Jorge
03-07-2008, 06:41 AM
This Friday morning, as I walked through the center of Sderot for my weekly shopping, I was gladly surprised to see the main streets, shops and falafel stands literally bursting with people. Families from various parts of the country decided to come to Sderot for their shopping or simply a stroll around town. It was their way of showing their support and solidarity with the people here.
The same has been happening for the last two weekends but today, in spite of intensified rocket attacks, or may be, precisely because of that, there were more visitors than usual. It's interesting to note that this activity is not the result of an organized campaign with wide publicity in the media; just the result of people here and there, spontaneously feeling the need to get away for some hours from the security of their hometowns and show the people here that they care about us.
At some moment the alarm that warns of an impending rocket landing was heard, everyone run for cover and a few minutes later everyone was back on the street, walking around as if nothing had happened.
It was particularly touching to see a group of kids from a Rehovot yeshivah, singing and dancing around the Mall, with trumpets and drums. Just last evening kids of their age had been slaughtered in another yeshiva in Jerusalem; instead of sadly mourning they felt their duty to come down to cheer us up.
I just felt like writing this trivial account of a morning in a small town to reassure people from other countries that may happen to read it. I gather people outside Israel which may be worried because they see us mostly through the TV news, which, understandably, over dramatize and dwell more on anguish and weeping. To reassure them that our morale and staying power is intact and nowhere near to be broken.
Shabbath Shalom.
The same has been happening for the last two weekends but today, in spite of intensified rocket attacks, or may be, precisely because of that, there were more visitors than usual. It's interesting to note that this activity is not the result of an organized campaign with wide publicity in the media; just the result of people here and there, spontaneously feeling the need to get away for some hours from the security of their hometowns and show the people here that they care about us.
At some moment the alarm that warns of an impending rocket landing was heard, everyone run for cover and a few minutes later everyone was back on the street, walking around as if nothing had happened.
It was particularly touching to see a group of kids from a Rehovot yeshivah, singing and dancing around the Mall, with trumpets and drums. Just last evening kids of their age had been slaughtered in another yeshiva in Jerusalem; instead of sadly mourning they felt their duty to come down to cheer us up.
I just felt like writing this trivial account of a morning in a small town to reassure people from other countries that may happen to read it. I gather people outside Israel which may be worried because they see us mostly through the TV news, which, understandably, over dramatize and dwell more on anguish and weeping. To reassure them that our morale and staying power is intact and nowhere near to be broken.
Shabbath Shalom.