 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |  |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Adil and Hasna Find Comfort Among Other Displaced Elderly at Respite
Adil and Hasna, ages 74 and 69, spent the recent conflict wandering from place to place, displaced from their home and scared to return. The couple originally immigrated to Israel from Morocco in the 1950s while in their late teens and eventually settled in the northern town of Shlomi, near the border with Lebanon.
When Hezbollah's rockets began to fall indiscriminately onto Israeli population centers across the country's north, Hasna went into a panic. "I said to my husband, 'we have to get out of here!'" she explained, still visibly shaken a month later. "I don't care where we go but we must leave at once." Hasna and Adil traveled first to relatives in B'nei Brak, then to acquaintances in Jerusalem, and then to other distant relatives in Yerucham. "We felt always that we were imposing on others," Hasna explains. "We lacked a basic sense of dignity and we never knew where we would be sleeping for more than a few days at a time." Then, a friend told them of a respite program for seniors from the north arranged by JDC and the Government of Israel. They made contact with JDC and met up with a group of seniors from the north for five days in the Jerusalem Olive Tree Hotel. The group therapy sessions, which complemented the vacation's timetable of leisure activities, especially helped Hasna and Adil come to terms with the fear they had been experiencing since the rockets began to fall. "We met all of these other people from the north who had been experiencing the same sense of panic as we had," explains Hasna. "It really helped us realize that it was okay to be feeling that way." Hasna and Adil also enjoyed the many programs and excursions arranged for them as part of the respite: the tour of Jerusalem's Old City, the nightly performances by local Jerusalem musicians, and the group meals. "We have even made some new friends," shared. August 2006 |
