 |
David Potter is a veteran paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division and served through two enlistments, including the war in Grenada, and is trained in aviation electronics and computer networking. Today, from his home base in Louisiana, he drives trucks and takes prides in the "made in Israel" products he delivers throughout the United States.
|
|
|
|
By David Potter
September 5, 2005
New Orleans always had a certain European flavor to it. It was a combination of Spanish, French, English, and African cultures. It was a place of music and play -- the city of rythym and blues; the home of Fats Domino, the Preservation Hall jazz band. It was the home of beautiful artworks and graceful architecture, some now perhaps forever destroyed.
It was said that nobody really understood this city -- except the people of New Orleans. For all the poverty and rough edges of the town, it was a place where its people for the most part got along: friendly, easy, respectfully. For all the physical devastation of New Orleans -- its quaint buildings and lanes, its cultural and musical heritage -- the real treasure was its people.
Now the majority of these people -- those who were fortunate enough to leave -- have been scattered, many perhaps never to return. In some respects, they may turn out to be something like the Jews of another time and place, who were scattered to the four corners of the Earth, yet retaining for all those years the memory of their home -- above all Jerusalem -- preserved in their hearts.
The hurricane that struck this city with such deadly force has been compared to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It is said that more lives may have been lost in this latest disaster than any other natural disaster in America's history. Certainly more than were lost in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And yet -- unlike these terrorist attacks -- there is no enemy to fight; only the forces of nature.
A Louisiana resident, I am among the fortunate ones. The city where I live is 345 miles away from New Orleans. This is one of the places where other people come to for safety. More than 900,000 people have passed through my city in the past week; some have stayed -- others have gone on to other places.
They are not just traveling to the large metropolitan areas either. Some apparently went only as far as their gas tanks could take them; and settled into the small country towns along the way. They went from being city dwellers to country folk in the blink of an eye.
Even in these small places, there is talk of building tent cities. But the real problem will arrive when stranded travelers in motels and hotels begin to run out of money. They thought they were only going to be there for a short while. Now they have nowhere else to go.
If there are lessons to be learned from all of this, at least one of these lessons is that large scale evacuations need to be planned and prepared for by governments. Although I will never approve of the circumstances under which it was done, Israel is fortunate to have had some experience in this.
It doesn't have to be a hurricane like Katrina -- or even a natural disaster -- for a large percentage of the population to be displaced. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the threat of nuclear, chemical, and biological terrorism is very real.
There are enemies out there who want to kill us; and it doesn't matter to them whether we are Christians or Jews -- simply that we are different.
Let's hope that the heartland of America is more hospitable to the refugees from New Orleans than the world has been to the Jewish Diaspora.
Yet may the Diaspora of New Orleans have the same mostly happy ending as the Jewish one: an eventual return to origins and a rebuilding of a safer and healthier home than the one so cruelly destroyed.
Let's just hope it doesn't take two thousand years.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
