Haifa Again City Under Siege, Boston Herald, August 4, 2006

To All RCTY members.
This is where our Mirjam lives, let's keep her in our prayers.
Joan


A dotted line of destruction: Haifa again city under siege
By Rachelle G. Cohen
Friday, August 4, 2006 - Updated: 01:34 AM EST

HAIFA, Israel - On this day they were just red dots on a map - 36 of
them - each marked a direct rocket hit within Israel's third largest
city.

In the command and control center in an underground bunker
adjoining city hall, the map told the cold, hard story of what this
city and its people had endured in the past three weeks. Green dots
were rockets that landed just outside the city limits. And the blue
dots showed where Hezbollah's Katyushas landed in the Mediterranean.

"We stopped counting those after a while," a city official
conceded.

A hit on the train maintenance depot had claimed eight lives. The
windows on one side of B'Nai Zion Medical Center are gone. A
courthouse is damaged. Much of this goes unreported on the theory that
it only helps increase Hezbollah's accuracy.

At an apartment building in one of the city's poorer sections
where 10 people were injured (the sole fatality was attributed to a
heart attack), repairs were already under way - walls being plastered,
glass replaced.

"A week from now you won't know it was hit," said Yossi
Gluzman of the Haifa-Boston Partnership program and my guide for the
day.

Pock-marked walls can be repaired. Other scars won't be so easy
to erase.

In a garage two stories under a shopping mall dozens of children
are coloring or making gimp bracelets or watching an "elf." He
re-enacts a rocket attack, hiding under a chair and in doing so he
allows children who haven't had much to laugh about lately to laugh
at their own fears.

The shelter is staffed by city workers, soldiers and psychologists
from the University of Haifa. They help mothers who accompany the
younger children to deal with the emotional fallout of being a city
under siege.

"I'm very afraid," says the styled script of one drawing.
"I want to have peace on my country." Another is simply a drawing
of a dove and the word peace in both Hebrew and Arabic - not unusual in
this comfortably diverse city.

Sandy, 13, and her younger brother are Arab.

"Here it feels safer," she says. "But I hear the [air raid]
sirens. Three days they are quiet, but I hear them still."

Her parents are home. "They don't work now," she explains.
"Nobody works now."

On this day some shops and cafes have decided to open, taking
advantage of a 48-hour lull in the fighting. Locals run out to do some
marketing. But a large McDonald's remains closed and traffic is
light.

Many have fled to the south - out of range of the Katyushas, they
hope. They stay with family or with strangers - daily the Jerusalem
Post runs notices from families offering to share their homes with
those fleeing the rockets landing in the north.

"Everyone I know is hosting someone from up north," says Miri
Eisen, a former colonel in the Israeli military who next week will
become the government's official spokesperson.

She estimates that about 100,000 have fled towns in northern
Israel.

"We don't call them refugees," she adds.

"But life is in limbo. A million and a half Israelis can't go
to work. A million and a half Israelis are living underground," she
says. This nation which has spent decades under siege is well prepared.


"I don't feel I have to apologize for our lack of
casualties," Eisen adds.

It is just 24 hours after the Israeli attack on Qana in Lebanon
claimed more than 28 lives, many of them children.

"How do you fight a terrorist who puts a kid in front of him?"
she says.

Still she admits Israel's military campaign can't sustain
"another Qana" and the attendant international pressure - and
domestic too - it would bring.

By Wednesday Hezbollah rockets are again falling on the north -
some 200 of them. This time there won't be room for all the dots -
red, green, blue.

And the sirens that haunt the dreams of children will once again be
real.

Thank you Joan
it is Saturday , Shabat and the rockets are falling , and on some
other places people debate our right to live here , now . In this
country that Collected so many JEWISH refugees , from many countries,
where they were in danger as Jews,,, and here under falling rockets we
all feel Safer than in other countries .... becuase here there is
somebody to deffend us.
mirjam
4:49:03 -0700, "Joan in CT" wrote:

To All RCTY members.
This is where our Mirjam lives, let's keep her in our prayers.
Joan


A dotted line of destruction: Haifa again city under siege
By Rachelle G. Cohen
Friday, August 4, 2006 - Updated: 01:34 AM EST

HAIFA, Israel - On this day they were just red dots on a map - 36 of
them - each marked a direct rocket hit within Israel's third largest
city.

In the command and control center in an underground bunker
adjoining city hall, the map told the cold, hard story of what this
city and its people had endured in the past three weeks. Green dots
were rockets that landed just outside the city limits. And the blue
dots showed where Hezbollah's Katyushas landed in the Mediterranean.

"We stopped counting those after a while," a city official
conceded.

A hit on the train maintenance depot had claimed eight lives. The
windows on one side of B'Nai Zion Medical Center are gone. A
courthouse is damaged. Much of this goes unreported on the theory that
it only helps increase Hezbollah's accuracy.

At an apartment building in one of the city's poorer sections
where 10 people were injured (the sole fatality was attributed to a
heart attack), repairs were already under way - walls being plastered,
glass replaced.

"A week from now you won't know it was hit," said Yossi
Gluzman of the Haifa-Boston Partnership program and my guide for the
day.

Pock-marked walls can be repaired. Other scars won't be so easy
to erase.

In a garage two stories under a shopping mall dozens of children
are coloring or making gimp bracelets or watching an "elf." He
re-enacts a rocket attack, hiding under a chair and in doing so he
allows children who haven't had much to laugh about lately to laugh
at their own fears.

The shelter is staffed by city workers, soldiers and psychologists
from the University of Haifa. They help mothers who accompany the
younger children to deal with the emotional fallout of being a city
under siege.

"I'm very afraid," says the styled script of one drawing.
"I want to have peace on my country." Another is simply a drawing
of a dove and the word peace in both Hebrew and Arabic - not unusual in
this comfortably diverse city.

Sandy, 13, and her younger brother are Arab.

"Here it feels safer," she says. "But I hear the [air raid]
sirens. Three days they are quiet, but I hear them still."

Her parents are home. "They don't work now," she explains.
"Nobody works now."

On this day some shops and cafes have decided to open, taking
advantage of a 48-hour lull in the fighting. Locals run out to do some
marketing. But a large McDonald's remains closed and traffic is
light.

Many have fled to the south - out of range of the Katyushas, they
hope. They stay with family or with strangers - daily the Jerusalem
Post runs notices from families offering to share their homes with
those fleeing the rockets landing in the north.

"Everyone I know is hosting someone from up north," says Miri
Eisen, a former colonel in the Israeli military who next week will
become the government's official spokesperson.

She estimates that about 100,000 have fled towns in northern
Israel.

"We don't call them refugees," she adds.

"But life is in limbo. A million and a half Israelis can't go
to work. A million and a half Israelis are living underground," she
says. This nation which has spent decades under siege is well prepared.


"I don't feel I have to apologize for our lack of
casualties," Eisen adds.

It is just 24 hours after the Israeli attack on Qana in Lebanon
claimed more than 28 lives, many of them children.

"How do you fight a terrorist who puts a kid in front of him?"
she says.

Still she admits Israel's military campaign can't sustain
"another Qana" and the attendant international pressure - and
domestic too - it would bring.

By Wednesday Hezbollah rockets are again falling on the north -
some 200 of them. This time there won't be room for all the dots -
red, green, blue.

And the sirens that haunt the dreams of children will once again be
real.

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote:
Thank you Joan
it is Saturday , Shabat and the rockets are falling , and on some
other places people debate our right to live here , now . In this
country that Collected so many JEWISH refugees , from many countries,
where they were in danger as Jews,,, and here under falling rockets we
all feel Safer than in other countries .... becuase here there is
somebody to deffend us.
mirjam
4:49:03 -0700, "Joan in CT" wrote:

Thank you Mirjam -
I feel better knowing you are OK. I am spending so much time in front
of the TV watching all the news reports that I have actually increased
my afghan output for Project Linus. Even though I'm 'retired' I like
to keep busy. Since I moved to the Hillside Village - 'an 'adult
living community' - I've got new neighbors and they come and gather
together with me on the front patio of my condo while I crochet and we
have some good discussions. Since you have to be over 62 to live here,
most are parents and grandparents and are very concerned about the
state of the world for their children and grandchildren. I often wish
that the leaders of the world could hear some of our discussions.
Shabat Shalom. Be safe.
Joan

Joan Shavu`aa Tov ,
The Shabat has gone , leaving behind some dead people [ all those who
died were outside their safe rooms or shelters].
hundreds of rockets fell all over ,
Yes many people sit and discuss the world situation.
We all still believe that our good intentions will save the world.
My parents borm in 1917 amd 1921, both were socilaists, and believed
that education to all , will save the world and all will live together
hand in hand,,, they went through WW2 and the Holocaust, and survived
it because my Praternal OPA , did believe Hitler and started to make
preparations [ hiding places , running away path etc] , My maternal
grandfather , a Veteran of WW1 , didn`t trust dictators, before being
transported he helped the underground, but Alas was gasses to death ,
My mother told me some of his opinions about the nature of certain
regimes.
One of My Great Aunts was an anarchist , her mate Uncle Albert a
Dutch man from Friezland , who was a pacifist , did oppose ther
nazies. Told me that for Us Jews , after the Holocaust and in the
place were we live Pacifism was a luxus we couldn`t afford anymore.

We want peace , yet around us are people who threaten us becuase we
are bad for them , A country that is a democracy and quite multy
leveled in culture and society. FOR the last year the Iranian prime
minister THREATENS us time after time. He took the liberty to ARM a
militia with 12000 rockets and was using this over our heads. He
thought that he could make us do waht he wants waving those rockets
,,,, And we have had enough of this ,,,, and when he shot rockets at 2
vilalges while kidnapping and killing our people over an ACKNOWLEDGE
border , we had to make a stop to it ,, My friend in Nahariya are sick
and the people of Kiryat Shmona , are sick and tired of being targeted
all the time ,,,
other countries fly half the world when hit , we were hit for years
month after month from Next door ,,,,
mirjam

4:49:03 -0700, "Joan in CT" wrote:

Thank you Mirjam -
I feel better knowing you are OK. I am spending so much time in front
of the TV watching all the news reports that I have actually increased
my afghan output for Project Linus. Even though I'm 'retired' I like
to keep busy. Since I moved to the Hillside Village - 'an 'adult
living community' - I've got new neighbors and they come and gather
together with me on the front patio of my condo while I crochet and we
have some good discussions. Since you have to be over 62 to live here,
most are parents and grandparents and are very concerned about the
state of the world for their children and grandchildren. I often wish
that the leaders of the world could hear some of our discussions.
Shabat Shalom. Be safe.
Joan

Joan in CT wrote:
To All RCTY members.
This is where our Mirjam lives, let's keep her in our prayers.
Joan

Thanks, Joan. I do pray for Mirjam, and all of those involved in this.

Higs,
Katherine

GOOD Night
mirjam
18:03:53 -0300, "Katherine" wrote:

Joan in CT wrote:
To All RCTY members.
This is where our Mirjam lives, let's keep her in our prayers.
Joan

Thanks, Joan. I do pray for Mirjam, and all of those involved in this.

Higs,
Katherine

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote:
GOOD Night
mirjam
18:03:53 -0300, "Katherine" wrote:

Joan in CT wrote:
To All RCTY members.
This is where our Mirjam lives, let's keep her in our prayers.
Joan
Thanks, Joan. I do pray for Mirjam, and all of those involved in this.

Higs,
Katherine



Good night Mirjam,

Shalom,
Dennis

e are under Rocket attacks all over the North ,, all meant to kill ,
full with pellets .
300.000 people [ from a country with 5.5 million] people evacuated ,
to the south , living in houses of good hearted strangers who adopted
them, many live in parks and tents.
about 2 million live in closed safe rooms and shelters ,,,
The people that died mostly were out of their safe rooms ,,,
Many were inside the safe rooms and saved even when the houses got a
direct hit ...
I slowly learn to become an Inside animal,,,,
I cooked midday when an Alarm went , closed the heating of eggs i
boiled and the macaroni i cooked ,,,, picked my celularthat hangs on
the edge of the starircase down to the shelter ,,,
Now i am in the shelter and write to you all .
I must tell you that this morning i went early out and walked in my
street ,.,,, Friday i went out with the garbage bag , my husband
called after me i forgot the second bag ,,, i had to explain to him i
wanted to have 2 walks to the garbage ,,,
mirjam