‘One more crazy thing.’ Yoetzet Halacha Atara Segal, Israel Advisor, Modi’in
August 14, 2021
Yoetzet Halacha Ms. Atara Segal, who taught Judaic Studies and AP Statistics at Shalhevet for nine years, moved with most of her family (including Head of School Rabbi Ari Segal) to Israel in 2020.
Keira Beller for the Boiling Point: How have you been feeling during all of the unrest in Israel?
Yoetzet Halacha Atara Segal: For me, by far the worst part is it’s so disappointing that people who lived together for years — like acquaintances, which is kind of like a low bar, or friends, like people who really felt like their Arab neighbors were their friends — for them to be these neighbors and take part in pogroms [mob attacks], that is the worst part. We know Hamas is praising violence. We know Hamas is not interested in peace. We know we don’t have a partner in peace and we have to deal with them however we have to deal with them. But, we always kind of pinned our hope on our neighbors, our friends, the people that we see every day, who we interact with on a professional basis.
My dentist is Arab, my carpenter is Arab. I don’t have friends… I don’t live in a neighborhood [with Arabs]. But I definitely have acquaintances, and I have people that I interact with on a regular basis who are Arab. And the hope was — not ‘was,’ the hope is — that these are people that we could really see humanity and our kids could hang out together and we could interact with them. And again, for sure not everyone — the fact that there’s not a significant number of people who turned their back on their relationships.
Now, we’ll say Arabs but of course, there are some Jews participating in pogroms and anti-Arab hate also, which I condemn — all of it. That is the worst part. Because there’s so much effort on the part of so many people put into creating friendships that were… friendships, and there’s gonna have to be a lot of work rebuilding that trust. And that to me is the worst by far. It’s really, really sad. It makes me really sad. We know Hamas is not interested in peace… But we always kind of pinned our hope on our [Arab] neighbors, our friends, the people that we see every day, who we interact with on a professional basis.
BP: So, how often have you been hearing sirens?
Yoetzet Segal: We hear sirens about every day but they’re not the sirens that are for us. I think we ourselves have only gotten two or three sirens. We hear the sirens from probably Ashkelon, or Ashdod. Last night, there were a lot of rockets sent to Tel Aviv, and we could see the Iron Dome intercepting rockets over Tel Aviv.
BP: That’s crazy.
Yoetzet Segal: Yeah it’s pretty crazy. We’re blessed that we have an Iron Dome installation like a 10-minute drive from our house.
BP: What is it like to hear the sirens and run to the bomb shelter? What goes through your mind when you first hear the alarm and as you wait it out?
Yoetzet Segal: Honestly, because we’re not in a super high-risk area, I feel less panicked than I probably would if I lived in like Ashdod or Ashkelon. And honestly, I’m so proud of Israel for the Iron Dome and I’m amazed that we have such good protection. The technological innovations between the Coronavirus vaccine and the Iron Dome — it’s miraculous what we’ve been able to accomplish just from the technology this year. It’s really amazing.
BP: What do you do in the bomb shelter? What have you been doing?
Yoetzet Segal: We don’t stay there that long. We only have to be there for 10 minutes. The assumption is that it takes 10 minutes for the rocket to get wherever it’s going and the Iron Dome to intercept it, so you only have to stay for 10 minutes. I think there was one night, maybe, that the kids slept in the mamad [the safe room in their house] so we wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth.
That being said, my friends with little kids, their kids are sleeping in the bomb shelters because they don’t want to have to wake them up.
BP: How do you know when it’s all clear?
Yoetzet Segal: There are apps. So, you just look at the app, and the app tells you when the warning starts, and you stay in 10 minutes past the warning.
BP: What’s the app called?
Yoetzet Segal: There are a few different ones. There’s the official government one that’s called Home Front Command. I mean you can go to the App Store and look up like, “Red Alert.” So I use one that’s called Cumta. And on Shabbat, there’s this radio station that’s quiet. There are these radio stations that have nothing going on — like they’re not broadcasting except when there’s an alert and they start to broadcast. So some people just leave that on all Shabbat. I personally didn’t because it’s just too many alerts. I figured I’ll just hear the alarm.
There are some people who have a website you can leave on. It’s so techy, it’s hilarious. You choose the region that you want and it only alerts you for that region. So you just set your city, and they just send you an alert. In the beginning, we never heard sirens, so we heard quieter sirens, and then we were like, “Oh, that must be the sirens.” And then we heard the actual sirens, which were much louder because they were the sirens for our area, and we’re like, “Oh, that’s our siren.”
BP: How does all of this make you feel about having moved to Israel?
Yoetzet Segal: Super proud. Like, the honest truth is, I keep on saying it’s so hard and it’s terrible and devastating, but at the end of the day, the Israeli army is committed to protecting us. There’s not even a question. We’ve been in a lot of precarious situations this year, like thank God nothing serious, but between Covid, and the riots, and Meron, and this — of all of them, I feel like the most cared for by the Israeli army and the security apparatus. And just the Jewish people in general. I’ve been reaching out to all my friends from all over and it’s really nice to have people reaching out. “How are you doing?” “What can we do to help you?” It’s really gratifying.