A Parent's Fear

By Paula R. Stern
May, 1997

The seven school girls who were killed recently at Naharayim should never have been taken there. A series of stupid misjudgments and arrogance allowed them to be taken to an unauthorized area. Someone bent the rules and paved the way for tragedy. The fact that a Jordanian soldier took advantage of that opportunity just proves that sometimes seemly over-strict regulations are, in fact, sensible.

So, my daughter is not going anywhere that she should not go. She is protected and is more likely to suffer sunburn than anything else, but I can't help feeling this overwhelming terror. What if? Why did I let her go? I know that I had no choice. This is part of growing up in Israel. When I contemplated aliyah, I marveled at the idea that my children would be exploring every corner of this wonderful land, why then do I now fear for her? If one of my American relations would call and express concern, there are so many things I could say to comfort and reassure them, and yet none of these things works to calm me.

In fact, when we first heard about the school trip to Naharayim, it was my daughter who comforted me. Amira kept saying, "Ima, I'm here. It wasn't my school." How could I answer her by saying, "Yes, but it could have been?" And when my husband came home that evening, as the funerals were taking place in Bet Shemesh, I asked him tearfully, "How do you send a child to school in the morning and bury them that night?" What could he say? What comfort could any of us find or give that night?

I know that this fear is part of living in Israel. In America I was afraid that someone would steal one of my children, that I or someone I love could be murdered for a few dollars or for a pair of shoes. These fears are gone. I do not fear my children walking ahead of me on the street; I no longer feel that I must be poised to scream and grab at my children or constantly be on guard when I walk at night. For the most part, I am so much less afraid than I was ever in America -- until today when I took my daughter to school and I thought about those other mothers and their daughters. When my beautiful daughter returns home, this fear will turn to anger - what right do others have to make us live this way in our land? How silly to think that terrorism is only a momentary thing, as brief as the seconds it takes for a bomb to explode? Terrorism is the day-in, day-out fear of something happening to our loved ones and today, tonight, and tomorrow, I will be the victim of terror --until I can hold my daughter and see her excited face describing the beautiful mountains in the Galilee, share her laugh when she describes who fell in the water, and chide her gently that she should have used more sun screen.

Yet tomorrow is many hours away, and so today I sit here in fear and anticipation knowing that there is no country in the world I would rather be sitting in, no place I'd rather call my own, and no where I would rather have my daughter be than in the north hiking with her classmates.