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Living on the Front Lines: Tsfat’s Elderly
It is twelve noon and already the air-raid siren alerting residents of an impending rocket attack has rung seven times. For Tsfat residents, this nightmare has become routine. Many have fled the city, and those left behind spend most of their waking hours in underground bomb shelters. Joel, an Ethiopian immigrant who has lived in Tsfat for the past 15 years, and has been a member of Tsfat's Day Care Center for the Elderly for the past three, is in a state of panic. "There's a lot of noise in Tsfat now — booms and sirens all the time! Please help me! Please do something for me!" Joel joined the Day Care Center three years ago, after he was injured in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The current crisis is particularly difficult for Joel as it brings back all the traumatic memories of the bombing. "I never leave the bomb shelter," Joel explains, and one can hear the panic in his voice as he talks, "There's no time to go out, because all you hear is boom boom boom all the time. One rocket fell right near my house. Please help me!" Although Joel's story is particularly heart-rending, he is not alone. A number of Tsfat's frail elderly are trapped in the city's bomb shelters, unable to leave, even for food and medications. Assistance comes in the form of Zev, the driver for the Day Care Center for the Elderly, who, at great risk to himself, braves the rockets to deliver food to the stranded Day Care Center clients. JDC is providing Emergency Basket of Services in order to help clients deal with the trauma and challenges already wrought by the unfolding security emergency. "These people can't leave the shelters. Even in times of peace, many of these seniors can't do their own shopping, so these days it would be unfathomable. They depend on us to bring them their food and medication," Zev explains. "Each day they ask us, 'When will this end? When can we return to the Day Care Center? When can our lives return to normal?'" The stress Zev feels can be heard in his voice, which is low and subdued. Although he would never consider leaving Tsfat, the choice to remain in this war-torn city has come at a high personal cost. His wife, seven months pregnant when the rockets began to fall, suffered a late term miscarriage, a direct result of the current conflict. "But I can't leave," Zev insists. "We take care of these seniors in times of peace, how can we not care for them in times of war? I risk my life each time I go out. There may be a katyusha attack or there may not. It's a risk I take because if I don't bring these seniors their food, they will definitely die. If I left, who would take care of them?" August 2006 |
