Nice to meet you...
I just got back from an extraordinary event. I was invited to the bat mitzvah party of a girl whose family I met while helping them "settle" into the caravilla they were exiled to when their home was taken away from them by the Israeli government and handed over to the terrorists. Probably about 95% of the invited were evacuees (with there being under 150 people there, you can see I was part of quite a minority). I had thought about how to greet the other guests. Common questions like "Where are you from", are not askable, as the question is generally followed by the neighborhood in gush katif, and why bring that up... A seemingly OK opening was "so how do you know the family?", but when the people we were talking to questioned back, what about you...we ran into toungue tiedness...uhh, well, we met them in nitzan when we went there to volunteer...? Yes, that's right, while you were being kicked out of your houses, we were volunteering and helping people like the ba'alei simcha move into their new quarters... Way to stay clear of upsetting topics... Well, I don't think it's so possible to stear completely clear of upsetting topics... Someone I had met in nitzan that week came over and mentioned that I remind her of such a dark time in her life, and at least some good came out of it...she met me... great.
posted by 2R at 12:44 AM
1 Comments:
One of the few bright spots in the lives of those who have been evicted from Gush Katif is the knowledge that there are people out there who really care about them.
I live in a yishuv in the Shomron, and we have "adopted" one of the yishuvim from Gush Katif. We have our own tzedaka fund for them, we helped them move to their temporary living quarters (there have been two already and a third is almost ready), and we try to have social events together.
It is difficult, on the one hand, because we haven't been thrown out of our homes, so we feel a bit guilty around them. On the other hand, the people have expressed their thanks that we haven't forgotten them.
In short, be proud of your volunteering - and don't let a bit of "guilt" keep you from doing more.
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