Teddy Bears Rocket Down on Sderot

Channah Magori Channah Magori is an American born poet living in Jerusalem, Israel since 1973. She works for the International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers. She has recently completed her Master's Degree at Bar Ilan Universtiy in the new Creative Writing Program- Writing Text/ Jewish Context and has completed her first manuscript of poetry as Master's thesis. Her work has appeared in Poetica, Works in Progress, and The B'nai Brith Magazine. She is currently working on a manuscript of second- generation Holocaust poetry, a manuscript of Love Songs and her first novel.

Today, it was not the ear-bursting sirens and the heart-quaking fear of incoming Kassam Rockets that got the Grade 1 kids of the Bet Sefer Torani Chadash School of Sderot out of their seats and into a panic. Today, as the Gaza Strip slept, these six year olds were bombarded with teddy bears, puzzles, marbles, a couch, a carpet and a Chocolate mousse cake.

This happy ending started with a traumatic Chapter 1 last summer.

Prof. Gil Troy, Linda Adams-Troy and their four children, Lia, Yoni, Aviv and Dina from Montreal spent their summer vacation in Jerusalem. While rockets were falling, Gil, Yoni, 9 and Aviv, 6, of the Akiva School, traveled south and shared their fate and bomb shelter solidarity with the residents of Sderot - handing out flowers.

The profound impact of this event did not ripple a chaos effect but set off a motion of kindness that moved around the world. The grade 5 children of the Akiva School organized a bake sale and raised $350 for the children of Sderot.

That money was then entrusted to Maureen Kushner of Park Slope, Brooklyn, art teacher and innovator of the Peace Through Humor: Children's Art Project. Maureen had worked as an art teacher with these shell shocked kids.

She had recently received $5,000 from Congregation Beth El of Northern Valley- New Jersey for baby formula and baby clothes for Sderot's Kindness Center. This is one of the nine ongoing charitable projects run by Miriam Guami - barely sustaining this shrapnel- scarred and shunned city.

Rabbi Debby Hachen of Congregation Beth El immediately responded and suggested that her congregant, 12 year old Amanda Bergman, initiator of a Bat/Bar Mitzvah Teddy Bear Project for hospitalized Israeli children, redirect these Teddies to Sderot.

Cathy the Marble Lady of Kansas was contacted by Maureen and contributed 500 handmade marbles. (Project Kindness Marble has distributed over 50,000 handmade Kindness marbles that have gone into people's left pockets to remind them to do at least one kind deed every day.)

Stuart Katz of Israir Airlines of Valley Stream, N.Y., generously offered to fly the 23 New Immigrant Teddies as First Class Cargo passengers. (Teddy Bears FLY Israir!)

Avraham Moskowitz of Nachlaot, Jerusalem - author and teacher of "Tehilim Cards", came along bringing his voice, his guitar, his Book of Psalms, and his Carlibach songs. The English Cake Bakery of Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem and their staff, Limor Cohen and Liz Ben David created and donated "The Best Chocolate Mousse Cake Ever Made in the Middle East" topped with marzipan, truffles and prayers for peace.

Rami Uzi of Moshav Yachini, our taxi driver armed with the Wayfarer's Prayer and an authentic Lubavitcher Rebbe $1 bill tucked under the windshield visor hit the gas and Maureen pronounced us, "Blessed!"

We drove through long stretches of isolated fields. Sderot is far from everwhere - except Gaza. We drove past orchards of white flowering almond trees, purple jacarandas, peeling eucalyptuses and the remnants of Kassam shells that have fallen here, there and just about everywhere. In 1956, The Israeli Government sent the Moroccan immigrants to Sderot to strengthen and secure the border at Gaza.

Today, at the school, principal -Rabbi Yaakov Shitreet and teacher- Rebbitzin Mechi Fendel- waited for our arrival with their uncontainable 1st graders.

In this school, there is a protective wall of 80 centimeter thick concrete and bullet proof windows with no openings for air circulation. And summer is coming. There is a protective steel roof covering only half the school. And Kassam's aren't that smart.

And there is a Serenity Room, to calm the kids suffering from sirens, shells, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But today, there is nothing but songs and ecstatic six year olds as Sderot's children get Teddy Bears, puzzles, marbles, a couch, a carpet and a Chocolate mousse cake.

Epilogue:

I came home carrying a Teddy bear and his broken off leg.
"Who's he?" asked my daughter.
"He's the one no one wanted."
"Does he have a name?"
"His name is Sderot".