BOXES HERE AND BOXES THERE
By Shifra Shomron
7th Tamuz 5765
Packing. Boxes and boxes of stiff brown cardboard were neatly stacked alongside the white walls of our living room in Neve Dekalim. Since Aba was doing the packing, it was all, characteristically, done with order and method; the three ceiling tall wooden bookcases stood empty, and all the books were residing snugly in their dark cardboard prisons away from my eager eyes and gentle hands.
The many family pictures adorning our household walls were still proudly up high, but I could swear that the once happy smiling faces now looked rather worried and tense, and the arms once carelessly draped around the other person's shoulder had now tightened to an iron strong embrace.
Also the charming bric-a-bracs feared the day when their elegantly painted faces would only see the stifling darkness of a cardboard box's interior.
The sheets and blankets longed for the day when they could comfortably spread themselves out instead of being confined in the limited space of a square box.
*sigh*
Brown cardboard boxes all full, all marked, all neatly stacked line the walls of our Shomron family living room in Neve Dekalim. There they wait day after day, hour after hour, until the 17th of August when, by law, the Shomron family and all Gush Katif residents must be out of Gush Katif.
And if one refuses to leave, if one bitterly claims that possessions can be packed up but memories can not. And that bones of loved neighbors and friends can not be packed up from the Gush Katif cemetery. And that if one leaves, one shall have to face the gruesome sight of Arabs brandishing guns and capering gleefully on their rooftops since they are drunk from happiness at seeing Jews in Israel expelled from their homes by Jews… . And if one refuses to leave willingly before the expulsion date, then Jewish soldiers shall forcibly remove that resident out from Gush Katif.
And, preferring to leave with back erect and head held high and not suffer the soul scorching sights that will take place later on, the Shomron family is packing.
Thousands of miles away, across a vast blue ocean, another Jewish family is also packing and counting the days until August 17th. Their living room walls are also lined with stiff brown boxes. But, oh! The difference! This family is packing in order to shake the deadly dust of the "land of the free and the brave" from their feet, and, instead, kiss the precious dust of the Holy Land!
And the welcome arrival of the Fruchtman family from the U.S shall be like a silver goblet of balm for the Shomron family from Gush Katif, soothing their strong but tormented souls as they unite with their close cousins – a unity of comfort and of strength. A unity of family and of nationhood. A unity that will comfort, strengthen and soothe the Shomron family because it will prove to them, in the words of 'Yair' Stern:
"And if in the streets, in the houses we'll fall
And we'll be buried secretly at night
In our stead thousands of others shall call
To conquer forever and fight."
It will prove to the Shomron family that though Gush Katif has fallen; it's people banished, it's houses crumbled, it's streets cracked, still, thousands of others will answer the eternal call of the land of Israel crying for it's sons and daughters to return. And those who swiftly spring to answer the call come prepared to further help in settling our land.
Dear David, Karen, Diana, Julia and Lilly,
WELCOME HOME!!!
With love, Your family in Israel |
