rainbows over gaza

I've been aching to write, but computers haven't been a priority as of late. The past couple of weeks have been consumed with moving out of the absorption center in Beersheba, jaunting in Tel-Aviv for an extended weekend, and getting situated here in Netivot. Stories soon to come in other posts.

Netivot is a so-called development town still plagued by its poverty-smeared reputation from the 1950s. It is a thriving community of about 25,000 mostly Sephardic Jews, most of whom are religiously observant. 50% of the community is younger than 18. 20% of residents are black-hat haredim (ultra-orthodox). Unemployment is about 10%, which I believe is about average for Israel right now. 650,000 visitors make their way here every year to visit the grave of a beloved rabbi, known as the Baba Sa-le, a twentieth-century Moroccan. The region that we're working in is comprised of the city of Netivot, along with the surrounding area, Sedot Negev (Fields of the Negev), which is comprised of 7000 religiously observant Jewish Israelis in 17 moshavism (agricultural settlements) and two kibbutzim. Kibbutz Tzad has privatized, with every member owning their home and property and it operates entirely on a cash economy. The other, Kibbutz Alumim, remains ideologically socialist, largely as it was when it was founded by Holocaust survivors after the War.

These were the facts spouted by our host/boss Meir Charash, the Philadelphia "Partnership 2000" man-in-charge, as he chauffered us around these fields, known as Azata, "Towards Gaza". Netivot itself is 8-10 km from Gaza, and the agricultural fields we were driving past were merely 2 km away. I will remember the way this muggy, puffy-clouded desert day spoke. We arrived, totally bedraggled, from our orientation in rainy Jerusalem. As we unloaded our bags from the bus into our new apartment, the rain poured, and ankle-deep puddled formed immediately. Meir said that they only get this kind of rain twice a year. (Remember--in the desert, rain is joy:)

Now we were zipping past groves of Jaffa oranges, greenhouses, and Meir slowed as we neared the Carni checkpoint, and the shipping depot and industrial park. On lot of chunky, hilly brown mud sat piles of red and blue and black shipping containers that read "China Shipping" or some other familiar English name, under an abandoned lookout tower (survellience is now done by satellite). These containers are sent into Gaza, and imports are transferred from Palestinian containers into these, which can legally enter Israel. It was illegal to go beyond this point, so we made the about face. As we did, we noticed a rainbow form, and then another, their pots of gold somewhere in Gaza.