Why I Didn’t Write on Sunday

I was all set to wrtie out a recap of my high-intensity roller coater ride of a last day at work, when I heard the sound bite on the news: another suicide bombing in Israel. I sighed and turned around to see where it was…and gasped. This time it was in Haifa! Let me just say right now that ALL the bombing nad terrorist attacks goign on in Israel are horrible! But this one was that much wrose for me cause it happened in Haifa, where I’d LIVED for 4 months last year. Thankfully only the bobmer died in the explosion, and the injuries sustained by people eating at the cafe were minor. But still I couldn’t help crying. When we first got to irentation at Haifa U the Dean descirbed Haifa as Israel’s best kept secret. And the whole time I was there it always felt like this total safe haven. Even though things were peaceful last year when I was in Israel, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder and being a litlte more cautious when i was in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But in Haifa I NEVER thought about it. I’d get on the bus without fear and loved how I could go out all ngiht and not fear for my safety. Hearing that report on the news shattered all of that.

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt that saddly. There was the bombing at the Dolphinarium night club in Tel Aviv in late may. I reembered walking by it (it’s right along the beach) and commenting on an interesting name and then sitting out n the beach with AManda til 4am and feeling so safe and secure and happy. more than 15 teenagers were killed in that bombing. And then there was last week’s bombing in Jerusalem, whihc killed 16 people including a pregnant American woman from NJ. I never ate at that Sabarro while i was there but I know exactly whre it is: about two blocks from the My Home in Jerusalem hostel i frequented and less than a mile’s walk from the old city.

It hurts so deeply to see a place whose beauty I’ve witnessed firsthand being attacked. This attack on sunday was the latest in the erosion of safety in Israel. As I watch it unfold half a world away in the safety of my home I’m filled with so many emotions: relief that i’m not there now (as much as I love it), gratitude that I was able to go and that my time there was for the most part a tiem of peace in the Middle East, but mostly saddness at all the fighting and killing goion on on both sides on the land I know and love so well.

Steph