Last
week, I found myself herding autistic elementary school students at a school I’d
never been to before into a bomb shelter—for practice.
That
wasn’t exactly what I expected to be doing that morning. I am spending the
summer in Israel with my family on a mini-sabbatical, and between finishing old
projects and starting some new ones, I carved out a little time for
volunteering. Through friends and connections (the way things work in this
small country), I learned about the Yad Hamoreh school, home to a unique
program for medium-to-low functioning autistic children integrated with regular
track children. They always need extra hands on board, especially Hebrew
speakers, so Wednesday morning, I was scheduled to volunteer at the school.
Tuesday
night, though, there was an air raid siren in Jerusalem. Hamas rockets were
headed toward the city.
I
have lived in Jerusalem during dangerous times. In 2001-2002, buses and
restaurants were regularly blown up, and people were afraid to travel by bus or
to even sit in cafés. In 2006, during the second Lebanon war, Jerusalem was a
relatively safe, and strangers from the north came to stay in my grandmother’s
apartment, seeking refuge. But Tuesday was my first tzeva adom—Color Red warning. Terrorists in Gaza had successfully
created rockets capable of reaching as far as Jerusalem, and they had begun
shooting at the city. Never mind the fact that there are many Arabs in
Jerusalem, Christians and Muslim alike. Never mind the historical and religious
sites for so many religions. These rockets were targeting us and aiming to
kill.
As
the siren wailed and we realized what it was, my husband and I grabbed our
sleeping children and headed to the “safe space” in my husband’s aunt and uncle’s
apartment. We ended up spending the night, rather than driving home and risking
a siren while on the road (safety protocol requires exiting the car, lest it be
hidden blowup, and laying by the side of the road, none of which we found
appealing with two small sleeping children). In the morning, still shaken by
the experience, we headed home, cleaned up, and got the kids to daycare, and
then I headed to Yad Hamoreh.
In
a bright, colorful classroom, I slowly met the fifth graders. First E, curled
up on a chair. She understands English better than Hebrew because her parents
are American, but she doesn’t speak almost at all, and when she does, it’s
mostly to herself. Y is very affectionate, but teachers are worried that his
propensity for enthusiastically touching friends and strangers alike will not
serve him well and are working with him on who to touch and when. G can
recognize some letters and vowels, but it’s hard to get him to stay focused
enough to read more than a word or two. M hasn’t been doing well lately and
spends a lot of time trying to do damage to the classroom and her classmates.
Teachers expertly distract her, move hazards, and stand guard, but in a room of
needy kids, she needs a full-time person standing near her to keep her from
hurting others or herself. L’s body is covered in scars that I understood were
self-inflicted by too much scratching. How does one protect a child from
himself? So there we were, 5 or 7 kids, and, depending on volunteers and
activity, at times as many as 5 adults, helping them through their day. I
followed the class to music and sports and art, each activity customized for
the needs of the children.
At
noon came the emergency drill. Exercises like these were taking place across
the country, in schools and daycares and camps, as children prepared for the
very real threat of a rocket landing on their school or park or home. The
guidelines are not complicated. The Home Front Command has advertisements on
the radio and TV in case you haven’t been paying in attention. In Jersualem,
you have 90 seconds to get to shelter. (Obviously, those closer to the source
have less time. In Sderot, where they have 15 seconds to get to shelter, and
the sirens go off all the time, kids just spend their days in safe spaces,
since there is no way they could get everyone in safely.) Bomb shelters are the
safest place to be. Mamads (safe
spaces, or specially reinforced rooms within newer apartments) are also
considered safe. If you don’t have time to reach or access to one of those, try
to get to a space with only internal walls and no windows. If you’re on the top
floor, go down a few, since you don’t want the roof falling on you. Stairwells
are considered good options as well.
Of
course, few of the kids at Yad Hamoreh can understand the guidelines or the
reason for them. We explained simply that we had to go to the library and promised
they could read books there. However, due to summer renovations, it ended up that
the library, a reinforced safe space, wasn’t open, and we led the kids further
downstairs, into another large shelter. We didn’t have enough adults to hold
everyone’s hands, but the teachers knew who needed to be gently tugged along
and who could independently follow the crowd and we were thus able to keep our
class together. The room was crowded but air-conditioned and the mood was
boisterous. Teachers congratulated the kids on getting there in a short time,
though I wasn’t sure if we really made it in less than 90 seconds, given the
confusion and semi-controlled chaos. Once everyone was seated, another teacher
asked me to position myself strategically in the line of sight between M and
the girl in the other class whose long hair she loves to pull. I stood there
until we were dispatched back to our classrooms. My small contribution to
keeping the peace.