GUSH KATIF VIEWPOINT: PREPARATIONS
By  Rachel Saperstein, Jerusalem Gold Hotel, World Jewish News Agency Columnist

Kol Israel, our national radio, called. I often speak on their English News program commenting on events affecting the people of Gush Katif. The day before Rosh Hashanah I received a call. “What preparations are the people of Gush Katif making for the Rosh Hashanah holiday?” I was asked. Not one idea came to mind. “I’ll go down to the lobby of our hotel and I’ll ask around. Call me back in an hour.” A friend shrugged and pointed to the setup in the lobby showing a model Rosh Hashanah table. “It’s the hotel table” she sighed, “not mine.” Arrangements: After we had an emotional argument with the SELA Disengagement Authority the hotel management agreed to allow our Ashkenazi friends now in Ashkelon to come to join us in Jerusalem for the holiday while our Sephardic friends were to go to Ashkelon to pray together, each according to his custom and ancient melodies. Arrangements: Mina Fenton of the Jerusalem Municipality arranged for a large hall to be used as a synagogue so we could once again be together with Gush Katif Chief Rabbi Yigal Kaminetzky, to hear his sweet voice and joyful singing. But this day, the day before Rosh Hashanah, we prepared nothing…..  No fathers and sons carrying in bags of groceries… No daughters shining silver candlesticks and Kiddush cups… No mother chopping vegetable to add to the chicken soup… No warm smell of round challah loaves or honey cakes fresh from the oven…  All the hard work, the busy work, the preparation that brings in the holiday, was not there. And the family honey pot, the traditional honey pot passed down for generations, was not set on the white table cloth. It remained packed with our other belongings in a container, somewhere…It is not enough to celebrate a holiday. We prepare for the holiday long in advance and each loving act one does for one’s family brings the reneweal of a family memory.

This year, the families displaced from their Gush Katif homes, living in crowded hotel rooms, will share the bitter memory of a home lost… a home remembered… a home now reduced to rubble… a synagogue burnt to the ground. No, here are no preparations. These were the words I used on the radio. These words, really a cry to heaven, were repeated on three broadcasts reminding the listeners that as they were  going about their holiday preparations hundreds of Gush Katif families were not. Operation Band Aid means immediate help to the people of Gush Katif.An envelope with 500 shekels is given to each family to use as they wish. Tax-deductible contributions can be made to Central Fund for Israel,  attention: Jay Marcus, Rehov Hagoel 13, Efrat 90435 Israel, earmarked for: Operation Band Aid