‘My room was the bomb shelter.’ Neima Fax ‘20, Midreshet Nishmat, Jerusalem
May 28, 2021
It kind of started when people were deciding whether or not to go to the [Yom Yerushalayim] march in the city area of Jerusalem, and it was a question of whether it was safe or not, and me and a few other people decided that we didn’t want to risk it, so we stayed back and hung out.
Other people went, and after a while my friend and I decided we did want to go check it out because it’s this huge experience that everyone talks about, so I was like we’ll go check it out for five minutes, see what its about and we’ll leave. And right as we were leaving we heard really loud booming sounds outside. I was yelling, “What is that, what is that?” and I was like: we’re not going, we’re staying here.
Then all of the sudden all of these texts roll in on all of these group chats saying, “If you’re at the march, find the madricha [group leader],” and everyone at the march was on the floor putting their hands on their heads, until they were able to move again.
Then they said again: If you’re at the march, find a madricha; if you’re on a bus go to Nishmat; and if you’re at Nishmat go to a bomb shelter. And my room was the bomb shelter, which was pretty lucky. So a few of my friends came in here and we locked ourselves in and closed the window, and since then it’s been pretty tense. There haven’t been any rockets directly near us, but it’s just really tense right now.
We’re not supposed to go far to get food or go shopping, and because we live near an Arab village, we generally have good relations with them; [so] we walked to the makolet [market]. And you could just feel in the air where you didn’t know if the people walking next to you were your friends or not.
It was scary because usually I make an effort to smile and be friendly, because they’re my neighbors and I want to be friends with them, but I was just scared. It’s also scary knowing all of my friends in Tel Aviv had rockets raining there. And you just go about your day, it’s just everyone is stressed out and we’re trying not to think about it. Because we live near an Arab village, we generally have good relations with them, and we walked to the makolet [market] and you could just feel in the air where you didn’t know if the people walking next to you were your friends or not.
We had the head of the midrasha come and speak to everyone about the safety protocols, and he spoke to us so we wouldn’t feel like we were in danger, and he showed us what to do if the siren goes off — where we should run, how much time we have. We’re lucky: we have a minute-and-a-half, but other places have a few seconds because it’s closer to where they’re being fired from.
It’s only been once for us and it was around 20 minutes from the siren to getting messages it was safe to come out. Different people were texting saying, “Oh my window isn’t closing, can I run to someone else’s bomb shelter?” So we had a few people in here, and we were all a little tense.
I was mostly wondering if my friends were ok, my friends at the march. We have an Israeli Midrasha and we take classes with [Israelis], and our Israeli roommates were looking at us and kind of laughing at us because for them it’s so normal, but for us, we’ve come in with this fear we’ve never experienced before. It’s not just you see the Stand With Us posts on Instagram, but this could affect you personally. I felt that we were safe, but I was mostly just scared for my friends closer to where the riots were happening.
I feel like this year has been so crazy this year in general because of Corona, but the stress is completely different. It’s towards the end of the year now and you want to focus on yourself, and push through the last few weeks and … use the time well, but then there’s just this stress that you know you need to take care of yourself and rest instead of pushing yourself to go out, because it’s not safe to go out.
But, I think, there’s something like this every year. I don’t know if it’s to this extent, but I have to say the hardest part of all of this is going on social media. I think a lot of my friends agree with me. We just see false posts with misinformation about Israel, and it’s the most distressing thing. Because we spend so much time learning about the conflict, and we live here and go on tours and talk to people who are living in it — and then you see one post from somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about saying that Israel is the oppressor and they’re committing genocide.
And it’s so frustrating, because I’m sitting in a bomb shelter, and someone tells me I’m the oppressor, and that frustration is just like — you feel like one voice against so many, and a lot of us have deleted Instagram, because it’s just too much to handle to see your favorite celebrities and some of your friends villainizing you in a way where they don’t even know what they’re talking about. And you wish you sould say something but they’re just gonna say, “Oh, you’re just playing devil’s advocate, oh there’s not two sides,” and it’s so frustrating.
Being in Israel for that wave of social media “activism” is interesting, because I feel like it’s a bit of a safe haven to be among the Israelis, and I feel more at home — I feel like I can be in the Beit Midrash, and this is real, and these are the people who care. The people on social media just do one post and forget about it. Whereas here it’s like these are people who are gonna commit their lives to advocating for Jews and Israel and who live it every single day instead of thinking they’re being a good person.
I think that’s one of the biggest things. It’s just a question of like, people who are making aliyah, how does this make them feel about it? And I was talking to my friend and we were saying how on the one hand I would feel safer in America because there are no rockets, but on the other hand I feel more at home in Israel with people who are going through what I’m going through.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that when you’re in a state of stress like this, your opinions about issues that you felt really confident about change drastically, because you feel the fear in a completely different way.
Interviewed for the Boiling Point by Caroline Kboudi.