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8 HASHALOM October
2016
OUT OF PERSPECTIVE
ISRAEL
L
ike the column one year ago, this piece will have a summer
reflection feel to it. In the last week of August, I found myself
up north on the Moshav of Dalton. The well-known winery
of the same name is next to it. Down to the road to the left
is Safed, and to the right is Meron. Across the road is Jish, the
only village in Israel with a Maronite Christian majority. With
a 40 min drive west, one can see a magnificent sunset at Achziv beach,
and a similar drive to the east will have you lounging around a quiet
part of the Kinneret. So Dalton is well placed in the Northern Galilee,
not right next to anything, but not particularly far from anything either.
Being on school holiday with all Am Yisrael means meeting up with all
types, shapes and sizes. During Chol Hamoed or Chanukah this is more
likely to be secular or dati-leumi familes. But this was August, “Bein
Hazmanim”, and the Haredi high-holiday season was in full swing. This
three week window kicks in after the Tisha B’Av fast and runs to Rosh
Chodesh Elul, when yeshivot return to study.
So while it is common to see stacks of bottled water and packs of
charcoal merchandised outside all shops and petrol stations over this
period, it’s also very common to see all types of black hats enjoying
the sites and attractions alongside everyone else. A water hike in the
Majrassa Nature Reserve and horse-riding near Safed saw a fair sprinkling
of them swimming and saddling up like everyone else. At another water
hike at Ein Tina, upstream along a river bed, a whole tour-group from
Bnei Brak was present, with a similar-sized group present at nearby
Katsrin rafting down the Jordan River. I acquiesced to my children’s
request to go ice-skating, and found myself in the minority at the rink
at Montfort Lake, near Maalot. Ice-skating Haredim was an unusual site
for me, as were the go-karting Haredim on the track next door. And
there were certainly some speed merchants amongst them. I think
I remember at least one Haredi family on hike at Nahal Kaziv, which
reaches the sea south of Rosh Hanikra. I saw none swimming in the
Kinneret, which is not to say they weren’t there. There are separate
swimming beaches to suit their modesty requirement (mainly near
Tiberias). In fact the only place I didn’t see any was on a “night safari”
at Agamon Hula reserve, which is famed as a spot for bird-watching
(but it was quite pricey and with limited space).
But there needn’t have been any need to venture very far from the
cottage in Dalton. Unbeknown to me, the Moshav was inundated
mostly with holidaying Israeli Gur Hassidim during this period. It was
only on Shabbat that I realised to what extent, upon meeting a Vishnitz
Hasid in the park (complete with shtreimel) from Monsey, NY. At first I
thought maybe the preponderance of the ultra-orthodox at Dalton was
due to the fact of a tomb ascribed to Rabbi Yosi Haglili being located
there on a hill overlooking the moshav. He was one of the Tannaim, the
rabbis whose work was compiled in the Mishnah. But an early-morning
run there dispelled this theory, as the tomb appeared lacking any signs
of recent visitors. Later I heard from our host, Yisrael, that the locals
are willing to rent out basic accommodation at a cheap rate, and have
attracted a niche market. It is no intention to convey an “us versus
them” tone in this piece, and as a caveat, I am more familiar than most
with their lifestyle, having attended more smachot than I can remember
courtesy of my wife’s Haredi uncle Dov and his eleven children. Slowly
there is more integration, in the army and in the workplace, but like
the Arab sector, are still classified as a distinct marketing segment in the
Israeli population.
Shortly before Shabbat, I drove over to Jish, to get some innocuous last-
minute things from the supermarket. Sure enough, there was a Haredi
gent there too, his trolley full with household necessities. An unusual
sight during the year as there isn’t too much interaction between the
two biggest minority groups, but this was Bein Hazmanim. Jish, or Gush
Halav in Hebrew, is also mentioned in the Mishnah, and was one of
the strongholds of the First Jewish revolt against the Romans. After
independence it was resettled by Maronite Christians, and today is the
centre of efforts to revive the Aramaic language (there is a primary
school programme sponsored by the Ministry of Education). It is
also well-known for a walking and cycling path that runs for 2.5 km,
connecting Jish to Dalton, known as the ‘Coexistence Trail’. It was
inaugurated to symbolise the relationship between Israel’s Jewish,
Christian and Arab populations, and to serve as a meeting point for the
neighbouring peoples.
Back on the moshav, one morning was spent picking peaches at Yisrael’s
orchards. My co-pickers were from Jish and Bar’am, another Christian
village, further north closer to the Lebanese border. The peaches had
ripened late this summer, and couldn’t be sold timeously to Israeli
supermarkets, which had already signed contracts and purchased from
alternative suppliers. The solution? Sell the stock at reduced prices into
Gaza. At time of writing, Elul is well under way, with the whole Haredi
populace long back studying. Meanwhile, back in Gaza, someone is
likely making a peach crumble or preparing jam with the peaches I
picked at Dalton. This is what I call coexistence.
By David Arkin
Happy&Healthy
NewYear
Clothing for the
whole family
Management and Staff wish
the Community a
We live in very difficult times, with violent attacks,
with mass shootings from San Bernardino to
Orlando. I am unfortunately a victim of terror, a
veteran victim.
We moved to Israel in 1996 from America. Five
years later, on May 8, 2001, my eldest child,
my 13-year-old son Koby, and his friend Yosef
Ish Ran were murdered. In an attempt to help
ourselves and others, my husband and I created
the Koby Mandell Foundation, where we provide
therapy and activities for hundreds of victims of
terrorism in Israel. Along the way I have learned
the following lessons:
1. There is no closure. There is no graduation
certificate for grief. Somebody asked a
friend of mine when I was three years into
mourning, isn’t she over it? No. There is no
closure. But there is what I call “disclosure.”
Survivors can find new friends, new interests
and a new mission.
2. Victims’ families don’t move on. They move
with. With the memories. With the pain.
With the love. And with the will to survive
and bear witness.
3. Trauma isn’t only in the mind. It resides
in the body. Survivors have to work with
their bodies to deal with the pain: Using,
for example, EMDR (eye movement
desensitization and reprocessing) or other
trauma techniques.
4. Survivors don’t overcome. They become.
Somebody else. Because the person they
were before would never have had the
capacity to deal with this emotional horror.
In every trauma there is a shattering and an
opportunity for rebirth.
5. The survivors don’t need to be distracted
from the pain. If they don’t enter the pain,
they will never exit it. What they need is
support.
6. Don’t tell the survivors to “Be strong.” In
fact, once I was speaking to a 16-year-old
friend of Koby’s and when he left me, he
said, “Guard your strength.” I think that’s
more important. Guarding your strength
means take care of yourself, protect
yourself, know what is good and bad for
you.
7. It is not good to be alone. The community
must help these families.
8. Make sure that the children are taken care of.
9. There is a difference between fate and
destiny. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik said that
our job in this world is to transform fate
into destiny. Even living with atrocity can
be directed toward a sense of meaning and
purpose.
10. Those who lose loved ones to terrorism
and other acts of violence are not only
victims. They are survivors. And the way
they survive will determine their own
children’s health. As studies of second- and
third-generation Holocaust survivors have
shown, trauma can be passed on if it is not
processed. This is sometimes referred to
as secondhand or vicarious trauma.
When individuals experience terror and
violence, it also affects our local communities
and our societies at large.The pain and grief,
the trauma and stress, create ripples that affect
everyone, whether they know us personally or
have watched the tragedy on TV. Those who
witness trauma (even on the screen) may be
at risk for vicarious trauma disorders with the
danger of higher stress levels and even PTSD
(post-traumatic stress disorder).
When terror and violence hurt some of us, they
hurt all of us.
PICKINGPEACHES
FORGAZA
Voices: What you should know about terrorism’s impact
By: Sherri Mandell - USA TODAY