“There were no injuries, and no damage resulted” is a sentence anticipated by Israelis across the country each time a projectile falls near Sderot, a soundbite that has come to be taken for granted in daily life in Israel - but that does not tell the entire story of what the residents of the Negev suffer each time it happens. Those who care about their fellow Jews may breathe a sigh of relief when hearing it on the news, but what many concerned citizens may not appreciate is that each all-clear follows something much more sinister to the residents of the Western Negev: A “Color Red” alarm that signals an incoming rocket or artillery shell. After eight years, 8,000 rockets and 12 deaths, the inhabitants of this small area beg to differ on the message of the all-clear: The injuries are grave, and the damage to their lives is profound. Sderot is truly a city that never sleeps—because it’s too frightened. Insomnia is but one of many disorders that plague the local population, where children are hit especially hard with the psychological impact of countless kassams. Mali Shnefer, a mother of four, estimates that 98 percent of children live in a state of fear, which she described as “trembling” at every unexpected noise that startles them. Children turn Kassam into a doll: A tragically light-hearted centerpiece Shnefer earns NIS 2,800 a month, from which she has to feed and clothe her family, including two school-age children who, because of their fear, decided to leave their home to live with extended family in other cities. The situation for both her family and the city, she said with tears in her eyes, is literally a crying shame. “The solution for the problem is to stop the rockets. Everything else is a smokescreen for the solution.” Sunday marked the 17th of Tammuz, a day when Jews traditionally fast to mourn the final breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s invading army and the beginning of the end for the First Commonwealth of Israel. Maaglei Tzedek, a Jewish social activist group, decided to mark this Sunday’s fast with a trip to Sderot. Busloads of Israelis from around the country toured the city, listened to local leaders and met with families living there, and the “outsiders” learned what it means to live like the Jerusalemites at the end of the First Temple: in a city of crumbled walls, invaded calm and breached lives. For many Sderot area residents, this 17th of Tammuz marked what they hope will be the beginning of the end of an almost decade-long nightmare. Shulamit Eckstein: "We are tired of being deserted" The four-hour-long event culminated in a presentation by community leaders and young residents of the city.“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” said Shnefer to a riveted crowd of hundreds, “but there are no children running around in the open streets, no youngsters on bicycles. To have a child riding around freely on a bicycle in Sderot is unheard of these days.” Children's playground-turned-front line “Olmert keeps speaking about the calm,” Shnefer continued, referring to the Prime Minister’s satisfaction with the brief spell of relative quiet in the area since the recent cease-fire with Hamas. “What calm is he talking about? If the situation doesn’t change, there will be no more young people left in Sderot.” One young person, 17-year-old Chen, expressed the feelings of many young local residents: “Sderot is my home. It’s where I was born. I have grown up in a life of no security, no safety,” she told the crowd. “We want a life of peace, of serenity. We want the rockets to stop.” While the government promises, it more often fails, to provide adequate bomb shelters in homes and public buildings. In 2007, Ha’aretz reported that Sderot has 58 public shelters, 30 of which has no electricity and are uninhabitable even for a short stay. Many residents, especially those living in Sderot’s older western neighborhoods, live in buildings with no reinforced rooms. However, the mood of the residents in Sunday’s conference was not one of retreat: “The solution for the problem is to stop the rockets,” repeated Chen. “Everything else is a smokescreen for the solution.” Yigal and Orly Bracha, a young couple who spoke to attendees in the living room of their Sderot home, were even more direct in their answer to their city’s crisis. “We have to go to war in Gaza,” said Yigal. “The question is how many of us [in Sderot] will die [first] in order [for the government] to do it.” Instructions for conference participants on what to do if a Kassam falls during the trip Yigal, who volunteers in several social organizations such as Doresh Tov, works regularly with the needs of Sderot residents and is aware of the cumulative damage to the area in economic and demographic terms. “6,000 residents have left in the last five years,” he said, leaving a population of 20,000. He emphasized that companies large and small simply don’t want to open businesses in the area. “Some years ago, the government built a business park, and so far my company, Amdocs, is the only business there.” Bracha commended the recent “seed” group of 120 religious families, who in early 2008 decided to move into Sderot in a show of solidarity, but he said that by and large the rest of the country is remiss in its obligation to show support for his family and his neighbors. Postcard to Olmert: "Deal with the problem, protect our cities" Shulamit Eckstein, another speaker in the conference auditorium, echoed Bracha’s frustrations at the small number of families are moving into the city. “We want to bring a mass of families. It doesn’t matter from which demographic. We don’t need deserters-we’ve seen our share of them.” Eckstein has six children—her youngest is an infant and her oldest is 13. She was pleased to share with the audience the fact that she lives in a large two-story house in the city, a fact she noted with irony. Despite having four bedrooms upstairs, Shulamit, her husband and her six children must now divide their sleeping arrangements between the salon and one small guestroom downstairs. Sometimes her children, afraid of the all-too-real terror of the dark, sleep in their parents’ bed. Between speakers, a group of teenagers presented a series of sketches portraying their lives in Sderot. The routines criticized everything from media coverage to economic policies, and while most of the sketches were humorous in tone, there was an element of urgency and tragedy that could not be ignored. In one sketch, a group of teenagers stood around talking, as a sequence of friends passed by, each dropping something and frightening the group with the noise. “What, are you crazy? You scared us to death with that. As if we don’t have kassams falling all the time,” was the common refrain of the group. At the end of the sketch, the group jumped as one of their friends sneezed. Teenagers of Sderot speak out Another sketch by the group criticized the high price of food in a city where distributors are scared to go. Access to food supply is a genuine concern in Sderot, where, as one speaker described, people always arrive to the store with a shopping list that would seem comically large anywhere else in the country. However frightened, and even hungry, the residents of Sderot may sometimes be, they are fighting to preserve the social fabric of their community. Nitai Schreiber, another community leader, boasted of the proliferation of community outreach and support organizations that continue to thrive and grow throughout the crisis. “We are strengthening,” said Schreiber. Shreiber also commented on the current tendency of the government to promise bomb shelters rather than an invasion of Gaza, a sign for Sderot residents that the government is fleeing in retreat and leaving them alone on the battlefield. “We have to see a solution that is offensive, rather than defensive,” Schreiber remarked, expressing a feeling that seemed unanimous among the residents. Event coordinator instructs attendees in case of a Kassam attack: "15 seconds is all you have" Criticism for government policy in Sderot is understandably sharp. More startling to the attendees was the repeated condemnation of the Israeli media, which many in the Western Negev region feel have largely ignored Sderot's suffering and damage. “The majority of the country is not with us,” said Schreiber. Another speaker, while illustrating the demographic and economic drain of the country with charts, related a story that portrayed something even more chilling: The deliberate efforts of the media to downplay the Sderot issue. “I remember when Channel 2 came to do a story on Sderot,” recalled Zohar Avitan, director of educational programming for the Sderot Cinematheque, where he spoke. “They filmed 80 hours--80 hours--of footage in Sderot. When I saw the final report, they had it cut down to 17 minutes of very unconvincing material. “’How could this be,’ I asked the woman in charge of the local crew. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I agree with you, but my editor told me to cut everything.’” Avitan ended his speech with a question that he warned would be disturbing. “What we need to ask ourselves, really, is whether we are still one nation.” Jews on their way to show support for Sderot Perhaps it is still early for such prognostications of doom. If the sheer number of participants can be taken as a sign, it appears that there are still many people in Israel and abroad that care. “It’s important to see what goes on there first-hand, to see the families, to see the kind of life they live. These people are heroes,” said Jason Berger, a yeshiva student from Toronto. The fact that several hundred individuals, most of whom were fasting, decided to take most of a day off and travel hours in hot weather to a city they might have never otherwise visited seems to be a testament to a unity and compassion that has not entirely fled the Jewish people. Young and old, families and single people, secular and religious Jews from every walk of life took part in both producing and witnessing Sunday’s event, and all seemed to carry the same banner of Jewish strength and unity in the face of the enemy. Perhaps Yigal Bracha summarized the spirit of Sderot best when asked if he wanted to say any last words to the Israeli public and to the world: “Am Yisrael Chai. The Jewish nation lives. And we will continue to live, and we will continue to will continue to build, and we will continue to fight, until we achieve netzach netzachim-the Victory of Victories.” Sderot speaks: Am Yisrael Chai
