Living on a Hostile Border

Miriam is the owner/manager of the Beit Shalom Hotel on the main street of Metulla, one of the quaint 19th century settlements/towns established by Baron Rothschild in his attempts to provide productive opportunities for Jews wishing to flee the poverty and hardships of eastern Europe and Russia. A question to clarify our understanding of where the border is confirmed that indeed, the cyclone fence at the end of the main street was the border, not as imposing, in fact barely a barrier, compared to the concrete and barbed wire that marks Israel’s borders further south. She then went on to explain her experiences and reflections on the first Lebanon war, the withdrawal in 2000, the second war in 2006, and the current uneasy calm. Although Metulla often served as a staging area, for some reason it was not the target of rockets at any point. It certainly provides touching perspective to hear her relate the tensions and fear that they have faced, a personal accounting that pushes the abstract talk of unmeasurable numbers of rockets and geo-political strategies to the background. This conversation followed our earlier visit to Kfar Giladi, where we came upon the memorial to the 12 soldiers killed by a ketyusha rocket on August 6, 2006. Israel is a small country. Just about everybody knows somebody who was directly affected by the tragic deaths of so many soldiers at one time.