Have you ever been a victim? Have you ever been a victim of a heinous act? Have you ever been a victim of a terrorist attack? Some people can answer “yes” to the first question. I hope and pray not many will answer “yes” to the second Question. The third question I also hope and pray you answer “no” to it as well.

If however you do answer yes to either the second or third question then you know first hand about what I am going to say and it will hit home and strike a nerve. For those of us that don’t answer “yes” to those two questions I hope this might give you a little insight as to what many in Sderot live with day in and day out.

I hope it  will cause your compassion for those who answered “yes”  to increase and then you can thank YAH you can’t answer “yes” and pray you will never answer “yes”.

Shimon was at home in his house when the Kassam rocket ripped through his roof. That in its self is enough to cause one to tremble. Today when a door slams or a dog starts to bark or any loud noise happens, Shimon jumps.

Once you made a decent living as a welder and a tile setter (and there is a lot of tile to be set in Israel) and now you can no longer work because your arm was injured by flying shrapnel and you find yourself on disability insurance, which pays a fifth of what you once made.

Not only can you no longer work in the trades you loved because you can’t pick up the tile or hold the welding torch any longer, but with the inability to work your self-esteem hits a new low.

Now that you don’t have the income you once had, you can no longer afford the life style you could once afford and the payments you were once able to make you can no longer make. As you start receiving disconnect notices, letters from collection agencies and letters from your bank telling you your account has been garnished, your self- esteem sinks to a new low you did not know existed.

Your family life is now being put to the test. Kids needing thing for school, the internet disconnected, TV disconnected your behind on your mortgage payment and in three days they will cut the electricity if you don’t pay the bill from 5 months ago.

Mind you, Shimon did nothing to deserve this. It’s not that he was spending money on drugs or drinking or gambling, he was just at home making a sandwich for lunch. And now your marriage is on the rocks because of all the stress in the family.

We saw Shimon’s wife walking home from the market just before Shabbat the other day. She had one bag with two loafs of bread, thats it. Here in Israel Shabbat is a big thing and it is celebrated with the biggest meal of the week so to see her walking home with just two loafs of bread was strange to see. When we took them the food we give out we noticed that there was no smell of food cooking, which was quite odd because the house always smells from the food she is cooking for Shabbat.

We came in the middle of an argument. The argument went something like this… “No you can go to your mom’s house to eat because I have nothing to cook and I will go to my mom’s house.”

This is now the life of Shimon, a victim of Terrorists.

With a quick trip to the market and a return trip to Shimon’s house with enough food to get them through Shabbat and mid week we left them with a tear in their eyes and with plenty of time to still fill the house with the aroma of food cooking for Shabbat.
To you our supporters THANK YOU!