The most heartbreaking part of Nirit Hazan’s summer trip to Israel was that the day before her planned visit to her 96-year-old grandmother in Nahariyah, Katyushas struck. Now she doesn’t know when, or if, she’ll see her grandmother again.
“If it was just me, I would have gone, but with three kids it was impossible,” said Hazan, who returned to Cupertino late last month.
“Just after I hung up with my grandmother, I heard the announcement that people [in the Upper Galilee] should find shelters, and the area I was in was in the risky zone,” she said. The family decided to head south.
But they couldn’t return to her parents’ kibbutz a mile from the Gaza Strip. That area, where soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped the day after she left the region, was also in the risky zone.
For Israelis living in Silicon Valley, as well as many American supporters, visits to the Jewish homeland are an integral part of summer. But during the last few weeks, things didn’t always go as planned.
Just before the war began, Rotem Pearlson was in Rosh Pina, near the Lebanon border, with her three children, ages 9, 6 and 3. She was planning a 70th birthday celebration for her father, scheduled to take place in Achziv, a beach resort just south of Nahariya.
“We were supposed to have a huge reunion, with people from all over the world,” said Pearlson, who returned to Palo Alto last week. But Katyusha attacks led to a change of venue and a “mini-reunion” in southern Israel.
It was not the vacation Pearlson and her husband, Gil Beth, had planned. Evacuating from northern Israel, they spent three days with one family, three days with another, and also stayed in a hotel in Tel Aviv.
It was difficult explaining the situation to their children.
“Because Palo Alto is not a dangerous place to live in, their imagination is very narrow,” she said. “They heard that there were bombs, but they didn’t see TV and obviously don’t read newspapers. They kept asking where are we going tomorrow and why do we have to move every three days.”
The Hazans also found unplanned moves to be hard on the children. “When they started to announce that everybody should be in the shelter, we decided to pack everything,” said Itsik Hazan. “We left [the Upper Galilee] and moved south. We tried to explain to the kids that we were going to the safety zone.”
Ola Joffe, a Russian-born Israeli who lives in Palo Alto, visited family in Israel with her husband and three children, arriving six days after the war began.
“The vacation in the Golan Heights was scratched. The guide they had hired was called up for military service,” said Joffe, reached by Internet phone at her sister’s home in Rishon L’Tzion.
“Unfortunately, all our plans for travel had been canceled,” she said. “We spent one day in Jerusalem with the kids. All the rest of the time was spent with close friends and family. It wasn’t possible to do anything except being glued to the news.”
The family had planned to celebrate Joffe’s “round-number” birthday in Israel. “But when we arrived, I just didn’t want to have any celebration. It was not relevant,” she said. “I just had a desire to be close to the family.”
However, Joffe did visit Kiryat Shmona, the beleaguered city in the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Upper Galilee partner region. Joffe, who has been on JCF’s Israel and Overseas Committee, met with the federation’s representative there and used her Russian-language skills to assist those in need.
Caron Tabb, who arrived home in San Mateo on Tuesday, Aug. 15, said she had a good trip despite the situation. Three days after war broke out, she left for Israel to visit family with her two children, ages 11 and 8, and her husband. Tabb, an Israeli, is the director of the JCF’s Living Bridge programs and Israel Travel Initiative.
She stayed away from northern Israel, visiting her parents in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv. However, the family did visit the home of Tabb’s sister, not far from Haifa, “which turned out to be a bad mistake. The sirens went off and a Katyusha fell not far from my sister’s house, aiming for an air force base,” she said. When a third siren went off, the children were playing in a nearby park and had to run home.
“It was extremely frightening, and your sense of safety is really gone,” she said. “But on the other hand, we had an extraordinary month. Israel is so lively, so happening. You go to the beach in Tel Aviv and it is packed. The restaurants are full. You see helicopters and F-16s [above the beach] and everybody waves to the pilots, and when they come back, everybody stops and waves again.
“Even in such difficult times, Israel is so vibrant and has so much to offer.”
Ellen Ratner, an educator who lives in Los Altos and visits Israel every summer, also enjoyed her trip. The day before war broke out, she was visiting friends in Kibbutz Sasa, on the northern border. She went birding by herself in an area overlooking Lebanon.
“We had already left when I received a phone call from my aunt that there was a war,” said Ratner, who proceeded south, as planned, visiting her aunt and cousins in Kibbutz Revivim, near Beersheva. She also visited Jerusalem, “walked around, ate in restaurants.”
“I felt completely safe the whole time I was in Israel,” said Ratner, who is a member of AIPAC and a board member of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists. However, she did phone her elderly mother in Florida every day to reassure her.
“I think that now is the time we need to support Israel,” Ratner said. “We need to support the economy and we need to go and visit. Our family in Israel is suffering and it’s our responsibility to support them in any way we can.”
Orna Morad of Palo Alto, an Israeli Hebrew teacher who co-led Congregation Beth Am’s trip to Israel in April, voiced similar thoughts. She will return next month to visit family. Originally, she was slated to go to Italy as well, but now isn’t sure about the Italy part.
“I’m trying to lengthen my stay [in Israel] because I feel helpless here and I’m hoping to find some way that I can be of help there,” said Morad, whose parents live in Tel Aviv.
Morad has cousins in the northern border region, including the family of Shai Golan, 29, who was critically injured when a Katyusha hit outside his home. Golan was airlifted to Safed, where he was saved by visiting San Francisco surgeon Bill Schecter.
With the cease-fire, Morad hopes things will get better. “But everybody’s worried. All my friends have kids in the army.”
In the meantime, she’s putting her energy into organizing a fundraiser for a soup kitchen in Kiryat Shmona, scheduled for Monday evening, Aug. 21 at Beth Am.
Meanwhile, Eta Somekh and husband Sass, Israelis living in Los Altos Hills, left for Israel this week, to visit family in Tel Aviv as well as for business. Somekh was in Israel just six months ago.
Was she nervous?
“Naturally,” said Somekh, who was in Israel when the second intifada occurred. But “life goes on. One thing to be said about Israelis is, they’re resilient.”