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Debbie Weissman
award-winning Jewish educator

The Iranians attack for Rosh Hashanah: A Jerusalem story

I live in south Jerusalem. I’ve lived here for 46 out of my 52 years in Israel.

A woman from our synagogue (Kehillat Yedidya, in the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Bak’a) lost her mother. The funeral was just a few days before Rosh Hashanah and it was going to be a short Shiva, curtailed by the holiday. So, on Tuesday evening, the night before the festival, I decided to pay her a Shiva call. She lives not far from me, although it’s in a different neighborhood. It’s a 5-minute bus ride. So, I took the bus from my home and then proceeded to walk to the apartment.

But it was dark, there’s a lot of construction going on and I hadn’t been there in a while, so I got a little lost. There was a man in the street from whom I started to ask directions. He said, “You have to go to the neighborhood bomb shelter” and pointed me in the right direction.

I went into the bomb shelter, with people I didn’t know. No one even looked vaguely familiar. There were, I think, 16 adults, mostly young, 4 children and 6 dogs.

We didn’t know how long we’d have to be there—minutes? Hours? Days? My phone was still working, so I called my sister in Tel Aviv, who was also in a shelter. One of my nephews, who has become a Chabadnik—I suppose it happens in the best of families—called me just to say Shana Tova. I told both of them where I was, although I didn’t exactly know myself. My battery was running low and I didn’t have a charger with me, nor was the Wi-Fi working.

I started to fantasize about having to spend a long time there and not being able to get home. What if we had to be there over Rosh Hashanah? We had toilets, with no toilet paper. We didn’t have food, although we did have plenty of water, which some of the kind people offered me. They also gave me a chair. I started thinking about our hostages in Gaza, who had been held captive at that point for 361 days. And I started to get nervous after half an hour. How could I get through without my medicines, including my sleeping pills? I didn’t even have a book to read, let alone a holiday prayer book.  What about a Shofar?

The people in the shelter behaved impressively. No one panicked. Parents were playing with their children. No one was rude.

There was only one other person in the room besides me who could be described as a senior citizen. He was an elderly gentleman who seemed to have dementia, being taken care of by a woman, who might have been a Filipina. He wanted or needed something that she couldn’t give him, and she was trying to explain to him that they weren’t at home.

After about an hour, we were told we could leave. The Filipina, who for some reason did have reception on her phone, showed me the announcement. When I stood up to leave, a young man came over and asked me if I wanted a ride home. I jumped at the chance.

Other people, by then knowing that I wasn’t from their neighborhood, also asked after my welfare. Everyone was polite, wishing me and each other Shana Tova.

In the car, I had a short conversation with the man who took me home. I asked him what he does for a living. He told me he’s an educational psychologist and a teacher. I mentioned to him that I used to work in teacher training. It turns out that he’s a recent graduate of the Kerem Institute for Teacher Training, where I used to be the director! We had a very pleasant encounter.

What started out somewhat traumatically ended up being pleasant and reassuring and an example of what great people so many Israelis are.

I told one of the young women that the last time I was in a bomb shelter was during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, also for about an hour or so. She said, “Once in 50 years; that’s not so bad.”

About the Author
A resident of Jerusalem since 1972, Dr. Debbie Weissman is a retired Jewish educator. She served for two terms as President of the International Council of Christians and Jews and has written “Memoirs of a Hopeful Pessimist: A Life of Activism through Dialogue,” published by Urim\K’tav.