By Noam Bedein
September 25, 2007
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Yom Kippur was, without a doubt, the quietest day this past year here in Sderot. It was a year where 1800 kassam rockets were launched towards our city and the Western Negev since September 16, according to the IDF spokesman.
It was a day with no sirens, with no 'red alert', no ambulances and police cars screeching through the streets of Sderot in pursuit of an exploded missile in our town.
The last time I can recall the streets being empty like this was on Shavuot this past May, where the city was quiet and empty because 65% of the population had been evacuated after 293 rockets slammed into the Western Negev region within a two week period.
Synagogues were empty, half were locked, and the 'color red' siren went off every hour with missiles exploding near by.
On Yom Kippur, the streets were empty as well, but the reason being that most of the residents were praying in the synagogues.
In Sderot the passage in the prayer, "Who will Live, and Who will Die", holds great and powerful meaning for the residents. The fragility of life is in constant balance here. Yom Kippur, the day in which creations and living souls are sentenced for life or death, becomes a day of hope for the people here in Sderot. The only option left for us in facing the new year is prayer.
This is a time and place where every word, prayer and wish is meaningful and the gap between life and death is played out like Russian roulette: "May we be inscribed in the Book of Life."
In the long hours of prayer, you manage to notice many faces of people who you've met during this year, in their destroyed homes, by Palestinian rockets. Try to imagine what's going through their minds at this moment, when in that single moment their lives have changed during the 15 seconds when they ran for shelter.
Watching the blessing of the Priests, fathers covering their sons faces and blessing them, was another significant moment during the day. Fathers praying that their sons remain safe from the rocket attacks, that they find shelter whenever a missile lands. These are the prayers that the fathers of Sderot have for their children.
Today I turned on the TV, and heard Ahmadinejad on the stand in the UN, in the Colombia University, the one who swears to destroy Israel, calling for genocide of a nation. Again, 'his' voice is being heard. And despite the protests before, during his speech there was no heckling, no boos, just applause for his outrageous lies, and silence from those who should be outraged.
It is ironic that someone like Ahmadinejad can be heard all over, but the voices of the people in Sderot remain silent to the world. Because of this silence and the fact that the situation here in Sderot barely reaches international headlines, Hamas and Fatah are effectively smuggling in more and more weapons -- over 40 tons, it is reported, since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip this past June. 13,000 Hamas soldiers that were trained by Iran are prepared to break this 'silence' by launching attacks against us, knowing that there will be no outcry, not from the international community and not even from our own government.
This smuggling is devastating to people in southern Israel, where over 100,000 citizens are under daily threat of these rockets. But what is more devastating still is the silence of those who could prevent it, but will not.
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