Living with Fear. How does it affect people?

I often wondered, living in the UK, how Israelis manage on a day to day basis with the constant threats to their safety. (and I am not just talking about the roads here, readers). With rockets raining down on around 50% of the population, everybody is affected in some way.

As an Israeli citizen sitting here, one of the people, I will be totally honest with you.

I don’t read the newspapers.

I don’t watch the news.

I don’t read it online either.

Why, you might ask? Don’t you need to know what’s going on? (nope – that’s what Husband is for. He screens my knowledge)

I grew up in a News family. The news was constantly on, I was never shielded from it. Years later I still find watching news programmes traumatising and so my personal coping mechanism is avoid avoid avoid. So far this has served me very well.

Israelis are much the same. They seem to split into 2 factions. There are a small group who seem to know what’s going on all the time (they are either a) olim or b) know somebody in the army) or like me, the stick-the-head-in-the-sand types. Either way, we all just get on with it. What else can you do?

Besides, who wants to hear about major world leaders that tell us to have tea with terrorists? That is not my idea of entertainment. I am much happier watching A Cabbie Abroad. Great series. We love Mason McQueen here. What a lovely guy.

Sorry, am getting side-tracked.

If you don’t know, we up North are so far lucky enough not to have heard any sirens. My kids have not yet been dragged into a shelter, although that could all change since we have to travel to Jerusalem next week. Do we cancel? What do we tell you children? Do we tell them about the war? How much detail?

Long ago, after watching Life Is Beautiful, and being inspired by a father’s determination to shield his son from the horrors of the Nazis, I made the decision that no child should have his/her childhood spoiled unnecessarily. Nobody should have to suffer – even in miserable circumstances positivity and distraction can go a long way. So we keep to a need-to-know basis. My 5 year old was told in gan about the lynching of 3 boys from Gush Etzion. He knows about bad people. Presumably the ganenet decided it was best if they were told in minimal detail from a safe place, rather than hearing it elsewhere. My children know that their yeshuv street party was cancelled because they found the 3 boys the night before and nobody felt much life celebrating. They know that mummy had a huge surplus of food, and that we had to sell it from our house to avoid the issue of bal tashchit (needless waste). We advertised what we were doing, explained we would be donating some of the proceeds to a relevant victims of terror charity and people came along and supported us. Whether it was because they wanted to help out or because they were at a loose end we don’t know, but we were very grateful.

My children also know that rockets are falling, they know the army is doing their best to stop it and that some of their friend’s daddy’s are off helping out. They know if they hear the siren they have to listen to mummy or daddy. They are the lucky ones. I have family members in Bet Shemesh who have single handedly (with the husband away on business) had to drag 5 children down several flights of stairs to a shelter in the middle of the night. Horrific. We wish them well. Goodness knows how parents – and ganenets (or rather camp leaders at this time of year) deal with the level of responsibility entrusted to them. These people are survivors. They are in the midst of a war, whatever the media may currently be saying.

I wonder – how does this affect the psyche of the people? What is it like to be a child growing up in a war zone? Maybe not as dramatic as some of the mass genocides the last century has seen – the Holocaust, The Killing Fields, Rwanda…. but rather a constant unpredictable background threat. And now this. How does it affect the pace of the country, the attitudes, people’s mental health??

This particular blog spends a lot of time looking at people’s attitudes to childcare & education, simply because of the time in my life when I made aliyah. I often wonder at how parents here are so non-stop – so busy – nobody rests – somehow even recreation in this country is hard work! And now I am starting to see why. If you keep busy, you don’t have to think. Or perhaps you just feel more in control.

There is an old saying that about sums it all up.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.