The Palestinians are bombarding the area again, this time with more force than ever. I should have been suspicious that something was up when the kibbutz leaders suddenly announced a surprise party for Hanita's anniversary. The party is held in the large wood-paneled recreation room that doubles as a bomb shelter, and the entire kibbutz is there.
It is not until I try to leave the party early and am blocked at the door by an armed Israeli soldier that I realize that this is all a scheme designed to get us into the shelters. Once again, the kibbutz leaders do not want to alarm the rest of us by telling us the truth. It is not long before the first Palestinian rockets begin to explode nearby.
Back in the shelter, the kibbutzniks keep their children busy with games and laughter and songs. The small children dance and sing songs for Purim, which is only two days away. Meanwhile, the leaders nervously tap their fingers and study their wrist watches, trying not to show their fear.
The bomb shelter is packed full now, several hundred people sitting thigh-to-thigh in a room designed to hold only a few dozen. The air is filled with a haze of tobacco from the grown-ups' chain-smoking. A grim Israeli soldier, armed with an automatic machine gun and a walkie-talkie, looks on as the children laugh merrily.
The whole scene is so bizarre as to seem almost unreal. Palestinian terrorists are actually trying to kill me, and yet I am unable to get angry or even upset about it. The rockets are exploding around me, and yet it is somehow still so impersonal that it is almost impossible to deal with. It's a cliche, but it's true: My life has become a pawn in some large and unfathomable chess game.
After about half an hour of waiting, the rockets begin to hit the area. The explosions are at first mild, and it seems that this time the Palestinians have managed to miss Hanita entirely. Then, slowly, the explosions begin to get louder and the rockets start striking closer. The frequency of the attacks begins to increase as well: first the blasts come every 10 or 15 minutes, then every five minutes. Now they seem to come every few seconds.
As the explosions increase outside, so, too--almost imperceptibly--does the speed and tempo of our bomb shelter party inside. The singing becomes louder, the dancing faster, the laughter more frenzied--as if in defiance of the surrounding mortar attacks. Even the youngest children seem to understand and follow their parents' example.
At the height of the explosions, which are now shaking the kibbutz and drowning out even the loudest singing, the group bursts into a Hebrew chorus of a tune that sounds familiar to me. It is "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"--a vestige of some long-ago childhood memories of the Vietnam protests.
Another young American in the room, who understands what that song means to our generation, looks at me with a haunted expression on his face. It is a sort of Vietnam deja-vu, combined with the horrors of our own decade ten years later. Tears brim in my friend's eyes. They are already falling from mine.
WEDNESDAY MORNING
Another sleepless night in a bomb shelter, another morning of dazed kibbutzniks. At least this time I am wiser, and bring along a blanket and toothbrush.
The shelter I slept in last night is the oldest on the kibbutz. It was first used during Israel's war for statehood in 1948. This shelter was better prepared. It came equipped with a pick-axe, so the survivors could later dig themselves out of the rubble.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
I have decided to leave the kibbutz for safer quarters, at another kibbutz away from the Lebanese border. It is a decision that I have been wrestling with since the war began.
As I expected, the leader of the kibbutz, a stocky man named Yona, is not pleased with my decision. The kibbutzniks live every day of their lives like this, he says. Why can't I do the same? He implies that I am somehow acting un-Jewish by leaving the kibbutz, that I am deserting my people in a time of crisis.
His remarks anger me. I point out to Yona that I am an American as well as a Jew, that I am not used to the daily traumas of war like the other kibbutzniks, and that leaving the kibbutz is not at all an easy decision for me--in part because of attitudes like his. He smiles and decides to let me go; after all, one rotten apple spoils the bunch.
"There is a saying in the Talmud," he adds, "that if it is God's will for you to die, you will die no matter where you are." I, however, am a believer in free will--and more importantly, a believer in the power of Palestinian mortar.
As I pack my father's old Boy Scout knapsack with my belongings, I am still wearing the clothes I slept in last night in the bomb shelter. Yona walks me to the dirt road where I will catch a ride away from the border toward Haifa and my new kibbutz. Yona's forehead is deeply-lined, and there are circles under his eyes; the war has been hard on him, too. It is hard not to admire the courage of the Israelis like him, who sacrifice so much for their cause.
Yona shakes my hand, and smiles sadly. I get on the truck and it pulls away from the kibbutz. "Good-bye," I call out after him. I should have said, "shalom."