Richie Sevrinsky’s blog

There isn’t much nightlife in Beit Shemesh most of the time, aside from shiurim (if you consider that nightlife). So I jumped at the opportunity to catch our local performance of the Comedy for Koby tour, which holds shows in all of the major Anglo population centers in Israel. To tell the truth, I might’ve preferred to see the show in one of the other venues, so as not to feel like I was attending a shul function, but in the end, having a show within Beit Shemesh is just to convenient to pass up.

The show was solid. Despite obvious punch-pulling, the comics all got a solid flow going. Amy and I were careful not to sit in the “splash zone” – the first row and the front sides of the audience are the most likely to get picked on – as opposed to a certain member of the Beit Shemesh Board Game Club, who was probably looking for attention on a birthday outing.

The show was held on the evening following Obama’s Cairo address (which I’ll need to address in another post), and the first comic, David Crowe, was clearly caught off guard when he started to go into his “Obama routine” and was met with boos and hisses.

Finally, the last performer, Jeffrey Ross, asked for a volunteer from the audience to play a few mood-setting chords on the piano for his “Love Poems”. Amy grabbed my arm and said, “Don’t — you — dare!”, but she needn’t have worried. The cry went up: “Lenny! Lenny!” Lenny Solomon (of Shlock Rock fame) was at the show and bounded up to the stage. Jeffrey Ross looked at Lenny and the crowd’s unexpected reaction, and asked: “Are you famous or something?” Celebrity is a relative thing.

As directed by the Home Front Command, we held an alert drill at the Israeli branch of F5. Along with most of the country, we found that we are grossly unprepared in the event of an actual attack.

Our building, while poorly laid out, was still built within the last 10 years — in other words, after the first Gulf War during which 39 Scud missiles landed in Israeli territory. As such, it was supposed to have been built with enough shelter space for all regular employees.

Our drill exercise lasted under 10 minutes. I heard the faint warbling of the siren at 11:00 sharp, but I never would’ve heard it had I not been expecting it. The office manager unlocked the emergency exit door, which itself blocks access to the shelter when opened fully. Once we rounded that corner, we found that the shelter, though nicely spacious, was packed to the gills with some other company’s boxes. So after standing around the shelter-turned-warehouse for a couple of minutes, we headed outside for some fresh air.

In short, the lesson of today’s drill was: in the event of a real attack, we’re all gonna die.

Nonetheless, the drill was entirely worthwhile. For one, Home Front Command did an excellent job of raising awareness of how to conduct oneself during an emergency. We were able to notify Home Front Command that we couldn’t hear the siren, and hopefully they’ll install additional sirens wherever needed. The practice of converting shelters into warehouses is far too common (some landlords even charge rent!), and now that we had an excuse to blow the whistle, the municipality will be sending an inspector at some point in the future to make sure that our shelter remains clear.

Despite the common perception that today’s drill has something to do with Iran and the threat of a nuclear attack (in which case, some percentage of the country is simply toast, regardless of what precautions are taken), it’s far more likely that the simplest explanation, which is the one given by Home Front Command, is the best. This is one of the recommendations of the commission after the failings of the Second Lebanon War. It is entirely possible that any part of Israel could come under conventional missile attack by Hizbullah from the north or Hamas from the south, and it is only responsible to prepare for that eventuality.