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Dec. 7, 2012
Seeking safety and security
Experiencing the fears of the Tzeva Adom and Tzav Shmoneh.
EMILY SINGER
When I began writing this article a few weeks ago, there were nearly a hundred bombs dropping on Israel every day. As the column goes to press, the war feels securely behind us, and the holiday of Chanukah is lighting the way for brighter times.
Operation Pillar of Defence was my family’s first official war as Israeli citizens. The war started as an escalation of the previous situation, where Hamas would periodically fire rockets into settlements near the border, and Israel would attack military leaders and targets in the Gaza Strip. The difference was in quantity. There were now scores of rockets raining down daily.
People who lived in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheva, or anywhere within a 40-kilometre radius of Gaza, needed to be 15 seconds away from shelter at all times, in case they would hear a Tzeva Adom (literally, Color Red, the term refers to the siren of the early-warning radar system warning of incoming missiles).
When you hear a siren, you run to your protected room or, if you don’t have one, into the stairwell or the safest place in your house, near supporting walls and far away from windows. If you can’t make it into a safe building, you are instructed to lie on the ground and cover your head with your arms. If you are in a car or bus, you get out and lie on the ground, an act that has saved more than one life.
Israel’s new Iron Dome missile-defence system was a tremendous help – shooting down the vast majority of rockets headed towards populated areas. Still, some missiles snuck through, destroying homes and injuring civilians. Israel’s worst hit was early in the war, when people were killed because they went outside to watch the lightning show of the Iron Dome instead of running for cover.
Where we live, two and half hours northeast of the fighting, things were pretty quiet. We mostly heard the term Tzeva Adom on the radio. Programming around the clock was about the situation, interviewing victims, neighbors and experts. The program would be interrupted intermittently by a woman with a soothing voice announcing calmly, “Tzeva Adom in Beersheva,” or “Tzeva Adom in Nahal Oz and Saad” or, sometimes, “Tzeva Adom in Alumim, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beeri, Yad Mordechai, Masuot Yitzchak and Sderot.” Sometimes the list would go on so long that I was sure a bomb would drop somewhere before its name was called. I was thinking that if I lived in Sderot I would move to somewhere higher up in the alphabet.
Another place I heard Tzeva Adom was at school. On the playground, kids play games of tag that involve calling out “Tzeva Adom!” to force people to come out of their hiding spots and run for base. One of my 10th-grade students called out “Tzeva Adom!” as a joke, in a supposed attempt to get out of taking a quiz.
Even when a few long-range missiles hit near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, they were still very far away from us. Where we live, people were not so scared of falling rockets. They were more worried about something else entirely.
During this past war, the difference between living in southern Israel and living in the north was the difference between the fear of Tzeva Adom and fear of Tzav Shmoneh (Command 8). A Tzav 8 is an emergency call for reservists to report for duty. Israel had responded to the rocket fire with a barrage of air strikes, but the army was contemplating sending in ground troops as well. This would have required a lot more soldiers. By the end of that first Shabbat, several men from our kibbutz were gone as the army called up nearly 100,000 reserves.
With a mixture of guilt and relief, I have to say that the Tzav 8 doesn’t affect my family directly. Since my husband and I never served in the army, we can’t be called up for duty.
With no bombs dropping on our heads and no risk of being called up for military service, how did the war affect me? What did I have to complain about? I’ll tell you what: substitute teaching. I intensely dislike substitute teaching, but thanks to all the Tzav 8s, our school was understaffed. I couldn’t exactly say, “Sorry, but I don’t feel like substituting. It’s not my fault everyone’s being hauled off to defend our country.” Instead, I found myself saying things like, “Sure. Is there anything else I can do to help?”
It was not hard to find other ways to help. People were tripping over each other trying to give a hand. The entire war lasted seven days and, in that time, our school (like many others in the country) organized a massive campaign to collect goodies to send to soldiers, with pictures and cards.
Locally, people cooked meals and sent pizzas to Tzav 8 families. Teachers spoke with their classes about whose parents were gone and encouraged students to share their feelings.
We tried to open our apartment to a family from the south. We signed up on a list that was being generated online, but so many people wanted to host that no one even wanted our measly apartment. Should I be insulted? It reminded me of the time when we lived in Vancouver and thieves broke into our house, rifled through my jewelry box and decided not to take anything.
One night, our youth group hosted kids for an overnight from another kibbutz that had been in the line of fire. The kids spent the day swimming at Sachne, the spring resort at the bottom of our mountain. They came up for a campfire dinner and then went to town with our kids for a special performance at the big local theatre, organized special for guests from the south who were staying in several local communities. All over the country, people opened their hotels, museums and theatres for free to these honored guests.
Comedians and bands traveled south to perform special shows in some of the larger bomb shelters, and others held concerts on TV for their entertainment. Our “adopted daughter,” who made aliyah to our kibbutz with a group of young people, decided to travel south to help out. She arrived towards the end of the war, when the rocket fire was the worst. She said that the volunteers had to make a guard duty rotation to wake everyone up when a siren sounded. They spent the night running back and forth between their rooms and the bomb shelter. I asked her why they didn’t just sleep in the shelter, and she said there were too many volunteers, they wouldn’t have fit.
The war ended with a bang. The hours between the announcement of the ceasefire and its scheduled time were the most violent, with both sides trying to maximize last-minute damage. While Israel stopped just at the scheduled time, Hamas continued firing for several more hours. I was sure that was the end of the agreement, and that we were about to see a full-scale war. How could Israel sit idly by as they were barraged by more rockets? What about Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement of a “no tolerance” policy? What about the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers on the border poised to attack?
As we listened on the radio to the string of “Tzeva Adom in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheva ...” that seemed to continue endlessly, my 11-year-old son remarked sarcastically, “Hamas seems to really get this ceasefire thing, except for the part about ceasing to fire!” A friend sent a picture around on Facebook with a picture of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride saying, “Ceasefire – you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
But somehow, seemingly miraculously, Israel did not respond to the fire and, a few hours later, all was quiet. According to commentators, this was not really miraculous – it was totally expected. Apparently, there is always a huge burst of fire just at the start of a ceasefire. Who knew? While I try in my column to present myself as a sort of insider into Israeli society, I guess I’ve still got a lot to learn.
The next morning, it was still quiet. Soldiers slowly started to make their way home, and our unseasonal heat wave was quenched with a soft, delicious rain. Colors beamed brighter as green buds began to pop out of the hard earth. Was this a miracle? A soft nod of approval?
When we moved to Israel two years ago, we knew there were risks. We suspected there would be wars. We were committed to being part of the journey toward peace.
Chanukah is a special time for us as a family. It begins five days after the birthday of our youngest son, who was not expected to survive in utero, and who is today a beautiful, healthy goofball who brings tremendous light and laughter to our clan.
Chanukah is a special time for us as a people. It celebrates our physical and spiritual survival in the face of both military threat and assimilation. There is no place to celebrate this victory that can match the modern state of Israel.
May we all have a happy Chanukah, full of light and peace (and perhaps some latkes and jelly doughnuts).
Emily Singer is a teacher, social worker and freelance writer. She is currently working on two books. Singer and her husband, Ross, were rebbetzin and rabbi of Vancouver’s Shaarey Tefilah congregation until 2004. The Singers spent two years in Jerusalem and then moved to Baltimore, Md., where Ross was rabbi at Congregation Beth Tfiloh and Emily taught Judaic studies at Beth Tfiloh High School, until they moved to Israel in 2010. They have four children.
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