Celebrating 80 years ...

During the first Gulf War, Scud missiles were fired at Israel by Iraq, and the Jewish Western Bulletin followed the conflict closely. Of the many stories published, one was written by Adam Dodek, not in his regular column called Views from Israel, but in a cover piece in the Feb. 7, 1991, issue. He wrote the article “What it was like” after he had returned to Vancouver from Jerusalem, where he was studying in the overseas program of Hebrew University that year.

In Israel, people were prepared for a possible chemical attack from Iraq and Dodek wrote about the anxiety that threat generated: “The waiting and the not-knowing were tortuous. On Jan. 14 and Jan. 15, people continued to stream out of the country. Israelis and those remaining with them converged on the streets to buy supplies to seal rooms. On Ben-Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, vendors were selling masking tape, transistor radios and plastic sealing by the metre instead of jewelry and artwork.”

While Dodek experienced an air raid siren, and had to find his way – with his gas mask – to the bomb shelter in his dormitory, he said he was reassured by everyone’s calmness. When he returned to Canada, he wrote, “... I found people in more of a panic and more caught up in the war and the missile attacks than the Israelis I had left behind.”