Feeling the War

Until today, if someone asked me if I was scared about the war I would say no. It felt like the "war" in America was contained completely on the television. But living a peaceful life in Israel became a dream of mine, something I understand that we must fight for.

In Ulpan (a class dedicated to teaching students how to speak Hebrew) we always learn many things, about history of and life in Israel. But today I learned something stronger than that. An alarm went off in Jerusalem, but I dismissed it as an ambulance until I saw the face of our Israeli instructor. "That isn't an ambulance--get under the table." A few people grabbed their phones as they crawled to the safest place in the room. Calling the director or family members, everyone had the same intention: find out if we were getting bombed in Jerusalem.

When the sirens stop, we all move slowly back to our seats. Stunned, the students begin to question the teacher about the war and the threat to Jerusalem. My chavrusa (the girl I work one-on-one with to translate texts) can't sit down; she questions the teacher with nothing but stress coming from her lips. In the middle of a sentence, she grabs her shoulder in pain. I take her outside. All I can think is that this is the beginning of a panic attack. As I calm her down all I can say is, "We can't let them take over our lives. Leaving is what they want us to do, so they can take over our land for their own."

I am reminding myself as much as I am telling her.

The Director of the school comes in to class a little later. The alarm was a mistake. There are no bombs coming to Jerusalem. Yet. At lunch we receive instructions on what to do if we hear the alarm again, G-d Forbid.