prepare for war: evacuate the bombshelter

all year I sort of treated our bombshelter-turned-office as a joke. it is kind of funny to think that the municipality rents out its shelters all over the city at economical rates. the last time the shelters were used was during the first gulf war, 15 years ago. and I personally never thought it would give us much protection considering how much it leaked during the winter rains.

there is a catch that comes with the cheap rent; a small clause that allows the municipality to give renting occupants of their bombshelters 4 hours notice to vacate if for any reason the city may need them. when the second gulf war didn’t warrant this action, I think most people thought it would never happen.

but now the katyushas are falling all over the north; hitting haifa, afula and other places people never expected, like palestinian population centers within israel. enough to make the threat of iranian-made rockets with 200 km range (sufficient to reach tel aviv) seem like a feasible threat. and enough for the municipality to give us that 4 hour warning early Sunday afternoon.

no time would have been a good time, but the notice probably couldn’t come at a worse time for us- four days into a five day activism seminar for 24 jewish and palestinian israeli teens from all of the country. and the day before the continuation of the seminar, a 5 day volunteer work camp which would bring another 30-40 teenagers and dozens of other volunteers to Jaffa to work on projects ranging from renovating schools to painting murals to running a local day camp for arab and jewish kids.

the news sent us into panic mode and we frantically called a staff meeting where we made the painful decision to cancel the camp we had been devoting all our time and energy to for the past 2 months and to send the seminar kids home on monday morning, a decision from which we are still reeling. we held two follow up staff meetings to rethink the decision (one which lasted until 3am) where tears, exhaustion, confused emotions and regret hung heavy around the circle.

clearly had we been in lebanon, where the death toll has surpassed 200, many of them civilians, or even in northern israel, the decision would have been simpler. but in tel aviv-yafo, life goes on as normal making the cancellation seem bizarre. last night we all went out for the beers and silliness that were supposed to happen next week. and after 8 hours of moving on sunday, our office sits empty, waiting to be used for something.