Regards from Gaza!


Today I met Nicol Alchazov, a Russian immigrant to Sderot over 13 years ago. She was in the firefighters unit in the army, and upon her withdrawal, was admitted to be tested to be the first firewoman in Israel (that year Israel decided women could be firefighters). According to Nicol, two of the four women had what they call in Israel - "protexia" (connections) - so she didn't get the job.

A few years after the army, she became a manager in a textiles factory in Sderot. One of the owners of the factory is Palestinian and the other is Jewish. Before the disengagement, seven of the workers there were Palestinian. Nicol made friends with the Palestinian workers and still keeps in touch with one today.

Here's what's really interesting:

The Palestinian owner's brother - who lives in Gaza - calls Nicol to see how she's doing on days when lots of Qassams land in Sderot.

How crazy is that? Someone from Gaza calls a friend in Sderot to see how she's doing from the rockets fired a few villages from him...insane!

I asked Nicol to call her friend in Gaza to see if it's okay with him if I give him a call to see what's up. Wouldn't that be cool - talk to someone in Gaza. No, I haven't become a crazy lefty. I just think it would be pretty sweet to make a friend in Gaza, wouldn't you?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm a Mensch!

Check this article out. Mentioned by the editor of the Jewish Journal - top ten mensch in L.A! Pretty sweet honor right? Click Here: Brave + mensch = ? By Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief Three years ago, we were sitting around our offices dreaming up an end-of-the-year issue, inundated with examples from other magazines: The Ten Best Movies, The Ten Richest Angelenos, The Ten Most Powerful Hollywood Players, The Ten Top Restaurants, The Ten Hottest Bars and et cetera. Since these lists are both celebration and statement, we decided we wanted to promote something a little different. What if a list championed a Jewish value, not people, things or bars (not that there's anything wrong with them....)? Thus was born The Mensch List -- a roster that, humans being human, is far more difficult to crack than one tabulating power or wealth or even cool. But this year, after we made the list, I -- in the spirit of some holiday -- checked it twice. And there are four people missing. These a
Read more

Visiting Sites of the October 7th Massacre: A Personal Reflection

Image
I've participated in and staffed dozens of trips and missions to Israel. This last one -- a Birthright Israel Solidarity Mission that I staffed as part of my work as Israel Liaison for Birthright Israel Foundation -- was the most meaningful of them all, by far. Picture of the American participants on the solidarity mission, outside the Sderot municipality building.  We visited the South of Israel last week on the Gaza Border Region which is today a closed military zone. We went to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Alumim, Netivot and Sderot, where I lived for a bit in 2007/2008 to volunteer and write about life under rocket fire on this blog,  From 90210 to Sderot. It just made sense to post my reflections here, as I used to back in the day when I was living down there.  So many of us have been on tours of Sderot and been there in the police station. And now it’s gone.  A picture of me in 2007 with a rocket that had landed near me while giving out  Sufganiyot  on Chanukah in December 2007,
Read more

Spreading the Word About Sderot

Image
The video taken on my camera of the Qassam attack has circulated all over the world the last few days. Numerous people wrote on my facebook wall, "I was just sitting around and then, wow, Benji Davis, you're on CNN". Yah, that was pretty cool. But in all honesty, it's not important that I was on CNN, as long as my message was clear - there's a big problem in Sderot needing fixing. The segment of my video of the Qassam attack was headlined on national Israeli news on Channel Two at six, eight and twelve o'clock. Here's the piece. Also, at 9: 30 of the night of the attack, Channel Two called me and asked to come in for an interview during the 7:00 morning news. So, I didn't sleep that night, and took a 5:30 cab from Jerusalem (where I was at the time) to Herzliyeh (where the studios are). Yes, the interview was all in Hebrew - the billions of dollars my parents spent on my Jewish education did go somewhere after all. Here's the link of my inte
Read more