When David Goldberg drifted off to sleep at night, the sounds of the nearby Israeli air base enveloped him. Jets roared off into the Mediterranean night, and the sonic booms of Lebanon-bound warplanes reverberated throughout the desert.
The booming of supersonic jets all night long was about as close as the San Francisco teen came to experiencing war in Israel firsthand. But while the Let’s Go: Israel participant wasn’t running for bomb shelters or dodging rockets, he and his tripmates were keenly aware of what was happening.
“For me, it was very surreal. It was hard to believe this was going on. The last thing my two best friends said to me [prior to leaving for Israel] was, ‘Don’t get bombed.’ They said it jokingly, but, you know … ” said the incoming junior at University High in San Francisco.
The monthlong trip to Israel, sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay and S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education, concluded with emotional teens meeting their parents at local airports on July 26.
Maggie Polachek had been lying awake at nights prior to her trip, but had no such problems in Israel. The trip’s itinerary couldn’t have been better planned by a psychic. After snaking through the north of Israel and Haifa, the teens headed south just hours ahead of the rocket barrage.
“We were in a good place at a good time,” said Polachek, an incoming junior at San Anselmo’s Sir Francis Drake High.
“I felt completely safe wherever we were. When my mom called me, she told me she was completely fine. Apparently she was lying to make me feel better. She was very freaked out and she told me that after I got home.”
While Maggie’s mother, Lori, and others watched the 24-hour news channels, the trip participants didn’t have time to sit in front of the TV. So the angst that builds up from watching the same video clips of exploding buildings every 20 minutes didn’t affect the teens.
Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan of Congregation Emanu-El had a number of simultaneous thoughts when, in the midst of a Spanish vacation, he saw a Spanish-language newspaper headline regarding “La guerra in el Oriente Medio.”
Wolf-Prusan wasn’t just worried about his son, Noah, a trip participant. He also was anxious for the 32 young Emanu-El congregants on the trip, all the parents he’s been reassuring for years, and all the Israelis he knows.
“There’s a whole list of worst-nightmare scenarios for parents. When war breaks out in Israel and your child is there, that’s a new experience, right?” he said.
Like other parents j. contacted, Wolf-Prusan had high praise for the trip’s organizers, who sent out one or more emails a day detailing the children’s whereabouts and the safety precautions that had been taken. Wolf-Prusan added his two cents to the group email list, noting that in times of crisis, it’s easier to be in Israel than outside of it (as the television-watching parents could attest to).
Trip participant Goldberg agrees, noting that neither he nor anyone else in the group was subjected to a “life or death” situation.
“We were in the middle of the Negev or Eilat when we found out [about the war]. We were far away from where missiles hit. And if there were missiles going off around the country, then I would have been more eager to come home. But because we weren’t in obvious danger, it was really important to stay and support the country,” he said.
“Every place we went, people thanked us for staying in Israel.”
Polachek added that she “experienced things that were not-so-great, but I had one of the best times of my life.”
And Wolf-Prusan was ecstatic to have his kid and all the other kids back safely.
“The whole group looked great. I was very happy to see the whole group safe and sound, but at the same time, I was wishing I didn’t have to be so happy,” he said.
“I’m happy knowing [my son] is home, but knowing he’s safe doesn’t mean the situation has ended or been resolved. My concerns are all still there — but one.”