Today we rode up the coast of
Here is how the director of the village described the current situation:
Following the bombings and war in the north of the country, more than a million civilians, Jews, Arabs and Christians left their homes and came to look for shelter in the center and south of the country . . . . Those who could afford it took advantage of the summer vacation and went to hotels or even abroad. Some others were lucky to be hosted by their families in the south. However, a lot of the evacuees didn’t find solutions. . . .
The village opened its gates to tens of families and hundreds of children from the northern cities under attack and 230 new immigrant kids from the absorption centers in Tzfat and Ayelet Hashachar were transferred from the bombed north . . . .
Today we met and sang with the kids at the village — an extraordinary group of vibrant youngsters learning Israeli customs, studying English, and acquiring other skills. Kids like this one:
And these ones:
Here is Craig Taubman teaching the kids some new songs in the first “Tuesday Morning Live!” (the Executive Director and Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple
Craig has the kids take it up a notch:
Then he prepares to teach them the . . . Limbo!
Explaining an intricate Limbo move:
Backed by a rabbi, one girl learns the power of prayer before trying the Limbo for the first time:
One more picture of the kids who made us young again today:
Am Yisrael Chai!
Then we got back in our bus and traveled to see a staging area for Israeli Blackhawk rescue helicopters supporting the Israeli efforts in the North. We met with the Commander of the base and toured the facility, bringing with us care packages for every soldiers, and — not on the formal schedule — watched as an emergency unfolded before our eyes: helicopters suddenly taking off and heading north.
Out of an excess of caution, I’m not posting any pictures, but I have quite a lot: soldiers who made up an extraordinarily diverse group: women and men, black and white, older and younger, some kipot-wearing and some not, one of them with a full beard reflecting his religious beliefs, all of them friendly and professional at the same time, and unified in their pride in their country and determination to prevail while observing the laws of war. Most of them seemed like kids, but they taught us a lot.
Am Yisrael Chai!
We got in the bus and drove further, to see a Patriot Missile defense site, with a tour and an explanation of the extraordinary operation, talking again with young soldiers (some of them reservists who were studying at school only a few weeks ago).
Then we drove through
The name “Maxim” should ring a bell: it is a restaurant jointly owned by Jews and Arabs that was the scene of a horrific suicide bombing on October 4, 2003.
This report from 2003 about the bombing of Maxim is worth re-reading, if only to remind ourselves of what the “peace process” was like and how we got to where we are today. With 19 dead, including three children and an infant, and 69 wounded, for the crime of eating lunch, the Palestinian Authority issued a statement counseling its terrorists to practice “restraint;” the U.S. issued a statement that the PA should dismantle its terrorist organizations “immediately;” the EU issued a statement that the atrocity showed the importance of “negotiations;” and Israel’s military chiefs met to discuss strong measures that were never taken.
Maxim was leveled by the 2003 blast, which survivors said had the power of an earthquake. But the restaurant re-opened several months later, and today it is still jointly owned by Arabs and Jews.
Maxim has been closed again recently, because of the barbaric Hezballah bombing threatening all of
Am Yisrael Chai!
Next we traveled to the
We drove through the city and came to this monument to the systematic and intentional targeting of civilians, without warning or military purpose, emblematic of the wave of terror to which
Miraculously, in this instance, no one was killed, but nine were injured. Across the street from the above building, we saw the hundreds of holes in the walls, produced by the hundreds or thousands of lethal ball bearings contained in the rockets that had struck the nearby building, each one intended to further kill and maim civilians:
In the mid-afternoon, we went to the Rambam Medical Center to meet with injured soldiers. We went from room to room, seeing young men (many of them seemed kids) and their families dealing with the consequences of evil, thanking them for protecting all of us and trying to demonstrate by our presence that their efforts were appreciated 10,000 miles away.
The inimitable blogger Pamela Geller Oshry (Atlas Shrugs), who has been traveling with our group and covering it on her own essential blog, has posted her moving summary of our visit to Rambam, with pictures that are not to be missed. Like virtually every thing we have done over the past 24 hours, this alone was worth the trip.
Atlas and I had to leave the Sinai group to return to
When the transcript is published later this week, it will be worth reading in its entirety (indeed the remarkable Q&As between Ambassador Gold and the indispensable Anne Lieberman of Boker tov, Boulder! will be worth reading in and of themselves). Anne has a good summary of some important points in the conversation here.
The Dore Gold conversation deserves its own post(s), which I hope to have up later this week after we get back to the
Am Yisrael Chai!
Jewish Current Issues (l) and Atlas Shrugs (r) with Ambassador Dore Gold at the King