“If there’s an air raid siren warning of an incoming rocket attack, I will have to leave this Zoom session and go to a safe room.”
This is how I begin every online session with communities abroad.
It makes sense to me.
But I know it doesn’t make sense to my audience.
And why should it?
People in the United States and Canada (where I have been giving talks these past few weeks) don’t have a designated safe room.
Every room in their home is a safe room in the sense that they are at home, where it is safe.
But in Israel, every home or apartment must have a designated safe space.
Because Israel is a country that is often attacked by some of its neighbors.
Our homes are not always a safe place.
In fact, it is a law that every home or apartment building, public building and institutional building in Israel must have a specially built safe space in which to shelter.
Newer residential buildings often include a safe room in a family’s apartment, as one of the bedrooms or perhaps the study.
In my building, there’s a communal room on the ground floor of our building.
It has a steel door. The room is encased by thick walls of concrete. And it is not a place you choose to go.
Unless you have to.
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