Clowns in the lobby meant life wasn’t normal, that we were still in emergency mode. And people were tired of emergency mode
INthe Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, just across the road from my home in Maalot Dafna, are three hotels — the Olive Tree, the Grand Court, and the Leonardo. I never saw anyone stay there except Christian tourists, but after October 7, 2,000 evacuees from Sderot and the southern kibbutzim began to call these hotels home. Among them were all types of Jews — Asheknazim, Sephardim, Ethiopians, Bnei Menashe.
I’m a medical clown, and that’s how I first showed up there, wearing my yellow Crocs and bananas on my hat, walking my invisible dog, staging finger-puppet productions, but without my usual balloons, because the bang of a popped balloon is terrifying for someone who experienced a terrorist attack.
I also visited the Theatron Hotel. That was the scariest. The families there had come from the kibbutzim that had been attacked, and the little kids were practically unresponsive. They’d been frantically silenced for hours as they huddled in their safe rooms, and had learned that shutting down their emotions and responses equaled survival.
The older kids warmed up faster. We played ball in the lobbies and horsed around. A colleague brought a pack of cute robotic puppies. They played music and did tricks, but because they repeated their tricks at predictable patterns and intervals, the kids felt safe with them and warmed up quickly.
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