Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
When you were a child, what was your favorite color? I
distinctly remember the discussion my first-grade classmates had about favorite
colors. Most of the girls declared that red was their favorite. I had an innate
streak of Israeli davka-ness in me, way before I became an Israeli, was
determined not to be like everyone else so I declared that my favorite was
blue.
In Israel, for many children, red has become an issue – for
very different reasons.
The siren that warns us of incoming missiles is called RED
ALERT. In the north, because our enemies are a little further away, we have a
whole minute to reach a bomb shelter or safe room. Israelis who live near the
border with Gaza have just 15 seconds.
The siren I hear when there are missiles, sounds like this:
In the south, near Gaza, the alert is different. The time it
takes for the siren to increase in volume and for the human ear to register
that the sound it is hearing is a siren are precious seconds the citizens of
southern Israel do not have. That is why the warning for incoming missiles for
southern Israel is different – there, instead of a siren, the words COLOR RED
are blared out:
COLOR RED means RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
Yes, we have missile defense systems but they do not always
work. A successful missile interception means that the missile exploded in the
air rather than exploding on the ground. This means that also when the defense
system works, burning hot metal is falling from the sky. This can damage,
injure and even kill.
When missiles are incoming, you do NOT want to be outside.
The original siren for the south used the words RED DAWN
(Shachar Adom). The problem with that is that there are children, both boys and
girls who are named Shachar (which means dawn in Hebrew). In consideration of
the trauma and stigma this could create, the army changed the siren to the
words COLOR RED.
How do you think children who grew up hearing this warning
feel about the color red?
When we visited Kibbutz Alumim, social worker Esther Marcus
told us about small children who started avoiding red. They didn’t want to wear
red, use red for coloring or play with red toys. Can you blame them?
It is a horrible feeling to be a grown up, a parent, knowing
that your children have had their innocence stolen away, simply because they
are Jewish and live in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Children’s
thoughts about colors should not be dictated by a terrorist organization.
Children should be free to play outside, free to walk from their home to visit
a friend, without having to worry about where the closest bomb shelter is.
But that is our reality. So the question then becomes, what
can we do about it?
We want our children to grow up free spirited, with strong
wills and good mental health (who doesn’t?). We want our children to grow up
kind and generous, not fearful, bitter or full of hate – even for the people
trying to kill us.
Israelis go to extraordinary lengths to make this possible
and, in the most part, we succeed.
Israeli children know that Gazan children are raised on hate
but they still hope that one day Gazan children will learn that Israeli
children can be good friends to play with. That’s why many Israeli communities,
on the Gaza border have held kite festivals, flying kites with messages of
peace as their answer to the kites with messages of death and destruction we
receive.
Even if these kites have no effect on our enemies (and they
don’t), they have a positive effect on our children. Instead of allowing this
symbol of childhood innocence to be stolen and completely perverted into a
symbol of violence and war, children learn that it is up to the flyer of the
kite to determine what it will mean.
For this reason, Esther Marcus wrote a children’s story
about the color red. When we visited Kibbutz Alumim, we went to the
kindergarten and she read the story to us with the children. It is both
inspiring and gut-wrenchingly horrifying to witness the effort necessary to
keep our children well balanced.
The story is about colors. Each color has its own qualities
and they all feel happy and self-confident. Only the color red begins to cry,
devastated that everyone is afraid of him. He says: “Even the cats and dogs run
to hide under the bed when they hear my name!” Then the other colors come to
comfort Red: “Wait a minute, said Blue, the opposite is true! You warn them of
the rockets and give them a chance to run to the safe place!”
After the story, the kindergarten teachers asked the kids
what their favorite colors are. Interestingly a number of them said white
(which includes all the colors of the rainbow and in Israel is associated with
purity and often worn on holidays). One girl told us shyly: “pink.” A boy
shouted with confidence: “RED!”
Esther and the teachers then asked the children: “And what is
the most important thing to have when it comes to colors?”
At first, I didn’t understand the question. When I heard the
kids answer and understood what these grown-ups are teaching them, I wanted to
cry.
This is how, in an impossible, unbearable reality, Israeli
children grow up to be kind and good, optimistic rather than being bitter or
hateful, understanding the consequences of a dangerous reality and still hoping
for a better future.
Can you guess what the children answered?
“A rainbow. The best thing is a rainbow.”
If you are interested in buying Tzeva Adom (in Hebrew,
with or without an added English translation) or would like to find out how you
can help the people of Kibbutz Alumim contact Esther Marcus at:
Esthermarcus610@gmail.com
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