My trip to LA

I just returned from LA and the feeling is one of hope that my time there was well spent and that I managed to make a difference. Besides Nate's wedding I was hoping to speak as much as possible to people about the situation in Sderot. The few places I managed to speak were Bnei Akiva of the Pico Robertson aria, YULA Boys School, my community and Bruins for Israel.

The Primary purpose was to raise awareness and with the youth to instill in them a connection to there brothers and sisters in Israel. I of course hoped to move people enough to raise a little money for the people of Sderot and the Hesder Yeshiva were I learn which is frantically building Kassam Proof dorms at the moment.

Anyways with the feelings still fresh I hope to convey here on this blog if not the feelings but the content of what I said there In hope that maybe there these words will affect those whom I didn't have time to meet and maybe refresh the feelings of these whom I did meet.

I started each time with death of my classmate Ronni Yichye Z"L who was killed by terrorists when a Kassam rocket landed and exploded two feet away from him. How he was blown a yard and a half from where he stood, the severity of his wound, how his heart pumped his blood out of his body through the ruptured Aorta and how the security guard who was the first to reach him tryed to catch his last words which Roni tried to say but was unable to and then returned his soul to Hashem.

I then went on to describe the physical results of the Kassam rocket and the injuries that are sustained from it. I continued to tell people how it affects people psychologically. People are affected by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when a Kassam lands close by and some who have all ready been through a close call with a Kassam can be shocked even when the explosion is far away. I explained how different people react in different ways. Some can lose control of all their bodily functions and need hospitalization. Some people recover quickly others do not recover at all and are placed on drugs and tranquilizers and cannot function on a day to day basis.

Understanding that these are people just like you and me, that they are grandparents, mothers and fathers, young adults, children, infants and even unborn babies are all affected by PTSD or in another more adequate term used during war, "Shell Shock". I told them that while the first paper I translated into English from Hebrew was about how Pregnant woman in Sderot have had very painful and traumatic miscarriages after being close to a Kassam attack and going into shock. I also told the about a story I heard before I left about a baby who after birth went into uncontrollable shaking fits. The experts concluded after numerous tests that the baby had been born with PTSD something that he had received from his mother.

This is the real tragedy of Sderot. Not the physically injury sustained by the Kassam attacks, there are suicide bomb attacks that have killed many more in one moment than the more than 6000 Kassams have killed in almost 8 years of Attacks. Yet these Kassams have taken their toll, and many people have difficulty operating on a daily basis. They have ruined people's lives and the results will continue for a long time after the Kassams will be stopped and the Hamas terrorists dealt with.

A Medical Doctor who was moved emotionally after seeing people who had long term PTSD told us in a trembling and angry voice, "Wounded people we know how to fix, these people, this we don't know how to heal".

I went on to connect the people leaving Sderot with the financial crisis the city is faced with. Roni was killed on Wednesday, that Friday morning after morning prayers, a Kassam exploded in a house 100 meters away from me. Yet another miracle happened and the couple who lived in the house were in another room and escaped uninjured but like almost everyone who is close to a Kassam attack suffered slightly from shock. I ran to the scene like others trained in first aid, I saw no one was injured so I naturally went next door to make sure that those next door had not been hurt. Two doors down I found a Grandmother had collapsed onto a chair another case of shell shock. This is what had happened.

A father was driving his two children to his mother on a Friday morning for a visit. Just a he arrived the siren "COLOR RED" rand out. He grabbed the child seat his infant son was in, his 7 year old son he threw over his shoulder and ran into his mothers house, as he entered the living room he looked around for a safe room (one that had enough cement inbettween him and the outside), before he could decide where to go the Kassam slamed down to houses down. He also collapsed crying partly from relief also out of shock. I him crying so I took his baby from the child seat and played with the baby so that the infant wouldn't be affected by the reaction of his father or grandmother. (Who knows really how the infant reacts or what long term affect it will have on him). After an hour his father calmed down and social workers arrived on the scene to help those affected cope with the situation. While the father was standing there with a cup of water in one hand and his son in the other, his 7 year old son came up to him and tugged him on the leg and said to his father "Abba I don't want to live in Sderot anymore".

What can anyone say to this? Maybe that is why over the last few years more than 3000 people have left the city. Many of those who leave are better off financially and have the ability to get up and go. Some stay out of Ideological reasons. But this trend is slowly turning Sderot into a ghost town. Today there are less than 19,000 residents where once there were 23,000.

This has caused economic difficulty for small businesses in Sderot. They are struggling to stay in business. Some are forced to lay off workers. One small supermarket owner told a group of people "I own a supermarket; my accountant told me that I had to lay off 3 workers, so I called into my office an old person I keep mainly out of pity an old Russian immigrant around the age of 70. I told him he was being laid-off in the nicest way I could and he broke down crying. I have to tell you that in the end I didn't fire him. On top of that I have a custom of providing some needy families with 300 NIS of food on Fridays from my store. My accountant told me I had to stop but I said to myself I will have on the Sabbath Table 7 types of salads and 4 types of meat can I allow myself to eat like that when others will have nothing? So I didn't stop handing out food as well. Maybe I'm a horrible business man but I just can't stop helping people when I'm the only one supporting them."

This is what brings me to the final part of what I told people about Sderot. I told them about an initiative that started a while ago when a group of people who were interested in helping Sderot came on to Sderot on a Friday morning to do their shopping for the Sabbath. They started doing it an a constant basis and over time received media exposure to the point where Israel's largest newspaper took up the cause and did a front page article on it and ran notices for a week. The result was that Sderot's small business from hardware stores to haircut parlors was flooded with some 20,000 people from all over Israel. This is what helps Sderot the most. Not only does it help businesses (which in the end also help the poor) but it also gives people here the feeling that they are not alone.

That Friday morning I went to get something from the super market and seeing the thousands of people who filled the streets and shops brought a smile to my face and gave me the feeling that we were not alone. It felt that there were people from all walks of life had come from young couples to a group of some 50 motor bikers who came in on expensive motorcycles and rode through every street in Sderot to show there support before stopping at a local restaurant for lunch.

In my next Blog I will continue to write about the political side of the story. Why the government has not stopped the Kassams. I will also write to the youth about personal sacrifice, what drove me to move to Israel by myself at the age of 15. Why I felt that I needed to give of myself and not stand on the sidelines and watch history unfold on the news but to be a part of it.

Dov from Sderot signing off until the next Blog From Sderot.