Sunday in Sderot

Laura Bialis is a young American filmmaker whose “TAK FOR ALT – Survival of a Human Spirit” was named one of the outstanding documentaries of 1999 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and whose “REFUSENIK,” the documentary on the 30-year movement to free Soviet Jewry, opened in December 2007 in Jerusalem. 

After the opening, Bialis rented a home in Sderot and moved there to begin a documentary on the siege of that city. 

Yesterday, she emailed her father in the United States about the latest barrage of rocket attacks that sent two brothers (aged 8 and 19) to the hospital Saturday evening, where the younger one’s leg was amputated.  Here is the email, posted with their permission:

Some of my friends here are so mad — they want to shoot kassams at Tel Aviv.  They almost never complain about the Palestinians . . . only about the government. It’s like being in New Orleans — nobody gives a shit about the people here.

And if all of the people in this town got up and left, the state of Israel would be at the real beginning of its demise. Yesterday a kid lost his leg . . . and my friend saw it.

Everybody in town was furious. I convinced my friend to drive out of here for a few hours because he was so upset. But when we went to get out of town, the main highway out of town was blocked because there was a riot — people were burning tires and stopping the roads.

It is so upsetting I can’t even explain. And yesterday was so sad that I couldn’t even film it. I am hiring my cinematographer to come here because he will get the shot no matter what. I just can’t do it.  I just can’t stick a camera in someone’s face when they are so distressed. Somehow it feels okay if I am paying for someone else to do it. . . . I just can’t.

Shabbat was insane. Friday morning we ran to the bomb shelter 8 times.  Then after Shabbat dinner it was like five times again.  The people living here are heroes.

And the rest of Israel doesn’t care.

Yesterday, Ehud Olmert released a statement in which he noted the "severe wounding of the the Twito brothers" and sent them "our wishes for a quick recovery and embrace the members of their family."  How tired can you get?

Residents of the southern Israeli town of Sderot and their supporters demonstrate in front of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office in Jerusalem, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008, protesting against the Israeli government as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resisted pressure on Sunday to launch a broad military operation against Gaza rocket squads, a day after an 8-year-old boy lost his leg in a rocket attack in Sderot.  (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner).