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Showing posts with label bomb shelters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bomb shelters. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Jews Persecuted With Rockets and Missiles Today

Nadene Goldfoot
While we Jews are enjoying our morning coffees and plans for the day safely in the United States, we have cousins living in southern Israel who face rockets and missiles interrupting theirs.  During the past two months 145 rockets and missiles have been aimed and have fallen into southern Israel.  One would be enough to ruin my whole month if not the next five years!  Roughly that means 72 fell in one week or 10 a day!  When does one have time to do anything!   PTSD is becoming prevalent among the children.  It's no wonder.

When the bloodcurdling siren goes off, people have less than 15 seconds to run quickly to a bomb shelter if one has such a luxury.  the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) ,with Rabbi Eckstein's plea,  has donated Fellowship bomb shelters to many places and is taking donations.  Israel hasn't been able to get this done through the state to all places and needs help in this.

I remember living in Israel from 1980 till almost 1986 in Haifa and Tzfat and living in a government apartment building on David Eleazar Street of many stories high that had a bomb shelter in it.  My German shepherd wasn't allowed entrance, though.  Most all buildings were built this way.  I lived on the very bottom floor and had metal bars over the windows in case of terrorists trying to break in.  The apartment came like this.

When I say cousin, I am not theorizing.  In DNA studies, we're finding that we Jews might have a common ancestor if we go back about 5 generations with the same person we are married to if that person is also Jewish.  We're one big family!  Besides these close cousins, I personally am finding a few distant cousins from way back that are from Pakistan and Afghanistan and even Saudi Arabia as well! Finding that we are on the same haplogroup or of the same haplotype (twig off the same branch of the tree of man) is pretty exciting.   That certainly gives me a new perspective on our relatives.  Our extended family is growing!

Now, if we could just convince our neighbors to stop using those living in southern Israel as target practice and converse like our group does in talking about our DNA, life would be much cheerier.

Research: http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/eng/USENG_homenew

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Important School Items for Southern Israel: Bomb Shelters

Nadene Goldfoot
Parents and students in Portland are looking forward to the start of school by buying all sorts of school supplies; crayons, pencils, Elmer's glue, etc.  Channel 8 is even helping out with a drive for donations for students that can't afford such things. 

Southern Israel parents and students have a different need.  They feel their future means continued rocket attacks from Gaza-based terrorists that won't end for years.  Because of this, they need bomb shelters for the schools.  They now have mobile bomb shelters to place near schools.  They can accomodate up to 18 people for a short period.  That could be one class per shelter. 

The residents are within  5 kilometers  (3 miles 188 yds)  from Gaza and get shellings that come so fast that they only have 15 seconds to get to shelter. 

Not all the schools within bombing range have shelters.  Ofakim will be prepared but the elementary schools in the Ashkelon areas farther away do not have any.  That's where the large hospital is and they have had to prepare for such attacks as well. 

Many of the largest schools in the region are prepared for missile strikes but many school care centers aren't.  Chabad has schools for boys and schools for girls from kindergarten up through 4th grade and they now have bomb shelters. 

I remember going through fire drills, earthquake drills and bomb drills in Portland as a child.  Bomb drills were executed in the hallways.   These children go through drills of how fast they can get to bomb shelters. 

Sderot, being the first town usually attacked as it is the closest to Gaza,  was able to get bomb shelters for their schools, but Israel can't afford to supply Ashkelon with them. 

I taught in northern Israel in Safed at the junior high.  That's fairly close to the Lebanon border.  We had a bomb drill that was quite an experience for me.  I was lucky that the students knew just what to do because I didn't.  We went to a basement area where there were all sorts of art supplies and a movie projector.  I have memories of needing to climb out on a ladder that I refused to do, wearing a skirt and being afraid of doing it.  It seemed like we had to hang in there for a terribly long time. 

Each apartment building had a bomb shelter.  I wasn't going to be able to bring my female German shepherd with me, so decided that I would hold up in my basement apartment if need be.  My dog was a bigger scaredy-cat than I was, so I couldn't leave her alone to hear horrible sounds of sirens and possible explosions.   

Yes, there's all kinds of things to think about when you're living in an area that is being shelled by your neighbor.  It affects your whole life.  It's not just how many casualties are numbered that counts.  It's the daily routines of life that are affected.   In Israel they just worry about getting through a day without being bombed.  These brave people are taking the stresses in their stride.  These are just problems to solve. 

Parents have reason to worry.  2009 was a terrible year with 569 rockets and 289 mortars raining into Southern Israel.  2010's count was 150 rockets and 215 mortars.  2011 also has had constant shelling.  In just the first few days of January there were 17 rockets and 31 mortars that fell.   July 30th grad missiles hit Ashkelon sending 8 people to the hospital in shock.  Apartments and other buildings sustained damage. 
On August 2nd Eilat, the furthest southern city was hit.  One missile went right into Aqaba, Jordan accidently and killed one person, and wounded several others.  That shows that the range of these missiles has stepped up.  August 18th  was another bad day of lots of missiles and rockets shot into Israel. 

One thing, those kindergarteners will learn to count to 15 very fast; Akhad, shtaim, shalosh, arbah, Khamesh, sesh, seveh, sh'monah, taishah, esser, akhad esar, sh'naym assar, sh'lo shaasar, arba aasar, kha 'mee shaasar.

UPdate 2;48pm Stand For Israel; "Responding to the escalation of attacks on southern Israel, The Fellowship is purchasing 100 bomb shelters for $1 million to be placed in areas targeted by terrorists in recent months. "Our mission is to help the people of Israel in whatever way we can," Rabbi Eckstein said."
Resource:Arutz sheva Missile Threat Not Abouty to End by Chana Ya'ar. news@israelnationalnews.com