Ten Days in a Jerusalem Hotel Lobby

Many people have written about their experiences in Israel over the past several days, hoping to share a sense of the gravity of the situation and to express the pain and anguish of recent events. I, too, was in Israel when the war broke out, but my personal experience was not remarkable. It mirrors that of everyone else in Jerusalem over the holiday and the days that immediately followed. But this story is not about me. I want to tell a different story.

Because our flight home to Los Angeles was canceled twice, and my husband and I had nowhere else to stay, we booked ourselves into a hotel near Jerusalem’s central bus station until we could secure flights back to L.A. As it turned out, that would take another nine days. When we first arrived at the hotel, it was a ghost town. Most of the holiday guests had already fled or taken refuge elsewhere. All that remained were a handful of people awaiting flights and some Christian pilgrims.

All of that changed the following day. Israeli families began to arrive in the lobby with their children. It was clear that these families were residents of communities in the south. Whole towns had been evacuated to Jerusalem for their safety. More evacuees arrived the next day. Suddenly the hotel was no longer empty but filled with families, parents, grandparents and lots and lots of children: children filling the lobby with playing, climbing, laughing, screaming, singing, rolling about on scooters and hitting me in the head with soccer balls (all is forgiven).

For the first week, most of these evacuees were from a community called Bnei Netzarim, which lies south of Gaza along the Egyptian border. Bnei Netzarim is a religious community founded in 2010. It was established primarily by former residents of Netzarim, one of the Jewish settlements in Gaza in the bloc known as Gush Katif, which was dismantled in the wake of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Now they were forced to abandon their homes once again and come to Jerusalem.

While these families had experienced a harrowing few days before their arrival in Jerusalem, their spirit seemed quite positive. Many were extremely grateful to be somewhere that offered a quiet respite from the constant sirens and rocket attacks in the south. The children and teens were together with their friends, and with no school, they could play and hang out all day.

Immediately, help poured in as well. Volunteers appeared, ready to play with the kids and run activities.  Boxes of food and toys arrived every day from different parts of Israel. Donations of clothing appeared and were organized to supplement the few things the families were able to bring. Entertainers came: Amateur clowns fashioning balloon animals, musicians, that guy who makes giant soap bubbles for kids’ birthday parties. Rabbi Dovid Grossman of Migdal Ohr, the famed “Disco Rabbi” came to offer words of strength to the community and to sing and dance with them. Multiple concerts broke out over the course of our stay.

Shabbat in the hotel was a special experience. The community of Bnei Netzarim attempted to recreate its regular communal Shabbat observance in the hotel synagogue and dining room. Kabbalat Shabbat with its fervent singing and words of Torah was stirring. The hotel dining room took on a camp atmosphere for Shabbat meals. In the afternoon, people learned Torah together and enjoyed the quiet of Shabbat.

On Sunday, a regular workday in Israel, the community of Bnei Netzarim arranged to begin a few hours of schooling for their children during the day. More refugees arrived at the hotel, this time from Sderot.  The hotel worked hard to accommodate the new arrivals with rooms and extra dining space. It was now hard to imagine the hotel ever being empty.

Over the course of the 10 days we were there, I had the privilege of getting to know a few of the people who had been displaced from the south and hearing their stories. Miriam and her husband were originally from the United States but made Aliyah years ago. When their growing family made housing in Jerusalem prohibitively expensive, they visited the community of Bnei Netzarim and fell in love. They loved the community and suburban feel of the environs. Miriam exudes tremendous faith in God and found purpose in supporting others. She made a point of listening to the stories of other women, helping them to give voice to their pain and concerns.  

On a typical Shabbat, Miriam leads a small English-language shiur on the teachings of Rabbi Sacks. In the rush of the evacuation, she understandably forgot her regular materials. Miriam was upset, especially as that Shabbat marked the beginning of the new Torah reading cycle with parashat Bereishit. But on Friday, Miriam and her family visited an old friend in Jerusalem they had not seen in years. He had only one English book in his collection, a book by Rabbi Sacks, which he happily lent to her. “It was a miracle,” Miriam said, beaming in the glow of God’s grace. According to Rabbi Sacks, the story of the Garden of Eden relates how God establishes His personal relationship with humanity. Knowing that God cares for humanity gave Miriam strength, and despite the tension, anxiety, and uncertainty of her situation, Miriam sought to share that strength with others.

Jacqueline, a grandmother from Sderot, was staying in Yavneh with her son on Shabbat when the initial assaults took place. This kept her out the worst violence, but she was not allowed to return home and, as a result, she had only the few things she had packed for the day. She had been wearing the same housedress for days straight. Social workers from Jerusalem interviewed her and made arrangements to get her new clothes. Mostly, Jacqueline was thankful to have people with whom to talk. Even though Jacqueline was physically safe, the war was taking its toll. Watching video footage of events drained her strength. She confided that she took the suffering she saw to heart, and it paralyzed her. “I have no strength,” she kept telling me. The one thing she was able to do with enthusiasm was prayer, to which she devoted passionate concentration.

Ruth, a teacher from Bnei Netzarim, turned the tables on us, making sure we had everything we needed. She invited me to lectures, offered to host my son for Shabbat, and generally included us in the community. She exuded calm and kindness throughout. Ruth told me the history of Bnei Netzarim and its origins. Ruth showed me a picture of the interior of her home in Bnei Netzarim. Her son, who was deployed to the south, had opened it up to house himself and a bunch of his fellow soldiers. The floor of her living room was covered with mattresses, and she took pride in knowing that these defenders of Israel had a place to rest and shower between deployments.

Many people outside of Israel feel frustrated because they do not know how to help. Of course, we can donate money and material, engage in political activism, write letters to editors, write letters to soldiers, and more. But it often feels insufficient. I saw that many Israelis share that frustration. Those not called up to serve in the military often feel they are not doing their share. On Shabbat, the rabbi of Bnei Netzarim addressed that very concern. Our task, he said, was to learn Torah. Even setting aside the spiritual and redemptive power of Torah learning, his message is an important one. We must engage in Jewish continuity: Praying in synagogue, attending classes, and engaging in community events. This is precisely what our soldiers are fighting to preserve, our right to live as Jews. We owe it them to do so.

I can do one more thing. When I discovered that Ruth and I both taught high school Tanakh and Jewish law, I knew that she would understand when I told her, “I see everything that’s happening here, and I have to tell your story to my students.” I could listen to those displaced by this war and to bear witness to their story. For nine days, I lived with and shared the experiences of some of the most vulnerable Israelis, people who were forced to abandon their homes and rely on the charity of others. Yet these people are also some of the most resilient and kind people I have ever met. They reflect the greater Israeli mindset, hurt and shaken, but determined and filled with humanity despite the inhumanity of the enemy. May God watch over them and over all the people of Israel.

Sheila Tuller Keiter is currently a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at Shalhevet School.