ASHKELON, ISRAEL, April 9

Spend some time last evening with Sigal Ariely, the Ashelon-Baltimore New Parternship Coordinator, an effort of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.
I told Sigal while we were walking to Baltimore’s Lyn Stacie Getz Playground at the Michael Lapides park build project near the hotel that almost everyone I talked to Sderot warned that Ashkelon “could be next.”
Sigal knows Sderot all too well.  Her husband owns a steak house there and must put up with the rocket threat to his life and to the lifeblood of his business.
Sigal also remembers being in Baltimore when rockets started falling on Sderot. One fell near the community center where her young child was taking a ballet class.
We walked around the park. There was a breeze coming off of the nearby sea. The sun was setting and all was well.
I later learned that maybe not everything is so well. One local hotel reported to the Ashkelon city government that over 100 reservations have been cancelled for Pesach.
There’s a feeling that our hotel is somewhat empty.
Today we go from Ashkelon to Jerusalem. It feels almost like everyone there was oblivious to what was going on in Sderot. But then a young woman told me that her friends were purposelly going grocery shopping for Pesach at the stores in Sderot.
We get in the car to drive back after our short time in this holy city and the news reports tell us in an ominous voice that terrorists attack a fuel terminal today. The two terrorists were killed by the IDF, bujt not before they took the lives of two Israelis.
The fuel terminal’s location?
Ashkelon.

Phil-

It’s difficult to imagine what it is like to be in a situation that is not part of our experience. Thanks for using your gifts of observation and verbal communication in order to bring Sderot to us. May the need for early warning blimps disappear, may the children be safe in their own beds, and may the mothers of Sderot experience now and forever the freedom of blasting the volume on their car radios.

Phil,
Here I am, in the middle of life in these United States worries: helping my children, taxes, jobs, home budget, fixing and cleaning, including for Pesach -

when I read all of your blog notes about Sderot and Ashkelon.  That’s a big picture moment.

Like, if rockets were launched from downtown Baltimore to Upper Park Heights, randomly landing here, what would we do?

Family in Sderot and Ashkelon is in trouble, though I’ve not met them.

Maybe you can tick off a few ideas for us, Phil, and everyone else reading this blog.  I’ll try with starting a very bare list.  Please improve it:

1) Is there an organization single-mindedly devoted to this?  Remembering the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry…a focused group may be the best method. 

Maybe there several good (intellectual and especially emotional) messages that can be created, for repeating a million times and mobilizing people for all the other actions.  Tie in to specific actions that can be done: political, direct aid to Ashkelon / Sderot / displaced from Gaza, more…

Are students interested in this?  Are Israeli Hasbara organizations, ZOA, well spoken local and nationally known individuals, and other experienced groups able to lend advice / energy?

2) Reaching out to local / national Jewish organizations and non-Jewish organizations