Editor's Letter

When you

Wartime Lessons

R

uthie Rott, a Farmington Hills native,
made aliyah last July. She lives in an apart-
ment in a neighborhood in the center of
Jerusalem that reminds her of a small Italian vil-
lage. It's a mix of religious and secular Jews.
"It's a special place where everyone not only lives
together peacefully, but is actually happy doing it,"
says Rott, 32, who is single.
- She's often struck by the loud music waft-
ing through the neighborhood, which locals
call Nachlaot, a 10-minute walk from the shop-
ping areas of Ben-Yehuda Street and Mahane
Yehuda. Before Shabbat and holidays, the music
seems especially joyful and uplifting.
In the last few weeks, though, the music has changed. It has
been tempered by the strains of war between Israel and its Arab
neighbors after Hamas and .Hezbollah abducted some Israeli
soldiers and murdered others.
"The quiet echoes of sad music permeate the air," Rott says
wistfully.
The tug of emotions is strong.
"It's a deep, quiet and painful tribute of national mourning
that can't be spoken," Rott says. "We all feel it in our souls."
The strategy of Arab terrorists is to wear away the Israelis'
soul through rocket fire, suicide bombings and roadside attacks.
The intent is to emasculate Israelis
spiritually That's the first step in a
plan to destroy the Jewish state and
claim our ancestral homeland as
theirs.
In Jerusalem, where Rott
works as marketing manager for
HonestReporting, a nonprofit, news
media watchdog group, people still
walk through the streets. But some-
Ruthie Rott
thing is different. Ron says the change
is not one of fear, despite all-out war in parts of Gaza and
Lebanon and Arab shelling in parts of Israel.
• •
"While my Anglo friends and I seem to be rapidly dancing
back and forth between faith and fear, the Israelis don't partake
in the dance at all',' she says.
Rott's brother, David, made aliyah three years ago and lives in
Tel Aviv. Her brother, Michael, lives in Oak Park. Sister Michelle
and her family live in New York. Their parents, Carol and .
Sheldon Rott, live in West Bloomfield.
A conversation that Rott had with her roommate, Yaffa Musai,
a 28 year old from Efrat in the West Bank, helped put the veil
of war in perspective: "I asked her, `How do you do it? How do
Israelis deal with this all of the time?'"
In her laid-back Israeli style, Musai responded, "We just pray.
What else can you do?"

The Israeli Way

As I listened to Ron discuss adjusting to life as an Israeli against
the backdrop of Hezbollah's Beirut-based chief vowing on Friday
to engage in "open war:' I thought about the many creature
comforts — like central air, carpeting and a car — that she has
foregone to live in Israel. No wonder she had begun a mental
checklist for an emergency war-preparedness kit as she asked
her roommate what they should do in the wake of the crisis.
Rott was momentarily taken aback by her roommate's reac-
tion."She looked at me with a mixed sense of compassion,

kindness and a subtle dash of pity',' Rott says. "It was
the same look you give someone that you feel sorry
for because they just can't seem to grasp some funda-
mental principle of existence."
If ever an answer was uniquely Israeli, Musai then
said, "Listen, we'll know what to do when we need to
do it. Now stop reading your computer and go read
some tehillirn [psalms] instead!'
Remember, we're talking about a tiny democratic
nation that has been in a state of physical or politi-
cal war throughout much of the 58 years since it was
founded in the shadows of the Holocaust.
"For that brief moment," Rott told me,"I under-
stood what it was like to be Israeli — and to be a Jew."
Anxious family and friends bombard Rott with questions like
"Are you OK?" and "Are you coming come?"
Being Jewish in a country of Jews inspires her.
As she puts it: "I pull from that strength that exists within
every Jew and answer like an Israeli — which I am, which we all
are: `I am home. Won't you come and join me?'"

Teen Wisdom
That point was driven home as I read the Kabbalat Shabbat
message delivered on July 14 at sunset services held on the
Lake Kinneret beach during the Federation-sponsored Israel
mission for 214 Metro Detroit teens.
"While having a conversation with one of the Israeli girls
on our trip, Adi, we realized something significant — that our
presence in Israel is needed now more than ever',' said 10th-
graders Sloane Wolf of West Bloomfield and Lauren Mondry
of Bloomfield Hills.
"Having your support during this tough time•means every-
thing to us:' Adi told the girls. "It makes us feel happy to know
that Americans care and are willing to listen to us and share
our concerns!'
Adi told the girls how war, though foreign to American kids,
is part of an Israeli's life. "Even if this time is extremely different
for us," Wolf and Mondry said at services, "we must take it as an
opportunity not only to support our friends in Israel, but also to
learn about
ourselves and realize
how lucky we are by
comparing our situa-
tion to theirs and not
taking everything for
granted"
Increased violence
forced Federation
to end the mis-
Lauren Mondry and Sloane Wolf
sion on Tuesday,
14 days early. The
kids returned to Metro Detroit, via London and New York, more
familiar not only with Israel, but also with who they are as Jews
and members of the civilized world.
Ruthie Rott and the mission goers are refreshingly can-
did about the realization that we're a global people that will
survive and thrive only through painstaking support for one
another.
That's a lesson for the ages. El

See JNonline.us for more on the Middle East conflict.

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