Back to School

All over Israel, children are back at school today. This shouldn’t be something I post towards the end of November in a country where schools begin in early September. But there you have it. For more than a week, Israeli children living within 40 kilometers from Gaza did not have school.

The disruption this caused in their lives may take weeks to repair – children who were learning to read and suddenly stopped; and older children who were learning for matriculation exams have lost precious time. And still older children – Elie is going for a degree in engineering. He hasn’t missed a class yet – until now when he just missed an entire week.

So, a ceasefire was declared and Elie has returned to school. The college will offer him all sorts of help to enable him to catch up. A friend in the south writes that her young son is afraid to go back to school. He cried and refused to go back. He asked what would happen if there’s a siren and what if a missile hits his school.

Meanwhile, a short time ago, Elie called after his first day back at school. During a break, he went to the office to find out what the school could do to help him catch up. They told him that he needs to bring a certificate from the army saying that he’d been in the Reserves and with that, they would do all they could to help him. Even before that, Elie walked into his chemistry class to hear the teacher call over the students who had been called in. She wanted to know when they were available – on her own time, without additional pay, she will hold special classes to help them catch up.

All over Israel – the gratitude of a nation is coming through. Another amazing story that I haven’t had a chance to write about is the bus driver...next post.

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