Love of the Land: Purim Recollections: The Real Heroes of Sderot

Purim Recollections: The Real Heroes of Sderot

Anav Silverman
Sderot Media Center
04 March '10

“The next Megillah reading will be at 6:30 pm sharp,” said a voice on the intercom.

I was at the Jerusalem Central Bus Station. It was the eve of Purim and I had just arrived to the station from Ashkelon. The rain was pouring outside and I knew there was no way I would make it in time to the Megilah reading at the synagogue I usually attend near my home.

So I decided I would stay for the reading at the station, thinking to myself-not my ideal location but still--what other bus station in the world would offer unique opportunity on Purim?

I found the synagogue on the third floor which was quickly becoming full of people. Chabadniks, Breslavim, Haredim, Israeli soldiers, women in pants and men in payot. Religious, secular and traditional Jews were all gathering together to hear the story of our Jewish heroes from two thousand years ago.

Five minutes left before Megillah reading and not enough Megillahs to go around.

I looked around me. We were all strangers but there was that familiar feeling of family in the air. We were all here, all united in one purpose-- to recall our story of national survival and strength over two thousand years ago.

It’s an ongoing story for our people and in Israel today the situation is no different.

I had come back to Jerusalem after spending the day in Sderot where I work for Sderot Media Center, a social media organization dedicated to bringing the voices of Sderot residents to the attention of the global community. As a media center, we have made many acquaintances and friends in the Sderot community, all of whom share survival stories from rocket attacks.

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Love of the Land: Purim Recollections: The Real Heroes of Sderot

Love of the Land: Sderot--a return to normalcy?

Sderot--a return to normalcy?

Anav Silverman
Sderot Media Center
17 February '10

Health professionals weigh in on the state of Sderot civilians post-Operation Cast Lead

Although news reports have frequently described the situation in Sderot as back to normal-with real estate having gone up 20 to 30 percent, 1,400 new homes approved for construction, and families returning to the city-behind the headlines the impact of previous rocket attacks are still hammering at the population.

Hila Barzilai, the director of the Sderot Resilience Center (Merkaz Hosen) recently told Sderot Media Center that in the past six months following Operation Cast Lead, hundreds of Sderot children have turned to the resilience center for therapy treatment.

“These kids come to us with their parents to seek therapy for the trauma built up from years of rocket attacks,” says Barzilai. "These problems did not just begin post-Operation Cast Lead. We are talking about eight years of constant rocket attacks whose psychological effects are now emerging during this period of calm."

Over 364 new patients arrived to the resilience center six months after Operation Cast Lead, according to Barzilai. "We do everything possible to limit the long-lasting affects of these rocket attacks but it is a long and drawn-out process.”

The average recovery period for a child can take up to eight months or more, said Barzilai. One of the challenges of trauma patients face in the recovery process are the sporadic rocket attacks that still continue to hit Sderot and the western Negev region.

Barzilai notes in frustration that "it takes one rocket attack to destroy any progress in the patient's therapy. The siren alert will trigger the flashbacks of terror and fear in the child or adult, which means that the therapy process has to begin anew."

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Love of the Land: Sderot--a return to normalcy?

Love of the Land: I guess our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail

I guess our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail

Jacob Shrybman
Sederot Media Center
16 February '10

When the news of the New Israel Fund (NIF) paying around $8 million to organizations that provided the Goldstone Report with all its condemnations of Israel, it was clear that the “New Israel” desired by the New Israel Fund is one with more than 9 years of consistent rocket fire.

Our organization, Sderot Media Center (SMC), with a yearly budget of close to $200,000, worked tirelessly on a formal report that was requested by the Goldstone Commission itself, which encompassed the impact of the rocket fire on the residents of the Sderot region. We sent this formal report accompanied by photographs and videos to depict to this UN committee, which did not visit Sderot, what it is like to live under either daily rocket fire or the threat of daily rocket fire over the course of then eight years. The Goldstone Committee then flew our director, Noam Bedein, to the UN Headquarters in Geneva to give a 30-minute presentation/testimony in front of the committee on this daily reality lived in Sderot.

The New Israel Fund paid around $8 million to organizations that provided information to the Goldstone Report. As a cited provider of information for the Goldstone Report, I guess our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail?

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Love of the Land: I guess our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail

Love of the Land: Israel on Canadian college campuses; an up-hill battle

Israel on Canadian college campuses; an up-hill battle

Noam Bedein
Sderot Media Center
04 February '10

Presenting the human side of Sderot, Israel and the western Negev would seem innocuous enough, as it is the only region in the western world where rockets and missiles target a civilian population. The people of southern Israel have their own story to share.

Yet after a 13-day coast-to-coast visit to Canadian college campuses, organized by Hillel Canada and the CIJA umbrella organization of Canadian Jewry, it would seem that even Sderot residents must fight for their legitimate right to live in the land of Israel.

The purpose of this trip was to balance the after-effects of the “Gaza narrative”, exactly one year after Israel's 21-day Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

On Canadian college campuses, the challenge became to justify the very existence of the city of Sderot.

This was best exemplified by an article published in a Winnipeg student newspaper, penned by a Palestinian-Canadian sociology student. This student amazingly attacked the credibility of another student for sharing her experiences visiting Sderot. This student had described her shock at the ’15 second’ alarm, known as the “Color Red,” which warns Sderot residents of only a few seconds to escape to safety from the time the missile is fired from Gaza to the time it explodes in Sderot.

The Palestinian student showed little sympathy for Sderot under fire:



“ 'Sderot’ is actually a settlement on the Palestinian land of Najd, an illegally occupied territory stolen from Palestinians. It is a town created on the ashes of an ethnically cleansed and defaced Palestinian village....You want to talk about ‘terror’? Najd’s Palestinian villagers were expelled on May 13th, 1948 by Israeli forces before Israel was even declared a state.”

Here is a well-educated student born in Canada, with Palestinian descent, that calls the Israeli town of Sderot an illegitimate “settlement” constructed on the ruins of an Arab village abandoned during the 1948 war. Indeed this same student makes no acknowledgement of the historical fact that between 1951-1953, the Jews that settled in Sderot were from among the 850,000 Jews expelled in masses from Arab countries in the Middle East. During and after the 1948 war, 670,000 Palestinian Arab refugees were fled or forced from their homes.

Indeed, this Canadian-Palestinian college student was not the first to rationalize the thousands of aerial attacks and terrorizing of Sderot and southern Israel civilians.

Love of the Land: Israel on Canadian college campuses; an up-hill battle

Love of the Land: From shelled to sheltered: Sderot's new reality

From shelled to sheltered: Sderot's new reality

Jeff Abramowitz
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Sderot Media Center
24 December 09

Sderot, Israel (DPA) - This winter, Eli Asayag has opened the windows of his cafe. A year ago they were tightly shuttered, hopeful protection against rockets that were raining down onto southern Israel and especially on Sderot, located about three kilometres from the Gaza Strip.

Sderot residents are breathing easier today, 12 months after last winter's war between Israel and Gaza militants. Israel had launched the campaign after years of rocket fire from Gaza on its southern towns and villages.

However, even though rocket fire is no longer a feature of daily life in Sderot and other towns and villages close to the Gaza Strip, it is not yet a distant memory. Rockets are still launched from the salient, but in far, far fewer numbers.

"This last year was one of the calmest in the last 10, possibly even 20 years. Only 284 missiles were launched at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, compared to 3,200 in 2008," says Noam Bedein, who heads an NGO in Sderot.

"We feel the conflict has not ended 100 per cent, but we do feel a difference," notes Sderot supermarket owner Yakov Dahan.

"At last our children can go out onto the streets, to join in outdoor activities," he says.

Yet for all the palpable sense of relief residents say they feel after Israel's offensive, the trauma of the past decade, when a total of 12,000 rockets were launched at southern Israel, remains.

(TY to :"Israel Patriot" for Youtube suggestion)


Residents still remember the fear that the constant threat of rocket attacks used to bring.

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Love of the Land: From shelled to sheltered: Sderot's new reality

Love of the Land: A Year After the Gaza War: The Forgotten Children of Sderot

A Year After the Gaza War: The Forgotten Children of Sderot

Stephanie L. Fried
PajamasMedia.com
24 December 09

It’s been a year since Operation Cast Lead, and from the media silence, one would assume that all is quiet on the Gaza/Israel front. There’s been scant reportage of projectile launches coming out of Gaza into Sderot and southern Israel. That’s probably because people aren’t dying.

But a quick call to Sderot Media Center sheds light on the situation as it truly stands. There have been 283 missiles, rockets, and mortar rounds launched into Israel since last January. And almost every time there’s a launch, air-raid sirens sound to warn residents that they have 15 seconds before touchdown to take cover in bomb shelters.

Since 2001, the city of Sderot has been hit by 10,000 missiles launched by Palestinian militants based in the Hamas-run Gaza enclave. The entire town has suffered but those most traumatized are the children, whose nightmares return every time a siren sounds.

From toddlers to teenagers, more than 80% of Sderot’s 8000 kids are living proof of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many of them wet their beds, suffer bad dreams, suck their thumbs, experience chronic anxiety, sleep in their parents’ beds, and exhibit lingering physical and psychological manifestations that accompany life in an environment where they have had to scramble for cover in life-and-death situations.

Until now, they’ve had therapy resources available via the town’s Resilience Center Treatment Clinic. The center staff treat the kids’ symptoms and guides parents on coping with their children’s trauma. The center also serves as a safe haven.

But recently the news came that the Resilience Center Treatment Clinic, which is dependent on donations and subsidies, is in jeopardy of shutting down. There’s simply not enough money to keep it going. Rocket and missile barrages minus casualties have a funny way of turning formerly exuberant private donors into “we had to re-prioritize our spending” withholders. The Israeli government has also had to re-prioritize what comes from its coffers.

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Love of the Land: A Year After the Gaza War: The Forgotten Children of Sderot

Love of the Land: Sderot Rally for Hope: Stop Rocket Attacks on Civilians!

Sderot Rally for Hope: Stop Rocket Attacks on Civilians!

On Dec 31, the Gaza Freedom March, a massive rally organized by the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza, will convene in Cairo. Over 1000 participants from 42 countries along with Israeli “peace” groups will protest against the Siege of Gaza and mark a year to Operation Cast Lead.

Supporters of the Gaza march include Roger Walters (Pink Floyd), Nobel laureates, writers, film producers, British and Canadian Members of Parliaments, and more.

In response to the Gaza Freedom March, Sderot and residents of southern Israel are leading the: Sderot Rally for Hope: Stop Rocket Attacks on Civilians!

Organized by the Sderot Media Center and in coalition with the Sderot Municipality, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sapir College, IDC Herzlyia, WUJS, Eretz Nehederet, Bnei Akiva Olami, Sderot Alon Madaim Elementary School, the march will convene at the Yad Mordechai Junction at 13:00. A Knesset Minister and Sderot municipality officials will be present as area residents, international students, diplomatic officials, and Israeli youth march to the Erez Crossing, where a ceremony for civilian victims of terror around the world will be held at 13:45.

The rally will highlight Sderot and southern Israelis' desire for a new decade of peace and a message of hope for residents of Gaza and citizens around the globe.

Rally Outline:

13:00: Marchers convene at Yad Mordechai Junction, depart by foot.
13:45: Reach Erez Crossing where Knesset Minister and Sderot municipality officials will address rally.
14:00: Candle Lighting Ceremony for victims of terror and civilian targets around the world.
14:30: Music Performance and Sderot girl reads letter to Gaza residents.
15:00: Release of white balloons with messages from Sderot children to Gaza.

Your participation in this march is crucial to counter the anti-Israel, anti-peace march into Gaza on the same day, and to show the world that we, Jews and non-Jews, Israelis and non-Israelis, desire peace and an end to terror in Israel and worldwide.

-Sderot Media Center Team
sderotinfo@gmail.com

For more details: contact:
Anav Silverman: 0528607696
Meital Ohayon: 0542508915
Noam Bedein: 0545598977

Love of the Land: Sderot Rally for Hope: Stop Rocket Attacks on Civilians!