A Soccer Game to Remember

"If Palestine were to lay down their guns tomorrow, there would be no war. If Israel were to lay down theirs, there would be no Israel." -Benjamin Netanyahu

For anyone who knows me well, you will know that much of my life revolves around soccer. Some of my happiest moments have come while I was playing soccer, as well as some of my saddest moments. But I can honestly say I will never remember a soccer game better than the game I was playing in on Friday. Friday I experienced a new emotion while playing soccer, sheer terror.

It was another seemingly normal Friday afternoon in Jerusalem. Nice weather, people preparing for Shabbat,  people heading towards Shul, and me not having any idea what I was doing over the weekend. I was originally supposed to head up to Northern Israel with two of my friends but unfortunately we missed the bus. So with traveling out of the question since most of Israel was off-limits because of the Gaza conflict, we returned to Beit Ar-El for Shabbat. As soon as we returned, I saw there was a soccer game going on, so naturally I joined, playing with fellow Year Coursers at a concrete pitch across the street. We were about 20 minutes in when I heard a noise I've been dreading to hear. A noise that incites sheer panic into a group of 18 year old boys. A noise that no one should ever have to hear. Sirens. Red alert air raid sirens. Those sirens meant that there was a missile heading our direction. It paralyzed us. All those lessons that we learned at the beginning of the year that seemed so irrelevant suddenly were completely relevant. Those lessons I paid no attention to were suddenly racing through my head, trying to remember what we should do in this scenario. If only I had listened during this part of the lesson, maybe I would know what to do. But who ever expects a missile to land near them? After all, this is Jerusalem, the "safest" city in Israel. No one would or could ever send a missile into Jerusalem...right? Wrong.

Once we got over the initial shock of those sirens going off and realized what those sirens were, it sent us scattering to pick up our wallets and phones and run for cover. We had less than a minute to get from an open pitch to somewhere "safe". We seemed like little kids, playing hide and seek, trying to find the best place to hide so that no one could find us. But we weren't. This was no game. This was real life. You get found in this game and you're dead. No arguing rules, no re-spawning. No mulligans. 1 wrong step and you're done. We were playing hide and seek against a 2,000 pound, 21-foot, killing machine. 

As the sirens continued to go off, we were sprinting, trying to find the bomb shelter. The only thing going through my head was to get to safety. I wasn't thinking about how much my ankle hurt. I wasn't thinking about why this is happening. All I could think about was where to go and how much time I had left before impact. Unfortunately the nearest bomb shelter was too far away, about 3 blocks, so we settled for the next best option, staircases. We found an open apartment building and ran into their staircase, 10 or 15 of us just sitting there, comforting each other, hoping this rocket wouldn't land at our feet. We waited. We just sat there waiting. Finally we heard it. A boom. Faint, but definitely a boom. The boom of a rocket exploding. Then, a sigh of relief. The rocket, which I later found out landed about 5-7 miles from where I am was the first rocket in decades to be aimed at Jerusalem.

We stayed in the staircase for another couple of minutes before running back into Beit Ar-El where we sat again for a few minutes in the staircase. Finally we got the "kol beseder" (all clear) announcement and we went back to our apartments. Later that evening we returned to our normal lives. Now I could easily take this and turn it into an argument for Israel and how 1 million people have to regularly do what I did on Friday. But I'm not going to. Whether you back Israel or not, I think everyone can agree, no one should have to live their lives in constant fear of rockets. No one should have to run to bomb shelters or sleep in bomb shelters every night. Those sirens. A noise I will never forget. A noise that I hope I will never hear again. In a span of seconds I went from only caring about winning a game to only caring about living to see another day. It was a day I will never forget and surely a soccer match I will always remember.

 Everyone here is doing alright. People seem a little on the edge and a little shaken up but we are staying strong. Please keep Israel in your thoughts and prayers. I not only standby Israel, I proudly stand IN Israel, my home. 

עם ישראל חי

Yad Vashem and the Picture

First off I wanted to apologize for my lack of blogging recently. I've been ill much of these past 2 weeks.

This past Sunday all of the kids in Section 1 of Young Judaea traveled to  Yad Vashem as part of a 2 day Holocaust (Shoah) seminar. Those two days were some of the most powerful and thought-provoking days I've experienced not only here in Israel, but in my life. This was the first time I had gone into Yad Vashem. Previously when I was here, I was only 12 or 13 and my parents didn't think I could handle the museum (good call).
It was a very emotional day and there's one picture that stuck out more than any other picture in the museum. That was a picture of a boy, a teenager who perished in the Shoah. As I looked up on the wall and into his eyes, it immediately sent shivers down my whole body. As we locked eyes, it wasn't just a picture that was staring at me, it was my eyes that stared back at me. It was my face that was looking at me. It was the 1940s version of Jesse Abelson. It was almost as if there was a picture of myself on the wall. I stood, without words to say, staring at a picture of my twin on a wall of people who perished in the Shoah. As I stared at the picture, all I could think of was why him? What did he do to deserve that? And then I began to wonder, did he have a mom and dad like I did? Did he have a brother? What did he want to be when he grew up? I've never thought of Shoah victims on that sort of level. I've never known of any relatives of mine that perished in the Shoah so it's been personal to me by the fact that 6 million people of my religion were murdered but until seeing this picture, it's never been personal on the family level. I don't even know if this child and I were related in any way but just by the fact that by looking at him I saw myself on that wall, it became as personal as it could get. 6 million is not just a number. It's not just a statistic. It's 6 million stories that ended too soon. 6 million people with families and stories to tell. 6 million people that will never live to see their children, grandchildren, mothers, fathers, or siblings.It's 6 million separate faces, all with different stories and lives. 6 million dreams shattered. of the 6 million killed, 1 face stood out to me among all of them.  His name, I may never know. His story, I may never know but his face I will never forget. I will carry with me a piece of him for the rest of my life. He will never be forgotten. Along with the other 6 million people, they will not be forgotten. Never forget. Never again.