ZERFH HOUR
Seven Ways To Cope
An American Jew who settled in Israel
describes his techniques for sanity.
STUART SCHOFFMAN
Special to The Jewish News
erusalem —January
15, 1991. As I write,
the War has not yet
begun.
Since the weekend, the
phone has been ringing: lov-
ed ones from the Old Coun-
try (America) urgently in-
quiring as to our welfare.
Watching Dan Rather and
"Nightline" and "MacNeil-
Lehrer," they are under-
standably terrified. How is
it? How do you feel? Are you
scared? We're nervous, yes,
we say, but trying to keep
calm.
Last Shabbat, we strolled
to the new playground in the
Bakka neighborhood built
by local residents with their
own hands as a community
project. I ride down the slide
with my little boy on my lap.
He chortles with joy.
Suddenly Saddam flashes to
mind, and the boy's giggles
break my heart.
On August 1, we moved
into our new house. The next
day, Saddam swallowed
Kuwait, and ever 'since I
have been trying to figure
out how to deal with this
obscene intrusion upon my
clean, sweet little world. I've
lived here only two years:
this war business is very
new to me. So far as I can
tell, the techniques for cop-
ing are seven in number:
1. Worry. Is Saddam in-
sane enough to attack us?
What exactly is the range of
Iraqi missiles? Is he more
likely to aim for Jerusalem
or Tel Aviv? Are my
windows well-taped? Do I
have enough canned corn?
These are the most natural
and typical concerns. Under
the circumstances, not to
worry is irrational.
But in truth there is little
cause for alarm. We have
our gas masks. The experts
expect a maximum of a cou-
ple of hundred Israeli
civilian casualties. Presi-
dent Herzog on the radio
reassures us that the in-
tifada has been more deadly
than a few missiles.
You'd have to be mighty
unlucky to be hurt. It's as
likely, as a friend put it, of
getting knifed in Bakka. No
one can forget the fanatical
Palestinian house plasterer
j
Supplies were distributed nationally.
was a major shortage of the
plastic sheets required to
help seal windows, and some
shopkeepers took to price
gouging — which at least in-
troduced a sense of normalcy
into what commentators re-
peatedly called "these mad
times."
The lively trade in food
and sealing materials ex-
tended equally to the Jewish
and Arab sectors.
"Whatever people may
think of Saddam in their
heart of hearts, they're all
talking and worrying about
Most Israelis were
staying put and
took to shopping as
a form of national
therapy.
the same thing," observed
an Arab official in Nazareth,
"how to get through a war."
As late as Monday, a
woman from Bethlehem
petitioned the Supreme
Court to make the govern-
ment distribute gas masks to
the Palestinians in the oc-
cupied territories (Jews liv-
ing in the West Bank had
begun to receive them the
previous day). She won the
case just hours later, and the
military began distributing
the civil-defense kits on the
morning of the 15th —just as
the Arab population in the
territories began a strike in
solidarity with Saddam
Hussein.
That wasn't the only irony
to surface this week. On the
long line for gas masks at
one distribution station in
Jerusalem, the topic of the
day was beards, or rather
the government's lack of
consideration for the ultra-
Orthodox community in fail-
ing to purchase the kind of
gas masks that would ac-
commodate them. One
Jerusalem rabbi had per-
sonally imported a shipment
of such special masks and
sold them in Meah Shearim
for $100 a piece. The
shipment's country of origin:
the Federal Republic of
Germany.
Many of the new immi-
grants on that same line for
gas masks were a bit
chagrined by the need to
seal off rooms when the
rooms themselves were at
such a premium.
"I live with two families in
a one-room flat," shrugged
one woman from Kiev when
asked what preparations she
had made to protect herself.
A university student ad-
mitted that she had no idea
where the shelter was in her
dorm, nor had she the cash
to stock up on food.
"I don't think I'm afraid,"
she said tentatively, "but
this situation is definitely
unpleasant."
Many shared that sense of
disquiet and a deep uncer-
tainty about what both the
political and military situa-
tions hold in store.
"Here we've got all this
military power," summed up
one disgruntled citizen after
scanning the morning's
headlines, "and we've been
reduced to a bunch of sitting
ducks so that the Ameiican-
Arab coalition won't fall
apart."
Oddly enough, even Presi-
dent Bush's tough stance
has contributed to the anxi-
ety, since the post-crisis
scenarios show Israel com-
ing under pressure (to reach
a compromise with the Pa-
lestinians) from the same
quarters now leaning on
Saddam
So whatever happens,
Israelis seem to sense that
even if none of them suffers
a single scratch in the new
Gulf war, the course of their
history is about to be chang-
ed — and not necessarily in a
way that will be to their lik-
ing. El
who murdered a plant-
nursery owner, a cop, and an
18-year-old girl shortly after
the Temple Mount tragedy.
It can happen to anyone.
The problem with Worry is
that it so quickly escalates
into .. .
2. Panic. History, and Jew-
ish history in particular,
teaches us there's nothing so
terrible that it can't happen.
Hitler repeatedly pledged to
destroy us, and so has
Saddam. What if he uses
biological weapons? Iraq,
some experts believe, may
Stuart Schoffman: learning to
cope with war worries.
well have a single atomic
bomb, presumably
deliverable by Sukhoi-24
bomber, of which Saddam
has two dozen. Statistically
speaking, there's always a
chance of one such plane get-
ting past the Israeli Air
Force — what if it's the one
with the bomb?
Ultra-worst-case thinking
like this is pointless and
dangerous to one's health.
The only ones who benefit
from such self-inflicted
psychological warfare are
the enemy and the cigarette
manufacturers.
3. Escape. If you're Israeli,
find a compelling reason for
a business trip. If you have
dual citizenship, leave the
country at once, as your em-
bassy has advised. If, for
whatever Zionist or other
crazy reason, you need to be
in Israel, avoid the news —
watch a movie. But eerily
enough, Israel Television is
running the mega-
miniseries "War and Re-
membrance."
Even in the Old Country,
there is no escape: You can
run, but not hide, from CNN.
There's little left to do ex-
cept . . .
4. Deny. The missiles will
hit a banana plantation in
the Western Galilee, not my
house. He'll never aim for
Jerusalem and risk destroy-
ing the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This is happening on televi-
sion, not a few hundred
miles away, no farther than
San Francisco is from L.A.
This isn't happening to me.
It's all too crazy to be real, so
we might as well .. .
5. Enjoy. Go dancing. Try
to remember the lyrics to
"Eve of Destruction." Notice
the resemblance between
Arens and Baker and
Saddam on TV and NFL
coaches in the weeks before
the Superbowl: if we play
good "D" and don't make
any mistakes, we're gonna
whup their butts! What
movie or miniseries can
match this? There's good
guys and bad guys, a million
great subplots. It's the
ultimate hostage drama — a
whole country held captive!
— and even a ticking clock:
High Noon in Kuwait, what
a concept.
But we're not in Kansas
any more, as Dorothy
observed to Toto. And from
where we sit, we're as much
a hostage as Kuwait. If
America hits Saddam, he
shoots us. And already peo-
ple are saying — and not just
the Arabs and the French —
that this is a Jewish War.
We must take hold of
ourselves, and .. .
6. Analyze. How ironic it is
that the good liberal
Democrats in America have
turned out to be America-
first isolationists. If Saddam
surrenders after the bomb-
ing of Baghdad, under what
conditions would Israel
agree to a Middle East peace
conference?
Why did America, as re-
ported in the Israeli press,
order exactly 16,099 body
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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