Israel in need for updated shelters in absorption centers, retirement homes - opinion

The other week, someone tried to kill me. I don’t know who he or she was, and I likely never will. I was attending a Jewish Agency for Israel staff retreat at our immigrant absorption center near Sderot when the siren went off. Only a few hours before I had seen two Ethiopian Jewish new immigrant children, no older than 7- or 8-years-old, walk by.

It is true what they say. When you are that close to the Gaza border, you have less than 15 seconds to find shelter before the rocket lands. The first five seconds, I spent staring blankly at my Israeli colleagues as they quickly walked toward the stairwell. When I heard the boom (which I am not sure was the impact or the Iron Dome defense system) I was about 2 meters away from the stairwell.

The work retreat reconvened within five minutes. The only reason that you would have known something out of the ordinary happened was my colleagues either checking if I, and my other American colleague, were okay, and some good-natured teasing that I was now an honorary Israeli. But soon I was back in my seat listening to a lecture on the importance of finalizing our 2023 work plan.

I do not know how the young children I had seen earlier reacted. Did they run in terror as they saw the sky light up? Or, like my colleagues, are they already relatively unfazed, and view these disruptions in the same ways that our children view thunderstorms or other forms of inclement weather?

This event did not grace the front page of any newspaper in the US or draw any notice on Twitter. Why should it? In 2022, from August 5-7 alone, it is estimated that approximately 1,100 rockets fell on Israel.

MUCH INK has been spilled and blood lost during this conflict. I know that my own personal experience does not mean anything at all in the context of the very real suffering that has been endured. But the real issue that should concern anyone who is pro-Israel is the desperate need for updated shelters in Israel’s absorption centers and retirement homes.

Take one example. The Barnea Absorption Center in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon has been providing a home for new immigrants since the late 1970s. It currently houses 417 new immigrants, the majority of whom are from Ethiopia, most of whom stay for two years.

The center is comprised of three buildings with six, seven and eight stories each. The complex was built in 1978 and has not been substantially renovated since. The emergency stairwells and their banister rails in each of the three buildings are crumbling and the emergency lighting is antiquated, so the center’s residents lack a safe exit route in case of missile attacks and other emergencies.

The buildings do have communal shelters, but they are not adequate for all of the olim and staff. Furthermore, due to the deteriorated condition of the stairwells, many people – including families with small children, the elderly and people with disabilities – are not able to reach the shelters within 30 seconds, the maximum time that Ashkelon residents have to reach a protected space when a siren sounds in their region.

Barnea is not an exception. These new immigrants to Israel deserve and need protection. They need our help, and they need it now.

I will never know who fired those rockets and why they chose to do it. I will also likely not be able to take significant actions in the short term that will help bring peace. But there is something that we can all do. We can insist that our communal organizations and philanthropic institutions demand that new shelters be built. We can make our own contributions so that when the next large barrage of rockets falls, Jewish lives will be saved.

The people of southern Israel need our help. The only question is whether we will answer the call.

The writer is the Jewish Agency for Israel’s head of North America and the president and CEO of Jewish Agency International Development.