28 | MAY 20 • 2021
T
hrough WhatsApp,
Facebook, emails
and texts, Jewish
Detroiters are trying their
best to keep informed about
the safety status of Israeli
family and friends as Hamas
bombards Israel with thou-
sands of rocket launches.
When it is early evening
on this side of the globe,
social media posts come
from Israel depicting the
mundane of everyday life
right now: rushing in the
middle of the night to a safe
room or shelter after sirens
blare, if they are lucky to
have one. Being disrupted
to find shelter during life’s
simplest pleasures, such as
taking a shower, going to the
beach, sleeping or baking a
cheesecake for Shavuot.
Ilanit Atias of Farmington
Hills is physically and men-
tally exhausted trying to
communicate with her aging
parents and large extended
family in Ashkelon. Just 15
minutes away from the Gaza
envelope, Ashkelon is peren-
nially the target of Hamas
violence and, this time, the
sirens are relentless.
“My parents have no
shelter, so they spend every
night sleeping in the stairs,”
said Atias, who is a Hebrew
educator at Temple Israel
in West Bloomfield. “It has
been an extremely difficult
four days, and my family is
basically in survival mode.
Even with the technology to
stay in touch, sometimes (my
parents) do not always have
the phone near them, so I
don’t know anything. But I
have a big family, so there is
always someone I can contact
to know about the safety of
the others.”
Even before this latest
wave of attacks from Hamas,
Atias’ family suffered the loss
of three grandparents from
coronavirus. The family was
about to observe the first
yahrtzeit of her grandfather,
but the danger of the rockets
falling put plans on hold.
Her last surviving grand-
mother has Alzheimer’s and
is confused as to why she
must continually enter the
safe room of her home. Her
caretaker, an Indian woman,
was close friends with anoth-
er Indian caretaker killed by
a Hamas rocket that landed
and destroyed an Ashkelon
home where she worked.
“Israel is the only tiny
country in the world that is
Jewish, but we are humon-
gous in terms of what we
give to the world in terms of
education, civilization and
technology,” Atias said. “We
expect nothing in return. All
we want is a bit of empathy.”
Tzvi Koslowe moved from
Israel to Southfield with his
wife and children in 2018 to
pursue work in real estate.
As the Tzeva Adom (red
color) app on his phone
went off again
to alert him of
yet more rockets
falling in Israel,
he expressed
great concern
for the safety of
his parents, sib-
lings, nieces and
nephews, some who serve in
the army. They live in Givat
Shmuel and Petach Tikvah,
where last week Hamas
injured several people with
a direct hit to an apartment
building.
“My phone alerted me
to the rockets falling, and
when I saw it was in Petach
Tikvah, I right away called
my parents,” Koslowe said.
“It was about 2 a.m. there,
and I knew how close it was
to where my parents lived.
When I reached them, they
were up watching television
and they said it was very
close to their home. They
now sleep in the television
room because it is closer to
their bomb shelter, just in
case they have to get there in
a hurry.”
Koslowe said this is hap-
pening at a time just when
things were feeling somewhat
normal in Israel as COVID
restrictions lifted. Now, cer-
tain things like gyms, malls
and schools must shutter
again.
“But this is life, and we
get used to it,” Koslowe said.
“Someone living outside of
Israel would be shocked with
thousands of rockets raining
down on their towns, but for
Israelis, we have
a bit of a tougher
skin.”
Hannan Lis,
founder of
Michigan Israel
OUR COMMUNITY
Local Israelis react to events in their
home country.
Tzvi
Koslowe
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Violence
Holy Land
in the
Ilanit Atias’ cousins Noam,
Aviv and Itamar Bitton were
asked by their dad to lie flat
in their safe room when the
first sirens went off.
continued on page 30
Hannan Lis