Tuesday night....
We had a quiet night last night and this morning we decided to drive south for the day to Caesarea, an ancient Roman port. We had heard they had done a lot of restoration of the ruins there. So we left around 11:00. Caesarea is about a half-hour south down the coast road. It was surreal -- the whole day was pretty surreal, actually. There were so few cars on the road. Our road, Rehov Freud, is one of the main roads running from the sea to the top of Mt. Carmel and it is always heavy traffic. (Israel is chock-a-block full of cars this year, more than ever. The traffic is heavy wherever you go on most days. Shabbat morning somewhat less in Haifa.) This morning the roads were nearly empty. For one thing, many people have already left Haifa, especially people with children. We are in "Hofesh HaGadol" (the big vacation) and so the children are not in school. Most children spend the summer in "kaitenot" which are like day camps. But all the kaitenot are closed (as well as the banks, most shops, most offices, etc.) and after two days of living at home and running to shelters when the sirens go, most parents are ready to move south to safer towns where their children can get out. So there has been an exodus from Haifa and of course from towns further north, towns like Nahariah and Sfat which have really taken hits by katyushas.
It was more like Shabbat than Shabbat. The roads were empty. I expected Caesarea to be full of people, as it usually is in the summer, and there were some tourists there, but not as many as usual. We had cold drinks at an outdoor cafe and then wandered around through the ruins for a couple of hours. It was very hot. The restorations are very beautiful, including a Roman bath house. Those Romans knew how to pleasure themselves!! Then we had lunch by the seaside, and how surreal was that? Watching people lolling on the beach and playing in the water while a half-hour to the north a big city was nervously waiting for the next volley of missiles to hit!! It really is quite wierd!!
We got home around 5:00 and no sooner had we gotten safely in the house than the sirens went again and we waited for the booms and they came, and then it was quiet for a while and then it happened again and then it was quiet. A friend invited us for supper and we went. And it was a lovely supper (this woman is such a good cook!) and now we're home. Frank is watching "Boston Legal" on tv and I am writing to you on the blog.
While we greatly regret the loss of life in Lebanon, we are at the same time pleased with the job that the IDF is doing. From everything we read here, they have been very strategic in their choice of targets, doing what is necessary to stop Iran and Syria from re-arming Hezbollah and taking out their bases from which they shoot these missiles. The pictures from Lebanon are horrific -- whole neighborhoods razed to the ground. It makes you weep to see these things. But it is clearly necessary to disarm this group and do what is necessary to prevent them from amassing arms against Israel or anyone else. I am glad that most of the world seems to agree with this.
How much better it would be if all this could be negotiated, if heads of state could agree to resolve their problems across a table instead of hurling missiles and bombs at one another. But at our present state humanhood, it appears as though we can't. So we watch and we feel terrible looking at the destruction of homes, communities, people's lives. But that's the way it is now. Each of us in our own way is committed to "tikun olam" -- repairing the world. But right now, here in Haifa, here in Israel, here in the Middle East -- all you can say is that the world needs a lot of fixing!
More tomorrow.
Love,
Pat
ps: below are three pictures. One is of three boys who live in our building playing darts in the "miklat" -- the bomb shelter. We go to the miklat when we hear the sirens.
We had a quiet night last night and this morning we decided to drive south for the day to Caesarea, an ancient Roman port. We had heard they had done a lot of restoration of the ruins there. So we left around 11:00. Caesarea is about a half-hour south down the coast road. It was surreal -- the whole day was pretty surreal, actually. There were so few cars on the road. Our road, Rehov Freud, is one of the main roads running from the sea to the top of Mt. Carmel and it is always heavy traffic. (Israel is chock-a-block full of cars this year, more than ever. The traffic is heavy wherever you go on most days. Shabbat morning somewhat less in Haifa.) This morning the roads were nearly empty. For one thing, many people have already left Haifa, especially people with children. We are in "Hofesh HaGadol" (the big vacation) and so the children are not in school. Most children spend the summer in "kaitenot" which are like day camps. But all the kaitenot are closed (as well as the banks, most shops, most offices, etc.) and after two days of living at home and running to shelters when the sirens go, most parents are ready to move south to safer towns where their children can get out. So there has been an exodus from Haifa and of course from towns further north, towns like Nahariah and Sfat which have really taken hits by katyushas.
It was more like Shabbat than Shabbat. The roads were empty. I expected Caesarea to be full of people, as it usually is in the summer, and there were some tourists there, but not as many as usual. We had cold drinks at an outdoor cafe and then wandered around through the ruins for a couple of hours. It was very hot. The restorations are very beautiful, including a Roman bath house. Those Romans knew how to pleasure themselves!! Then we had lunch by the seaside, and how surreal was that? Watching people lolling on the beach and playing in the water while a half-hour to the north a big city was nervously waiting for the next volley of missiles to hit!! It really is quite wierd!!
We got home around 5:00 and no sooner had we gotten safely in the house than the sirens went again and we waited for the booms and they came, and then it was quiet for a while and then it happened again and then it was quiet. A friend invited us for supper and we went. And it was a lovely supper (this woman is such a good cook!) and now we're home. Frank is watching "Boston Legal" on tv and I am writing to you on the blog.
While we greatly regret the loss of life in Lebanon, we are at the same time pleased with the job that the IDF is doing. From everything we read here, they have been very strategic in their choice of targets, doing what is necessary to stop Iran and Syria from re-arming Hezbollah and taking out their bases from which they shoot these missiles. The pictures from Lebanon are horrific -- whole neighborhoods razed to the ground. It makes you weep to see these things. But it is clearly necessary to disarm this group and do what is necessary to prevent them from amassing arms against Israel or anyone else. I am glad that most of the world seems to agree with this.
How much better it would be if all this could be negotiated, if heads of state could agree to resolve their problems across a table instead of hurling missiles and bombs at one another. But at our present state humanhood, it appears as though we can't. So we watch and we feel terrible looking at the destruction of homes, communities, people's lives. But that's the way it is now. Each of us in our own way is committed to "tikun olam" -- repairing the world. But right now, here in Haifa, here in Israel, here in the Middle East -- all you can say is that the world needs a lot of fixing!
More tomorrow.
Love,
Pat
ps: below are three pictures. One is of three boys who live in our building playing darts in the "miklat" -- the bomb shelter. We go to the miklat when we hear the sirens.
posted by Frank and Pat Fischer at 11:40 PM
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