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Last update - 11:10 29/04/2008 Living on the outside By Avirama Golan Tags: Gaza, Israel, Qassams, Sderot The two boys who came to load our belongings onto a truck last Thursday looked surprised. To Sderot, they asked. Now? Are you sure? They were actually quite familiar with the way, and when we arrived after about an hour, including a traffic jam at the Ad Halom junction, they quickly unloaded the crates and the furniture. Yallah, they said, in a hurry to leave. Good luck. I hope that in a week from now I'll be able to remember the way. At the first square left to Ifergan and then straight ahead, until you see the neighborhood, and then right and right again. The little houses of the urban Kibbutz Migvan are full of greenery and colorful seasonal flowers. Large dogs walk around the yards as though they own them, and friendly cats lick the fences with enjoyment. Perhaps we have arrived at a pleasant bourgeois suburb of Tel Aviv? Why not? That would have been the case had there been, say, an express train from the end of Ayalon Highway to here, as is common in many countries. But Sderot is no suburb - it's a living and breathing city. And Migvan, which was established 17 years ago by a few young former kibbutznikim who wanted to revive the fading idea of cooperative living in a development town by becoming involved in the local life, is not an ordinary neighborhood. Advertisement Not only the movers had trouble believing that we were coming to live in Sderot. Apparently we ourselves also related to the entire matter as some kind of adventure: a combination of a rebellious attempt to go against the tide and a search, in the best tradition of our youth, for a goal and for meaning. But when we began to open the crates and arrange the pots and pans and plates and cups in the kitchen cabinets, and when we spread the carpets and made the beds - one in the bedroom and one in the reinforced room - and we hung up shirts and folded pants and put out soap and towels, and swept and washed and polished and dusted and opened windows wide - only then did we suddenly understand that we had not come for a fascinating vacation, but had actually moved house. On Pesach eve, all our new neighbors were preparing for a trip to their families and rushed to welcome us with an apology: Today there's no time, we'll talk another day. If you need anything, tell us. Their eyes also reflected their surprise. What, are you really and truly getting ready to sleep here and stay on a permanent basis? Meaning, you haven't come only to strengthen us - for weekends, let's say, or something like that? What's so unusual about that, we said. After all, you also left a comfortable life and came here years ago. Yes, they replied, but we, don't be insulted, were young, and there were no Qassams at the time. From the moment they heard we had come, they showed up at the door one after another. The first was a girl with nicely combed hair who had come to check on the new residents who had moved into the house where she had slept up until two days ago. (She has moved with her parents and her two brothers to a new house at the end of the street.) She was followed by two of the kibbutz's founders - Nitai Schreiber and Naomi Zion. Suddenly, after months of phone calls and e-mails and quick meetings to take care of technical details, they had come to welcome us. Among the piles of crates and wrapping paper, they hugged us and we were surprised and moved by their happiness. And we still had not understood that this presumably simple act, of moving from one city to another, had in fact been completed. In any case, the neighbors continued to welcome us all day long. Or, the neighbor on the other side of the wall, managed, in spite of the preparations for Pesach and stress at work in the prosecutors' office, to bake a cheese cake, and while it was still hot, in the baking pan, we cut it into large slices and gobbled it up quickly, during a coffee break we gained thanks to them. Galit, his wife, came with their three daughters and each of them offered us a rose from the garden. Two months ago we saw those rose bushes scorched down to their roots from a direct Qassam attack that also hit the wall of the house. A few weeks later they bloomed again, and now they are blossoming riotously, pink and yellow and red. All the men on this street cook and bake. A short time after the neighbors had parted and left, in came Lior, the next-door neighbor, bringing vegetable soup in a small pot. You probably haven't had anything to eat, he said. I made it at lunchtime and this is left over. Every day at noon the members of Migvan eat in the common dining room, but on the eve of the holiday, the dining room was empty, and every family was busy dealing with its own affairs. When the sun set, the house suddenly looked as though we had always lived there. A small lamp illuminated a pleasant corner in the kitchen. A cold wind blew through the windows and the blanket that was packed in Tel Aviv for next winter was taken out once again. It's cold here at night, and the air is clear and dry. Once during the night an explosion was heard without advance warning. The noise of the cars from the road, a conversation at the end of the street and loud music from a distant party gave us a feeling of foreignness, but a familiar picture on the wall calmed us in the dark. On Sunday afternoon, when we returned from Tel Aviv after the seder and opened the door, the house looked so pleasant and familiar to us that we immediately turned to kitchen work and to cutting the grass and weeding the flower beds. Afterward the neighbors returned to their homes, too, and Hashaked Street filled up with children at play. Little ones in diapers and older ones with toy cars and balls, and a serene and pleasant afternoon bustle, and coffee in the yard and conversations across the fence. The unemotional female voice that twice consecutively announces the rocket warning "Code Red, Code Red," was preceded by a breathy whistle, which sent the children and their parents running to the reinforced room: Each child flies to the nearest security room, even if it's not in his own house. There were a few minutes of quiet during which there is no way of knowing what is happening outside. Afterward comes the landing - it sounds close. And when we went out to the garden again and looked all around, silence still reigned in the street. As though a silent film had frozen the picture. Before sunset, when I crossed the street to the dining room located next to the offices of the Gevanim Center for Community Diversity, which coordinates social and educational activity that spreads far beyond the bounds of the city of Sderot, I saw it: still young and somewhat soft, but with its branches bending from the weight of the fresh green almonds. It, too, is a neighbor, who welcomed us here quietly and patiently, on Hashaked (Almond) Street in Sderot. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Deterring Tehran Bush: Disclosure of IAF strike on Syria sends a message to Iran. 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Read & React PM: Remorse for Gaza dead, but Hamas put victims at risk Responses: 313 Amos Harel: IDF acting as if no Hamas truce on horizon Responses: 122 Bush: Disclosure of IAF strike on Syria sends message to Iran Responses: 64 Hitler made a splash with Jewish press in pre-state Palestine Responses: 126 Iran official warns of 'danger' of Barbie, Harry Potter toys Responses: 71 Rosner's Domain Is Israel finished? five questions Ziad Asali: deal with Hamas would hurt the moderates Poll: truce with Hamas, good or bad? Wright, the race issue won't leave Obama alone Is suicide bombing rational? (WTR) More Headlines 01:20 Top Syrian emissary: Israel peace won't cut our ties Iran 00:19 Bush: Disclosure of IAF strike on Syria sends message to Iran 20:55 MI: Terror groups planning major attacks on Israel's 60th 22:43 IDF Chief, in Warsaw: Israel, its army are answer to Holocaust 23:33 WJC chief Lauder implores Swiss to cancel Iran gas deal 01:30 ANALYSIS: Livni and About Gheit starting to sing harmonious duet 21:35 Northern man jailed for duping people over magical powers 20:56 Wright, the race issue won't leave Obama alone 16:51 UNIFIL denies Israeli charges it ignores Hezbollah activity 12:51 PM voices 'deep remorse' for Gaza deaths, but says Hamas put victims at risk 21:51 Fugitive Israeli rapist caught in Ukraine with forged passport 19:28 House of last Jewish resident near Auschwitz faces demolition 22:36 Gas prices to rise by 29 agorot per liter Wed., reaching record high Previous Editions Select Day 29 apr 28 apr 27 apr 25 apr 24 apr 23 apr 22 apr 21 apr 20 apr 18 apr 17 apr 16 apr

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