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The Reactions of a Young Israeli to Terror
Ruvy
Twice, I have been faced with the insouciance with which our younger child deals with terror in this country. The first time was a year and a half ago in November. My younger son wrote this account of the story he told around the dinner table.
"Almost doesn't count, except in horseshoes and car accidents." This is one of my dad's favorite sayings.
I was riding the eight bus to school at about 7:45 on Wednesday morning (10 Nov.). The bus was passing the Sephardi synagogue below my old elementary school at Ramat Moriah. On the right side of the road are the synagogue and the buildings. On the left side of the road is a nearly empty hill leading to a wadi about 60 meters down.
There was a suspicious vehicle (rékhev hashúd) next to the pizza shop across from the Sephardi synagogue. There were three police cars surrounding the vehicle at about twenty meters radius and there were two police men on each side of the road signaling to every one else not to pass. About fifty meters away on either side of the crosswalk were a lot of other kids going to a Hiloni (secular) school near the Sephardi synagogue and to my old elementary school.
I don't know why I noticed this but the car was a white Mitsubishi model. The hood of the car had blasted off and the front half of the car was totally on fire. There were two police men with fire extinguishers trying to put out the fire but were not getting very far.
After about ten minutes of everyone on the bus - including the driver - staring at the car, one of the officers signaled with one hand to pass and the other to go quickly meaning that "it was safe to pass", but to make it quick. The driver pulled out to the left of the burning car and started going forward. He didn't pick up speed fast enough. Just as I was looking directly at the flaming car to my right, there was another explosion. Smoke blasted the bus and the impact of this second but smaller explosion rocked the bus wildly and almost pushed it down the hill to the left. Most of the people on the bus screamed. I was silent, but very scared. But events of the day were such that I forgot to tell my parents until today (11 Nov.). I guess, after living here for three years, it's just another thing that happens on the way to school.
I had a math test yesterday. I think I got 80%.
That was a year and a half ago. This evening, while discussing all the explosives that the kids had set off in school (in preparation for Purim) he mentioned rather casually that an Arab kid had shot at the computer room in his school in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem, across the valley from Beit Jallah, an Arab village. The computer room had three inch thick bulletproof glass. The bullet penetrated about an inch and was stopped.
I said that this was news. Shooting from Beit Jallah doesn't get reported in the news and it should be, I said. I was all ready to launch into a diatribe against the pathetic government radio always covering up for the Arabs when he shrugged it all off, saying that it happened at least two weeks ago. Avi said it may be news to an American, emphasizing the word as if Americans couldn't stand anything but the soft routines of peaceful living, but it wasn't news to an Israeli.
It was just an Arab kid firing at them, he said. While most rules get broken at his school, one that never gets broken is the prohibition against going on the roof. Everyone understands that being on the roof is an invitation to an Arab to shoot to kill.
Avi got up from the table and went to the cupboard where we kept the Oreos I had bought for a treat, got them out, and we had cookies for dessert. Then he went to bed.
Ruvy, born in New York, moved to Minnesota where he managed a Burger King and wrote stories. In addition to writing for 
The Reactions of a Young Israeli to Terror
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Aaman
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March 10, 2006
12:05 PM
Thanks for posting this, Ruvy - living under terror is a scary thought - let's hope it never comes to that for the rest of the world, and is resolved for your own.
BTW, please make the URl in your profile a link
kaveetaa kaul
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March 10, 2006
12:18 PM
Ruvy,
Children truly are capable of more resilience than we as adults can summon at times like this.
I have been to Israel and found it fascinating, especially the concept of Kibbutz was so astonishingly refreshing.
Another visual I find difficult to forget is the sight of young teenage gun toting girls, very matter-of-fact, perfect soldiers in the day and giggly teenagers at night in the disco. They seemed to have fit into their respective differing roles with ease and effortlessly, or so it appeared. I may be off the mark since I was obviously viewing it as a wide eyed tourist, overcome by the newness of it.
Aaman
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March 10, 2006
12:24 PM
Do they check their guns at the coat-stand in the disco?
kaveetaa kaul
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March 10, 2006
12:40 PM
What guns? At the disco they are dressed to kill:)
deepti lamba
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March 10, 2006
02:10 PM
Ruvy, there is nothing more heart breaking than to see kids accept violence as a daily nuisance.
Ruvy in Jerusalem
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March 11, 2006
12:27 PM
Kaveetaa Kaul, Aaman, Deepti,
Kaveetaa,
You are so right about the teenaged girls and when I first visited here in 1973 as a tourist I found the sight of the young women with the Uzis and berets most disconcerting - and most attractive - at the same time.
I frequented discos then, though...
We visited here a number of years ago, essentially a sales trip to convince my very reluctant wife to move here. It was the hardest sale I have ever had to make.
Anyway, we stopped in a McDonald's near Beersheva because they were selling ice cream for 2 shekels (under a half dollar) and I wanted something cheap to please my kids...
About twenty soldiers poured into the place while we were eating and put their M16's on the floor at the table near us while they chowed down on Big Macs, fries and soda.
Kids, just yacking away and having a ball of a time. One of them asked me for a light for his cigarette. Another time driving near Modiin, a soldier stopped me us at a roadblock and, after seeing that we were just tourists, asked when were sending our kids (then 11 & 9, sitting in the back seat of the vehicle) for military training. I told him they were reporting the next week, and he laughed his head off before waving us through.
Now it ain't such a joke. The older one has to report this month or next for tests to determine his fitness to serve. The younger one gets regular mail advertising military training programs in high school that lead to a path in the army and possibly university.
Deepti,
While I agree with you in principle, and while it throws me off some, I have to say that my younger son's attitude is most healthy. My elder son gets nervous at a lot of this and I have to continually remind him that we are only in real trouble if foreign troops make their presence a major factor here. No matter how you cut the shwarma, this is a war zone, and we are at war.
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