Eshkol Regional Council awaited them. 

The addresses below are links to previous posts about the visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region just north of the Eshkol region: 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/07/gazing-over-gaza.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/05/rocket-women.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-community-in-eshkol.html

Well-Deserved Rest & Relaxation

The ladies go home Sunday evening.

They’ll travel back to Israel, to their homes in the communities on the edge of the Gaza Strip, an area known as Sha’ar Hanegev (Gate of the Negev).

For nearly 10 years they and their families and neighbors have been under constant tension amid the threat of indiscriminate rockets, missiles and mortars hurled from over the border. Reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. When an alarm sounds, and it is not a guarantee one will, they have perhaps 15 seconds to find shelter. It’s a traumatic existence trying to live peaceably in your moshav or kibbutz right next to an enemy whose apparent only goal in life is to take yours.

Dealing with trauma is their everyday routine, in their personal and professional lives. They are psychologists, nurses and social workers, first responders when the bombing starts, sometimes rushing into action even as more incoming is on the way. They help young and old residents cope with the reality they are targets of a movement committed to their annihilation.

For two weeks ending Sunday, eight Israeli care givers will have enjoyed some well-deserved rest and relaxation, living with families in Westchester while visiting New York City and Washington, DC. They were brought here by Shalom Yisrael, a Westchester organization that for some 25 years has hosted groups of Israelis, usually victims of terror, military veterans or injured soldiers. Like last year, Shalom Yisrael welcomed trauma care providers to America, most for their first U.S. visit. Gilda and I housed one of the women a year ago. This time, as I did in 2010, I accompanied them on a three day trip to Washington ending late Wednesday night.

It’s hard to fully appreciate what these unassuming women do. We take it for granted when soldiers storm into the breach of battle. They’re armed. Fulfilling their duty as the spearhead of defense is their job, what they are trained to do. But how many civilians would leave their families and the relative safety of a shelter when Qassam rockets start to fall to minister to the elderly and the young, to comfort the fearful, even as you must suppress your own anxieties?

Rockets land daily. The calm after the Israeli military response of two years ago has long since dissipated. The effects of constant bombardment exhibit themselves in subtle ways. Children associate the color red with the Red Alert warnings, so many choose not to use red paint when drawing. With so little time to rush to a shelter or safe room, teenagers take shorter showers, just in case. They leave the bathroom door open. Some are afraid to go to the toilet, lest the shells come at an inopportune moment. Bedwetting beyond normal years is prevalent. Slipping back into a parent’s bed is common. Children, even teenagers, are afraid to be alone. Eating disorders affect many. After the recent attack on a school bus, which critically injured one high school student, the only child still on board, children are afraid to ride the buses. Even the bus drivers, mostly all military veterans, are anxious because they’re responsible for the children.

The spirit of the trauma care providers is indomitable, sometimes beyond comprehension, sometimes bordering on the comical. They didn’t care if it rained during their visit. What’s a little water, one said, when she has to consider more metallic, explosive matter raining from the sky as she takes a walk around her village each morning. Another reacts to a Red Alert by quickly opening the doors of her home not only to passersby but also to the dogs and cats that have become traumatized by the bombardments. Observing a Washington intersection signal that counted down the 30 seconds to safely cross a street, a third woman noted she’d become quite proficient in knowing exactly how much she can accomplish in the 15 seconds before a missile lands. She could hang several pieces of laundry. Matter-of-factly another shows me a picture of her home pockmarked by shrapnel after a shell exploded nearby. Moments before her husband stood where the rocket landed. He walked away, but a cherished friend remained and died. Yet they express empathy for the Palestinians when they hear the pounding the Israeli military inflicts in retaliation on Gaza. No one should live with the fear of incessant violence, they say. They are not hard-liners. They are left of center politically. They just want peace.

They are extraordinary in how ordinary they are. They shop for their children and husbands, hoping those back home will not complain too much about their gifts. They shop for themselves. Just a few more days left to check off all the items on their shopping lists. Then it’s back to the ramparts, otherwise known as home.