'Back-To-School daze' Israeli Style: Armored Buses, Bombshelter Classrooms - Zoom session
So how does an Israeli parent conjugate "reading, writing, and 'rithmatic" with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis?
"School daze"- Zoom meeting:
Life on the Border thanks Omri Lerner of Moshav Kachal for making the time and effort to so eloquently speak of his family's coping with a return to school amid an extremely trying period for children and young adults coping with the war.
Apologies to Omri and our viewers for the cutoff - 40 minutes on Zoom is a hard stop (my bad for losing track of the time...)!
Despite - or in defiance of - 11 months of war and horrific losses of hostages, civilians, and soldiers, today, on September 1st, tends of thousands of Israeli school children return to classes across the country, including across the north, the latter under immediate threat of Hezbollah attack.
So how does an Israeli parent conjugate "reading, writing, and 'rithmatic" with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis?
Reading (קריאה): Instead of just reading textbooks, they’re decoding geopolitical news updates.
Writing (כתיבה): Well, it’s not just essays; it’s composing emails to politicians and heartfelt letters to soldiers.
'Rithmatic (חשבון): Forget basic arithmetic; they’re calculating the odds of peace negotiations and ceasefire agreements, and the geometry of reaching a protected space before the rocket hits.
And as for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis? They’re like the unexpected pop quizzes that keep everyone on their toes.
To help us find answers Life on the Border welcomes today's Zoom meeting guest, Omri Lerner of the Galilee village of Kahal.
Omri and his wife have a trio of daughters set to get on armored buses and hopefully enter - reinforced bomb-resistant classrooms.
Stay strong. חזק ואמץ
Sobering, thoughtful post. Definitely not the 'back to school' I knew. Thanks for reminding us that the Israeli "normal" may not be what springs to mind in the contexts of non-Israelis.