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

