Jerusalem
I only talked to Rhonda for a second. I had called home to check in, and let my mom know I had neither been hit by a stray Katyusha rocket or bit of shrapnel nor yet depleted my savings account on ice cream and falafel.
At the time, mom was trying to convince Rhonda, our neighbor, that I was enjoying the summer in Israel with 309 other teenagers who had grown up in the same summer camp system as I had.
But after having watched a weekend’s worth of TV news reports on the trouble in the Mideast, Rhonda was certain my end was at hand. Strangely enough, my overprotective Jewish mother (the same one who insists I call when my plane lands in Sioux City, Iowa, to be sure I arrived safely) was not as fearful of my demise. At least not at the hands of a terrorist group.
Take a bus full of teenagers living together for seven weeks in two foreign countries, add long days with sun, sand, and questionable hygiene practices, toss in a little stress for being in a country smaller than New Jersey that is fighting a two-front war, remove any semblance of adequate sleep, and you’ll have the recipe for (among other maladies) conjunctivitis, commonly known as pink eye.
When my bloodshot eyes didn’t revert to white after a few days, I marched myself to the medic. He was well-equipped to respond to emergencies but a tad short in the empathy department. When your fellow soldiers are being blown up by an enemy who wishes only to wipe your country off the map, a case of pink eye isn’t enough to get too worked up over. He gave me and the other conjunctivitis sufferers a bottle of eye drops and sent us on our way.
If only it could have been so easy.
The last thing I wanted was to lose a full day of touring while stuck in an ER, but I wasn’t sure if I was allergic to what the medic had given me. So I called home to check.
It was midnight back in Denver and mom was asleep. My voice was enough to rouse her.
“Hmm,” she said. “I think you’re allergic to it. I think it has sulfa in it, so don’t take it. I’ll call the pediatrician in the morning.” Incensed that I had to wait to start ridding myself of this socially debilitating condition (girls don’t make passes at boys who have red eyes, or something like that) I hung up.
Seven hours later, she called back and passed down the ruling.
“He says don’t take it, and be sure to tell the medic that you’re allergic to a lot of antibiotics. It’s in your medical record. If they want, they can call him during office hours.”
Then she spelled out the name of the medication he recommended and made sure I had my pediatrician’s phone number.
Neither the Supersol pharmacy clerk nor the medic knew anything about Vigamox and now they were spooked by the knowledge that I had a history of allergic reactions to antibiotics.
So I spent yet another night with my fright-flick crimson eyes, thankful that the evening program was a movie. In the brief moment on the phone, I tried to tell Rhonda that I was just fine, pink eye notwithstanding. Still, she sounded so worried. Yes, there is a war going on and buildings are being blown up, but the people running this trip – and hundreds of other trips for teenagers in Israel – aren’t about to put any of us in harm’s way.
The trip I’m on has taken place every summer since 1962, despite wars, intifadas and terrorism on both sides of the Atlantic. There are more than 9,000 Jewish teenagers from all over the world in Israel this summer to learn about their heritage, see the sights, put their classroom Hebrew to use, and infuse the economy with tourist shekels. My bus isn’t the only group emptying convenience store shelves of ice cream, sodas and Israeli candy bars that explode in your mouth, like Pop Rocks land mined in chocolate.
Israel lives and breathes. When Jewish teenagers are here, they are family. I know deep in my heart that the people of Israel would do anything to keep me safe. We can’t afford to lose even one of us.
I feel safe and, yes, even comfortable here. They’ll take care of me. The life of one Jewish teenage boy is worth everything here. It is even worth going to war.
And besides, how could I not feel safe? Nine-thousand Jewish mothers can’t be wrong.
Sammy Forshner attends Herzl/Rocky Mountain Hebrew Academy in Denver and is spending seven weeks in Poland and Israel on the Camp Ramah Seminar Program.
