Haifa War Diary

Sure, we have spent considerable amount of time on a bus and two hours in the Dead Sea and travelling with all of our expenses paid for and beautiful meals included but seriously, this group is tired. I am tired. The intensity of being in the southern border town of Sderot where 3 out of the 4 children living there have diagnosable PTSD and where you realize that the reason the bus stops look so strange are because currently about twice a month a kassam rocket falls on the town of Sderot where not only can you see across the border but at all times you need to be within 15 seconds of a bomb shelter.

Tired, sure but we did have plenty of nap time on the bus...

I have heard the David Ben Gurion quote, “In order to be realistic you have to believe in miracles…” a few too many times and I am beginning to fear an onset of feeling potentially apathetic and jaded. Not that any of us are unhappy with the trip – I am just ready for Shabbat… but before we have Shabbat we leave Jerusalem for Haifa for another day of learning.

We arrive at the Haifa Radio station and I think to myself radio is so not relevant. Well, I am wrong. Of course, I am wrong, at home I listen to the radio daily switching between my local National Public Radio stations but because I do not rely on it for my safety and connection to my community I strangely think nothing of it today. In Israel the first non-national radio stations only opened a decade ago and 600,000 people listen to Radio Haifa daily. During the second war with Lebanon in 2006 when the community of Haifa was hit daily with Katyusha Rockets 80% of the community listened to Radio Haifa while they were stuck in a shelter.

We were able to see the following film in its full 35 minutes but it is worth it to take a few minutes to watch what this community went through and how Directors Gili Shapira and Avishai Kfir filmed Radio Haifa’s friends Eli Levy and Nasser Nasser in their work each day to keep the community up-to-date on the traumatic events of the war as it unfolded. Together this Jewish journalist and Palestinian photojournalist show how they truly seemed to unite this community.

Please take a look at the photographs of Danny Nishlis, Producer, Owner, and General Manager of Radio Haifa along with Radio Haifa’s News Manager who stayed at the news station 24-hours a day during the month long war as well as a few of our other photographs of the day here.

The Directors of Radio Haifa walk us through the horror of a month in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War under constant bomb attacks