-Christopher Reeve
A week ago, Beer Sheva was once again targeted by the terrorist organization/government Hamas, rulers of Gaza. There have been clashes/altercations/skirmishes/battles at the Gaza border for months and months now, with half of the northern Negev burnt to a crisp by terrorist fires. The situation is insane, to say the least.
Last week, however, Hamas took the situation to a new level by firing a new and improved Grad missile on a city of over 210,000 people. Because this is Israel, and the government has spent millions protecting its citizens, a siren went off at 3:41 AM, warning over 350,000 Negev inhabitants of an incoming strike. The Grad hit a house that belonged to a single mother and her three young sons. The mother, awakened by the siren, grabbed her sons one by one, and raced to the safe room, closing the door seconds before the missile hit. They were unhurt, but their house was destroyed.
The nation of Israel – while incensed that, again, Hamas is firing missiles at a civilian population – rejoiced that this mother of Israel and her sons were saved.
Without question, this mother is a hero.
And so is my young friend, mother of three babies, who woke from her hard-earned sleep, gathered them up and raced to the safe room. Luckily, her house was not hit.
So is my 60-year old friend, who woke up her 25 year old son, already traumatized from army experiences and battling his own demons, wrestled him out of the apartment and down a flight of stairs to the shelter in the basement of the building. Their building wasn't hit either.
And my other friend, who, without a safe room or a shelter, ran out of her apartment in her jammies, into the stairwell of her building, and waited for the boom with all the other neighbors who were in their jammies.
Or my friends without safe rooms or shelters or stairwells, who gather up all their family members in 45 seconds in the middle of the night and find a room without windows (a hallway, under stairs, the bathroom) and huddle there. They are heroes, too.
As are all the other 350,000 people I don't know who do the same.
Luckily, miraculously, their houses weren't hit.
I'm going to include all those people who didn't sleep again after the boom echoed throughout the city, yet got up the next morning and went to work, or went to school, or went to the shops, or raced around arranging donations to the family who had lost everything. because that's what they do, thanking God that this time their houses weren't destroyed. They carried on.
And all those people who lay awake and wondered if their sons, or husband, or brothers, or fathers, or cousins, or neighbors, were going to be called up, again, to defend our Land and our People; wondering when it's going to stop, knowing that it's not. They are definitely heroes.
And the thousands and thousands of Negev residents, living closer the Gaza, who have been living this way for over 15 years, who deal with stress, shock, trauma, fear, and sleepless nights on a daily basis, and are still here. They are truly heroes.
Here in Israel, we have lots of heroes who dress up as heroes: our soldiers and our firefighters for example.
But there are all those other heroes, who we see every day: in the shops picking out bananas, and in the streets taking up three parking spots, and at work talking on the phone - checking up on their kids, on their parents, on their neighbors, making sure everyone is ok.
All those sleepless, capeless heroes.
Dressed up as ordinary people.
