War: Who's Ready??

A friend of mine just had a baby, and her mother is here visiting for a few weeks. She pulled me over last night, and in a low voice asked, “So, do you guys have supplies? Just in case?”

“Of course!” I replied. “We are well-stocked with all things baby. The diapers might be the wrong size but we have everything el–“

“No,” she said, “I mean, bottles of water, canned goods. You know, in your safe room.”

“Oh,” I said, momentarily thrown. “Um, no. Actually we don’t.”

We have a safe room, or “mamad.” These rooms are part of the standard building plan in every house or apartment built in Israel since the Gulf War. The room is meant to withstand blasts, shrapnel and biological attack.

But while the mamad comes with the super-reinforced door and window, you’ve still got to safety-fy it, stocking it with supplies like food, drink, a radio, spare batteries. Right now, ours has got a desk, a trundle bed and a free-standing closet stuffed with old backpacks, a random pair of pants whose ownership is unclear (Are they yours? Please come get them!) and a power drill. Well, we do have our five gas masks are in there, so we get one Preparation Point for that, I suppose.

As is often the case, family and friends abroad are much more worried about the possibility of an attack than we are. And in recent weeks, as talk of a military strike against Iran has cooled, the subject has moved to the back burner.

But perhaps our overly concerned friends have a point.

New and newish olim (like myself) came to Israel at a relatively peaceful time. We made aliyah post-Intifada, post-Second Lebanon War and before that, grew up in a country where rocket attacks happened to other people. So my experience with war and wartime preparations have been minimal.

The truth is, since I made aliyah in 2008, there has been no shortage of rocket attacks into southern Israel from Gaza. But—and I am not proud to admit it—there is a strange disconnect between the “danger zone” area and the rest of the country. Despite the barrage, the fact remains that for many of us, life carries on as before.

So I remain blissfully ignorant and unprepared.

Perhaps, though, I should not continue to be so.

In the past few days, a number of announcements, email and articles, from different sources, have pointed me to the reality that an attack may happen, maybe soon, maybe not soon, and I should be prepared.

In addition to the jarring conversation with my friend’s mother, my children’s school sent out “emergency learning” instructions. An online learning program if we are in an emergency situation, ahem, where the children cannot come to school for a long period of time.

Then I get another email explaining about Israel’s earthquake preparedness drill. We’re talking “scripted simulation of an earthquake and a tsunami,” with the goal to raise the preparedness of this country for a natural disaster. At the same time, we are hosting a joint Israeli-American military drill, in which we will simulate all manner of aerial threats and our ability to defend ourselves.

While authorities in both countries say fret not, the drill was not organized in response to any specific event, it does get you thinking. And worrying. Just knowing that some country (or countries) could attack us with “mortars, rockets, drones, and short and long range ballistic missiles?” Not terribly comforting.

It’s like that story about the drowning guy. Someone throws him a life jacket, someone else rows over in a rescue boat, a third person helicopters overheard. The guy keeps waving them away, convinced that “God will save me!” When he eventually drowns, he reprimands God. “Ibelieved in You! You told me you would save me!” God responds, “What do you think the life jacket, rescue boat and helicopter WERE???”

In other words, let’s not get caught, God forbid, in an emergency situation without our canned goods and water, complaining, “But no one warned us!” We’ve been warned. Now we have to do something about it. Let’s heed that basic Jewish tenet: v’nishmartem meod l’nafshotaychem (Deut. 4:15). Basically: Take care of yourself. Please.

Now that talk of war has cooled, it is actually the perfect time to get ready; it’s always easier when you’re not panicking. I’m going to decipher this helpful list from Israel’s Home Front Command about what our safe room should actually contain. (Let’s see … nope, “someone else’s pants” is NOT on the list.) Then, I’m going out to buy the stuff.

And hopefully never need it.