Bomb Shelters, Long Walks and Crazy Things

When I was in junior high, we used to joke about the fact that the school had a bomb shelter. For some reason, we thought that was so ridiculous, as if the Cold War was ancient history and our school was so outdated. But here I am, so many years later, literally living in a bomb shelter. That's right. My bedroom doubles as the apartment's bomb shelter, which means that in additional to the regular door, there is a solid steel "blast" door and that in addition to the steel shutters, my window has a solid steel cover. And while we occasionally laugh about the bomb shelters, the fact of the matter is, they are a part of everyday life in Israel. Every public building I have been in has at least one bomb shelter, normally well marked. Even if nothing else in the building is in English, you can be sure the sign(s) for the bomb shelter(s) is.

And the bomb shelters are just one aspect of my everyday reality that is so foreign to how life is "in the States" (you can tell I'm living abroad, when I no longer refer to it as the US or America). The campus and the various dorms (both the kfar, where the international students live, and the dorms for the Israeli students) are all enclosed by gates; one cannot enter without showing a student ID. Once on campus, I have to go through a metal detector and hand my bag over to be inspected. Even a lot of stores in the area require you to show them the contents of your bag before you enter, and every place has some sort of "guard" at the door with a metal detector wand. Random soldiers carrying machine guns are a normal part of my day. And every trip I go on - whether it was the weekend retreat or my bi-weekly archaeology tours - includes an armed guard.

Honestly, all these extra security measures don't make me feel unsafe - nor do they make me feel more safe. I think I just accept them as how life is. Last Shabbat, my friend Kristin and I walked from the German Colony back to the kfar (about 4-5 miles) after synagogue, around 6:30pm, after it was already dark. I never really felt unsafe on the entire walk; in fact, I faced more problems doing the "country club walk" back at Witt with Allie and Keeley. Yet when I tell people here that we walked across Jerusalem, after dark, like that, their reaction is always the same: "You did what?!" followed by "Were you safe?" Back home, I have friends who will go running at 8 or 9pm and no one questions their sanity or their safety. But here, there is the assumption that a nighttime stroll may land you in the hospital - or worse. Why? Because I am living more or less on the Israeli-Palestinian "fault line"? It's not like violence is a normal everyday part of life over here. Yes, I am concerned about what will happen if the peace talks don't resume - and even at the potentiality that a solution will be agreed upon (although the likelihood of that happening while I am here is slim) - but that does not mean that I am constantly looking over my shoulder, afraid someone is going to pull a gun on me.

Is there a possibility that I may become the victim of a terrorist attack? Absolutely. But if I stayed back home, there probably would be just as much chance (if not more) that I would be involved in some horrendous car accident or the like. I can't live my life afraid of what might happen. My passion is the Hebrew Bible, and that means I have to spend time in Israel. Of course, I can name Hebrew Bible scholars who have never been to Israel, and I could probably have a fairly successful career without every having set foot in Israel, but I would not be true to myself nor my understanding of scholarship. I have no desire to live in Israel on a permanent basis, but I do believe that an important part of biblical scholarship involves spending time in the land, and so here I am. People's passions make them do crazy, sometimes even dangerous things, and they do them without thinking twice because to them it is worth it, no matter what the cost. And that is what Israel is for me.