"Maybe the kids should be home practicing putting on their government issue gas masks instead of writing on the ordinance, eh?"
Thanks for your comment.
In another post on this thread, I mentioned that, though I not Jewish, I took modern Hebrew in college. One of my classmates
was called up during the '67 war and ended up rounding up Egyptian prisoners because she was fluent in Egyptian.
The instructor of that class was the wife of a rabbi. Though they were not orthodox, they wished to eventually emigrate to Israel--Aliyah. Because he was not orthodox, he could not be a rabbi in Israel, so when they went on sabbatical, it was alwasy a year to Israel where they would stay on a kibbutz. Rabbi's kibbutz job was in the kitchen, and he always drew the breakfast shift. He was also a great practical joker, and we always thorougly enjoyed it when he would come to class. One morning, while he was in the kitchen, his wife, our instructor, was asleep. Her bed kept shaking. She, in her sleepy state, believed it was rabbi shaking her bed to wake her up. Suddenly, the door banged open and rabbi ran in in his kitchen garb. He was yelling something at her that was difficult for her to understand because she was still sleepy. (I've been in that state, often.) Finally, he ran to their bed, dragged her and the children out of their sacks, and they ran for the slit trenches outside their quarters. There was a Syrian (or Hezbollah)--I don't remember--artillery barrage walking up the hill. It took some time, of course, for all the parents to get the children calmed down, but this is often the life of an Israeli child.
Another time, rabbi and Mrs. went to Russia to visit during the days of the Soviet Union. Some friends convinced them to try to smuggle copies of Tanakh in, which they did. Of course, being complete amateurs, they were caught totally red-handed. The Soviet authorities took them into custody and isolated them for questioning, but the children were with her. To intimidate her, they came in to take the children away. There is probably no more powerful force in the world than that of being a Jewish mama. She backed the Soviet interrogator down and threatened him with the United States of America. There was an entire story about the incident in our local newspaper.
Again, thanks for your comment.
Thank you for your story. I can see some of the commentors arguing that the parents should not raise their children in such an environment. It 's elitist worldview to think that one can, or even should, shelter children so they don't know what evil lurks.
Let them raise them in the soft United States where they'll be safe! Riight. Visiting my aunt in the country, we were going to paint the fence and my aunt said to one of my young female cousins "You can't go out by the road in a bathing suit bottom and t-shirt -- somebody might see you and come sneakin' around." Nobody argued with her.
Look, we're soft. I'm soft. But at least I know it. I try not to THINK soft because I know the day may come, maybe very soon, when we're going to need every ounce of hardness we can muster. It's really disheartening to me when I hear people complaining about such little things as some kids writing graffiti on an arty shell.