PAMONIM and a VISIT to SDEROT

About 3 years ago, I met Yafa Arberboy, an Israeli living on Moshav Kohav Michael in the Hof Ashkelon region. She was the chaperone for 3 Israeli youths who came to Seattle and Arizona to talk to American Jewish teens about living in Israel. We stayed in contact, and before this visit, I e-mailed to ask if she could show us around Sderot. Given the relative quiet, we felt it was safe to do. We had in the area two years ago, visiting a teacher at the local high school. On that visit, an hour after we left, a qassam fell near he town. No qassams have fallen in Sderot in the past 3 weeks, so we felt comfortable visiting. We were pleasantly surprised to see how active the town was and how many people were walking and traveling around town. Businesses were all open; the shuk (weekly market) was filled with people, and there were plenty of cars on the road, as well as people in the streets.

In April 2007, Yafa began a half-time position in Sderot, working for Pamonim, a non-profit which helps working Israelis get out of debt and learn to budget. This organization was founded 6 years ago and now has 41 branches throughout Israel.

Until a few years ago, Israelis could have bank overdrafts without large charges, like in the US. When one uses a credit cards here, the clerk asks if the user wants to pay in three payments or all at once, so people are used to pushing the limit when spending money. Also, Israelis rarely use registers to keep track of what they spend or balance their bank accounts monthly. Pamonim was created to help working couples in debt learn to reduce their spending and to budget. It also provides zero-interest loans to some clients.

Sderot , founded in 1951, is a town not much bigger than Kiryat Malachi. It is located less than two miles east of Gaza. It had close to 30,000 inhabitants at one time, but the true population now is closer to 25,000. Sapir College is located just outside the town as is the regional secondary school, Shaar HaNegev. Many teens from the Hof Ashkelon region attend high school there.

A month after Yafa came to Sderot, qassams started falling in large numbers on Sderot. Yafa’s priorities changed, and Pamonim allowed her to help up to 40 families survive until their earning situation stabilized. But the needs multiplied and Pamonim-Sderot helped more than 125 families ith financial and emotional support, and kept them off welfare. The organization helped one woman who was traumatized after her home was hit twice. And, unfortunately, others also have been near ground zero in two cassam attacks. Yaffa and her volunteers contacted attorneys to help families with damaged homes fill out all the paperwork to get government help.

Some people in town suffered severe hearing loss when they were close to where the qassams landed. Yaffa managed to connect them to a Hearing Aide institute which helped them get funding for the hearing aides from a local cell phone company. That in addition to what they get from a national plan and part from Pamonim helped 15 hearing-impaired gather the 5,000 ($1600) for the hearing aides. (Each did pay a small amount too--$130 shekels.)

Unfortunately, now Pamonim has no more funds for this kind of support though there are other families in need Yafa focuses now on 20+ families that are learning to budget. She works with both husband and wife to lower expenditures and to learn to be responsible for their financial life. Some wives do not work, and it becomes clear they need to get jobs. Pamonim helps these women build resumes. If any reader wants to give a donation to Pamonim in Sderot to help with any of its projects, checks in the US can be sent to:

c/o Yeshiva Yad Moishe

1520 39th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11218-4414

Put "Paamonim in Sderot in the momo line of the check and in the cover letter.

Yafa took us to her office, told us more about what she had done the past year, and gave us a tour of places recently hit by qassam rockets. Qassams are simple steel rockets filled with explosives, produced by different groups in Gaza. They are made in small factories (usually in houses or connected to them) and have a maximum range of 6 miles. They are free-flying artillery rockets lacking any guidance system. When they hit, part of them explodes and send out pieces of shrapnel. Cars explode when hit. Qassams were first fired at Israeli targets in October, 2001. The first time an Israeli city was hit was in Sderot in March, 2002. By November, 2007, 6311 rockets had fallen in town.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sderot%2C_Israel for more details. Hamas is not firing them during this temporary calm. The Al Aksa Brigade (a Fatah splinter group) is claiming credit for the ones fired, breaking the cease fire.

Qassams are mainly fired at civilian centers. 15 Israeli civilians have been killed by these rockets. They also have a huge psychological impact on people living within qassam range because they never know when the next “Color Red” alarm will sound, giving them 15 seconds to get to shelter before the qassam hits.

We saw a home where a qassam recently landed

The first picture shows where the qassam landed. In the second picture, the Pamonim volunteer is standing just to the right of where the qassam landed. In the third, you can see the damaged solar panels too.

A qassam fell through the roof of this home. Luckily no one was hurt, but the structure cannot be saved.

At the town police station, we saw a collection of spent qassams, each one with the date shot and the place where it landed.

It was chilling to see them in one place and to know that close to 7000 have fallen in and around this one town.There does not see an end in sight to qassams falling in the area. Still new neighborhoods are being built and new people moving in, many of whom are religious. In one new area, the new playground includes what looks like big concrete culverts, more than two meters in diameter, that will soon be painted bright colors. Children can play and run through them but the structures will also has a practical use -- bomb shelters.

Visit to Kibbutz Zikim (in Hof Ashkelon) 2008

Four 16-year-olds from our region in Israel, 2 from Kiryat Malachi and 2 from Hof Ashkelon, will travel to Seattle in mid-July to work at camps for 6 weeks. Yuval, from Kibbutz Zikim, is one of the youth from Hof Ashkelon.

Kibbutz Zikim has been in the news a lot lately when qassam rockets have been shot north toward Ashkelon. I met Yuval and his parents at a gathering of counselors and told them that I was interested in seeing the kibbutz, so the Mom, Talia, invited us for lunch on Monday, July 7th.

Kibbutz Zikim is situated a short distance north and west of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, and about 3 miles west of the main N-S road from Tel Aviv to the Gaza Strip. It is no more than a mile south of the huge coal-fired electric plant just south of Ashkelon which is often where qassams are aimed.

new homes in Zikkim with Power plant towers in the backgroundPicture in Haaretz on July 21, taken from Gaza looking toward the power plant south of Ashkelon

Since qassams cannot be aimed accurately, many that are sent in the direction of the electric plant land short of their goal, in the area of Zikim. The kibbutz is also just a bit northeast of a nearby army base, so if anything is aimed toward the base and misses its mark, it may land closer to Zikim. A little over a mile west of Zikim is another kibbutz, Karmia, which also has had its share of qassams landing on it.

View of Gaza City from the kibbutz

As we drove from the main highway (#3) west toward Zikim, I noticed that the southern side of the road was lined with closely planted, tall cypress trees. The purpose historically was to prevent Gazans from seeing cars on the road.

When we passed Kibbutz Karmia, we could easily see the many caravillot (nice temporary housing) where some people who left Gaza now live. Some plan to stay at the site and others hope to move to elsewhere. A few of those who had been there left months ago when Karmia was hit by a qassam and a child was wounded. Karmia has gone through privatization and, in theory, is not really a kibbutz any longer except in name.

Talia and Yuval met us under the bus stop, which was surrounded by safe places to stand.

Howard and I were very impressed with Zikim and very relaxed there. Talia, Yuval’s Mom, told us that so far a majority of the members of the kibbutz do not want to privatize. The kibbutz’s 80 family units and approximately 140 members get along quite well and want the current economic situation to continue. (Including children, 300 people reside here.) The only things that the members pay for are electricity, water, and meals in the dining room at a reduced price, and, of course, the private use of kibbutz cars.

One thing we immediately noticed on the kibbutz was the security rooms, which were brought in and attached to each home.

The rust-colored home on the right is Talia's

Also, the bus stop has a secure place to stand, and other protective barriers are sprinkled among the common areas of the kibbutz.

bus stop in background

Zikim and Karmia are two of a very small number of communities that have such protection. Even Yad Mordechai , which is a good mile closer to the Gaza border but not in the same line of fire, does not.

In mid-June, Hof Ashkelon was hit with dozens of qassam rockets from 3 to 4 p.m. after Hamas announced that Israel had bombed a home of one of its leaders in Gaza. Many of the rockets landed in the Zikkim area. Talia was in the dining room and could not leave, while Yuval was at home, quite frightened by the non-stop bombardment. It felt like it went on forever. I can sympathize. When I lived on the Golan in the early 70s, I remember a shelling that, as we sat in shelters, felt like it lasted for hours when it only was 20 minutes long.

After the kibbutz members could go outside, they saw a number of small fires on one side of the kibbutz from the qassam rockets. The kibbutz does not have the equipment to put out such fires, so the local fire trucks finally arrive and put out the blaze. We took pictures of the burnt grass. Luckily the wind was not blowing strongly like the day we visited, or the damage would have been much greater. As it was it only affected a few dunam.

Talia and Yuval gave us a tour of the kibbutz. The high point (no pun intended) was on a hill on the edge of the kibbutz, where we could see Gaza City clearly, the Mediterranean, the coal-powered electric power plant, etc. We really could get an impression of how close everyone is.

Talia and Yuval told us the history of the kibbutz, which was founded in 1949, a year later than Yad Mordechai,, by Romanian Holocaust survivors. They first lived in an abandoned Arab building., which was used for many years until it became unsafe.

We approached it form the back, and then saw the what remains of the elegant front.

Members soon founded a mattress factory (with straw as stuffing) and worked in agriculture which became more important than industry in the 60s. In the 70s, the kibbutz re-started the mattress factory using modern materials (foam). Yuval’s father managed it for 5 years. Now they also have a factory that makes auto and truck parts and parts for medical instruments like CT scanners. Their dairy is the biggest money producer for them in agriculture. We did see some agricultural fields include one where thornless cactus fruit is grown.

Although the kibbutz is not rushing toward privatization, there are areas of change. Originally the kibbutz members had small places to live and the children were in their own separate units. There were about 4 different waves when homes got bigger. Nown new residences in a new neighborhood are being built for the “vatikim,” those who have been members the longest. The kibbutz provides the ground floor, and if members want a second floor, they have to pay for it by themselves.

2-story new construction overlooking the Mediteranean Sea

One story home-to-be next to other home above but facing the power stacks

Houses are definitely bigger. When the vatikim move to their new homes, hopefully the next generation will move back to the kibbutz to homes made available by the move. Right now every home is filled and others are waiting for vacancies to come. Even with the fear of qassams, it is considered a good place to live….and we could see why.