Observances & Rituals:
'Is this a terrorist attack?'

By Sarah Morrison
Nov. 9, 2007

People think I'm crazy.

I left my warm and cozy home to travel six thousand miles away to a place where the language is so rough on my tongue and the culture rubs painfully against mine. Why would I put myself in a place where the news says bombs drop every day and children die in a war that they can barely understand? Is it even safe to go?

"Is it safe to go?" is one of the most frequently asked questions. America seems safe. Sure, we have crime, we have security breeches, we have 9/11 -- but yet, it seems so much safer than Israel. I realized that this is only because my home is familiar. Nobody comes to a new country and automatically feels safe.

But anything seems safer than Israel when all I heard in the news was suicide bombings, rockets, stone-throwing, bulletproof busses, retainer walls, barbed-wire fences, and kidnapping. Who would pay a visit, let alone live here for a year? Further, why do people keep making aliyah (move to Israel)?

Despite the danger, people keep coming, and they thank God for the opportunity to live in a place that seems so insecure.

Yes, I feel perfectly safe here.

I don't buy groceries without being searched beforehand. I can't go out to eat with friends without a guard checking my purse. I can't get on a bus where there are no soldiers -- either in uniform or plainclothes. I'm screened to get into the central bus station. I've seen people not let into a bus station or a restaurant. The angry confrontation is terrifying, but I'd rather it happen then to let a suspicious person slip by passively. There's zero tolerance for unusual behavior.

Yes, I feel perfectly safe here. At least I felt safe until Sukkot.

On Sunday of Sukkot, I needed to make my way back from Jerusalem to my dorm in Beit Shemesh, which is half an hour away. The walk to the bus station is easy, but with an overnight bag slung over my shoulder, I couldn't make it. Instead of paying 30 shekalim (About $9.50) for a cab, I paid 5 1/2 shekalim (a bit more than a dollar) for the 21 bus to take me to the main station.

Although I don't like taking the inner-city busses, I don't have much choice on a limited budget. The bus was comfortable and relatively empty, so I sat back and relaxed. Traffic was heavier than usual as the bus took its route through Jerusalem, but the bus eventually came to a halt. The roads ahead of us were blocked, soldiers and police flooded the streets, and the crossroad was congested by cars and other buses trying to turn around.

The driver of the bus I was taking leaned out the window to the driver next to him to find out more information. Puzzled and fearing the worst, the bus fell into a deafening silence.

The bus driver asked, "Zeh pigua?" ("Is this a terrorist attack?")

That's when the silence broke. Each passenger said "Zeh pigua!" to his neighbor in a hushed, rushed whisper. Nobody dared to say the words out loud. A bombing has not been carried out in Jerusalem since April 2006; it wasn't time to break the streak, the longest since the Intifada began.

An old man with his granddaughter said, "zeh lo pigua!" ("This isn't a terrorist attack") in a loud and confident voice. Nobody took faith in his words. I don't even think that he believed his own words.

Nobody on that bus was innocent that day. It certainly wasn't a good time to have an overnight bag between my feet. I might be a short blonde American girl, but on that Sunday, I was a terrorist threat. My heart pounded in my chest and my palms sweat so much that I lost my grip on the seat in front of me. I couldn't ask anyone if they heard anything on the news; there was no way that I was going to say "pigua" on a bus full of nervous people.

In the confusion and in my nervousness, I stepped off the bus and walked to the main bus station. On the bus ride back to Beit Shemesh, even though I knew everyone on that bus was screened and searched, everyone was a suspicious person. From soldier to citizen, everyone was literally a possibly ticking time bomb.

I haven't been on a bus since then, but if I had to get on again, I'd do it with little trepidation. This is how Israel lives -- they pick up and move on. Americans can't imagine living their daily lives "in fear" like Israelis do. But Americans also don't fully grasp that Israelis don't live in fear.

That time on the bus was the only time I felt fear, and even then, it was the calmest fear I ever felt in my life.

I found out when I got to my dorm that the commotion was over a "suspicious package." If a bag or a box is left unattended in Israel, a robot comes, covers the suspicious package, and blows it up. Many people have lost small kitchen appliances that way, but countless more didn't lose their lives.

And at the end of the day, I fall asleep to the sound of planes roaring above my house. I live just like any other Israeli.

I live without fear and I feel perfectly safe.