Today wasn’t exactly a normal Shabbat—Ever since my husband Ariel and I moved to Israel in 2005 from the  U.S., we have gotten used to a certain amount of day to day  noise and  chaos that exists here. The noise we have gotten  most accustomed to is  that of  Israeli drivers wearing out their horns, as they make illegal U turns in the midst of heavy traffic or double park all along the main roads so trucks and cars cannot pass.

 But over the last two days,  Ashkelon, where we have lived since February of this year, has been  a lot noisier than usual. That’s because well over 80 missiles have been fired into Southern Israel, and some of them have been pretty darn close to us. (Apparently, our next door neighbors over in Hamas controlled Gaza have been a little restless, shall we say.)

The Israeli army is pretty sophisticated and can identify in what area the missiles will land, such that alarm sirens go off in our town giving us  no more than 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter.  Our problem is that although we have been living here for almost 6 years ( time goes by when you are having fun!), we aren’t nearly fluent in Hebrew. Living amongst  English speakers has made us lazy and therefore we only have the bare basics of the language, something that became apparent on Thursday night  when one of the first missiles fell in Ashkelon. 

On our  way home from dinner at a local Pizza shop, I answered my cell phone  phone and we stopped in a little mini market for some milk. As we walked into the store the siren went off. Still on the phone, I don’t notice. Ariel was heading toward the refrigerator area of the store for the milk when one of the young men in the store started to yell something at him. In this country, everyone is always yelling at each other in Hebrew, so we didn’t think anything of it. I was still trying to have a civilized conversation on my phone and all this commotion was keeping me from concentrating on what my friend was saying on the other end of the line. Then we realized that the young man was telling us to move to the safe area with everyone else !

Later that evening, again, the alarm went off and then we heard a big boom that sounded like fireworks being set off, the loud kind of fireworks that always scare little kids and some dogs. “Can we please have a little peace and quiet here?” Ariel said as he was sitting at the computer and heard the alarm.

 He looked out and saw a big flash out to the south. Since this  boom we heard didn’t sound like the normal “Boom”, we wondered if we had heard was perhaps the new Israeli-American developed Iron Dome counter rocket defense system that serves to intercept a  missile. It sounded like  the Iron Dome had gotten that one. As we found out later on while surfing the internet, the Iron Dome had actually gotten two of them. When the Iron Dome intercepts, you see the flash first—it looks like an orange ball—and then you hear the boom after, but it isn’t as loud as an  non-intercepted missile falling.

 Ok, we had  made it till Friday, and figured it was time to have a nice quiet Shabbat. No such luck! If it wasn’t the sirens going off,  it was the phone from our friends outside the area calling to check to see if we were OK. One friend called to ask if we were still planning a trip to Eilat soon, near where the latest string of terror attacks occurred this past Thursday. He said, “It seems like every where you are or plan on going, there are bombs falling”----as if there is some kind of correlation! Seriously, there is actually some truth to what my friend said since I recently was the only U.S. soldier (and Jewish Israeli) who served in Afghanistan, where I heard more than my fair share of boom, boom’s there.

Another friend from Netanya (the previous town we lived in) called and offered their spare room for us to stay in, but we decided we weren’t going. We then received an email from a friend on a Moshav about an hour away who offered a spare room and reminded us the swimming pool was open daily and to bring our swim suits. That was more tempting but, “No we are not going there either.”

 In any event, it was nice to know we were popular this weekend. I guess you could say that the good thing about living in Ashkelon is that it keeps us in touch with our friends! And actually, we have found that people in Ashkelon  are more courteous, tellers and cashiers friendlier and children more respectful of adults , compared to Netanya.

 On Shabbat when one of the sirens went off I said to Ariel, “It’s time to head to the safe room.” He responded, “Why? We don’t normally?”

Another time , I said, "Honey,It's time to head ot the safe room? He responded "I didn't realize you bought safes. !"

 Usually, with the TV going, or us being on the phone or listening to music or being busy with other things, by the time we hear the siren it is too late to take cover.

 But on a very serious note, so far we have been blessed in having been kept safe.However, at least one Israeli man in Be'ersheba was killedand dozens of others were wounded by the more than 80 rockets that pounded southern Israel over the weekend.

Postscript: Sunday -Well at 7:10 this morning I am awaken by the siren, probably not enough time to go to the safe room since by the time it woke me I heard the boom. Wait the siren was still going even after the boom--- that means another one coming, one more boom and the siren is still going off yes another one hit.  I looked out the bedroom window and saw 3 pillars of black smoke to the south.  I prayed that it only hit in an empty field and no one was around.  The worst part is to find out later on the news that some innocent person was killed or maimed and those around were traumatized and will now be jumping a every siren or explosion.     

 When will the world realize that the aid money going to Gaza is being diverted for weapons against us and not food for the children of Gaza?  Watch the news --Gaza is full of  food and produce and more and more people are buying cars. There may be poverty there, but do you see pictures of children and mothers that look like they are starving?  Compare the pictures of these families with the ones from Darfur, the Sudan and areas on the news where there is famine in the land --- this is where aid should be going. Of course for many of those children in Africa it is too late. 

 What the children in Gaza need is and education system that will stop teaching them to hate and praising the suicide bomber as martyrs, and as Golda Meir said so many years ago "until they love their children more than they hate us there will be no peace."

In the meantime, at the time of this posting, the rockets are still falling.