The threat of missile attacks from the Gaza Strip has wreaked havoc on Jewish communities around southern Israel for more than a decade, but the issue causes particular challenges for chareidi parents in the region, whose gut reaction is to reassure children that “Hashem will protect us.” How is chassidic life in Ashdod, the seaside city less than twenty miles from the Gaza border, faring under the specter of attacks?
The most recent barrage of Hamas missiles at southern Israel hasn’t reached Ashdod a city of 235 000 people about seventeen miles north of the Gaza Strip but news that a Code Red alarm that sounded in neighboring Ashkelon in mid-July reminded residents of the beachfront city that the threat of attack is never far away.
For Rabbi Shmuel Teller a rebbi at a Belz Talmud Torah in Ashdod and an advisor to chassidic communities around the country on dealing with emergency situations the failed attack on Ashkelon brought him back to a similar incident in Ashdod in mid-May — an incident that caught Rabbi Teller off guard. He had taken the opportunity to visit family in Bnei Brak and heard about the incident only after the danger had passed.
“As soon as I heard there had been an alarm I called the cheder to find out if anyone had gotten hurt. Like most of the Palestinian bombs the rockets landed in an open field outside of town so there was no physical damage and I knew all our teachers and school administrators were well prepared to deal with the psychological trauma ” he said.
But repeated attacks have taken their toll on Ashdod which has found itself in easy missile range of Gaza just down the Mediterranean coastline. The most recent round of missiles (twenty attacks since the beginning of June as of this writing) may have spared Ashdod but many children have had pronounced reactions to psychological trauma.
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