The Sun is Setting

This week marks two years since the Israeli government disengaged from the Gaza Strip, expelling 8,000 Jews from their homes. After spending months in hotels, most Gush Katif refugees now temporarily reside in Caravilla sites set up by the government. The unemployment is high, and the Gush Katif refugees have yet to see progress being made on their future communities. This article was written shortly after Disengagement, and still remains relevant. Unfortunately, little has changed.

Sunset, and I let out the sigh I have been holding in all day. Sunset. Dull streaks of red, orange and yellow stream across the western horizon. Quick moving lights flicker as cars dash hither and thither on the busy road below. A young child whoops gleefully as his bicycle rides over a balloon, bursting it with a loud boom!

I see the dull streams of faded color, yet I do not see the glowing sun. I feel the tired, gentle breeze, yet I do not feel the mind-clearing, hair-blowing rush of fresh cool air. And I do not see the sea.

Once again I uselessly ask myself: what am I doing here? And, even if given all the grains of sand and all the hour glasses in the world, one will always reach the same painful and bewildering answer: the government of Israel banished me from my home, destroyed it and gave the land to the worst of my foes.

I uselessly ask myself: what am I doing here?Alas! Alas for my beautiful Gush Katif that I knew and loved. At this hour I should be standing in my garden; my ankles deep in the lush dark-green grass, the sun a crimson orb sinking in the blue Mediterranean sea, the sky splashed with deep purples and bright reds and vivid pinks, my left hand resting on the rough bark of the sturdy tree beside me while it's many leaves dance merrily over my head under the summer sky, children cheerfully calling to each other as they play… a peaceful tranquility as the sun sinks, the stars shine and a plover trills sharply.

And where I am now, a thick layer of dust covers the closely set, identical, small pre-fab houses and the sinking sun is hidden by a ridge of dirt. The lights of the nearby cities to the south and to the north are cold and numerous; they need to take the place of the stars.

Sunset. A time to reflect upon the day. To reflect upon the hours of National Service I served at a nearby elementary school and at a local "club" for children. Instead, unbidden, pictures rise before me of Neve Dekalim as a sea of hundreds of smashed houses in the midst of golden sand dunes; of Arabs capering with glee and brandishing guns and grenades as they burn, demolish and defile the many synagogues that the Israeli government decided not to have the Israeli Defense Forces destroy; of the rabbi at the nearby elementary school tearing his shirt in mourning; and of the small plastic bottleful of golden grains of sand from Neve Dekalim's sand dunes that my brother and I collected an hour before our exile. That precious bottle of sand, pictures and mortar pieces are the only tangible things I have from the Gush. But memories – so vivid that they are almost tangible – engulf me and threaten to choke me as they are so sweet and yet so painful. So soothing and yet so frightening. So personal and yet… so national.

Sunset. A time for reflecting as the day is drawing to its end. And what does the future hold? How long will my family be in the Nitzan Caravilla site between Ashkelon and Ashdod? How soon till we find a permanent home where we cam once again merge ideology and purpose with our day-to-day life? How soon until the dust rises?