Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Student Union

Liat Kaufman and Adi Makov looked like all the rest of the students in the fourth-period journalism class at Grant High School in Van Nuys.

Maybe they seemed a little more sure of themselves and exuded a greater sense of purpose, but they fit in.

Just two attractive kids visiting from out of town--until they got up to talk.

Liat, 16, spoke about serving as an ambulance volunteer and about her future as a ballet dancer after military service.

Adi, also 16, talked about Scud attacks and his feeling about the Palestinians.

On a day when President Bush was calling for an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict following the Persian Gulf War, these two were telling their American counterparts what it was like to live in the Middle East.

“Both Adi and I come from Palestine so we were not in too much trouble with the Scuds,” Liat said in perfect English. “Only one of the missiles came close to our city and that landed in a forest outside of town.”

“Still,” Adi said, “when the bomb warning sirens went off, the noise was terrifying. Everyone ran to get home and into their sealed rooms. Even though we carried gas masks with us at all times, if the Iraqis had used gas, it burns your skin badly.”

The two young people were touring the Western United States under an ongoing program sponsored by the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education. They are part of a larger delegation of 23 of that country’s top high school juniors chosen to act as junior ambassadors traveling throughout the United States.

During their four-week stay, Adi and Liat will go to schools throughout the Los Angeles area and then go on to Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, Las Vegas and Denver. They will return to Israel on March 26.

At each school, they visit classes and talk about what life in Israel is like.

According to them, in spite of the continuing hostilities in the Middle East, life is good.

And the attitude of the young people is different.

When asked how they felt about compulsory service in the military, Adi said: “For us, it is an honor to serve our country, to give something back for all it has given us.”

Liat added that she too was looking forward to service because it would be a good change of pace between high school and college. “You work so hard to get good grades, it is a nice break to be able to learn something else for a while and to train the body as well as the mind.”

Both also said the main preoccupation in Israel is finding a peaceful solution to Middle East unrest, but they admit that there is a lot to be overcome.

Although both were as open and frank as some American teen-agers tend to be, they were skilled at avoiding political land mines.

“It is my opinion that Israel was right to not retaliate in the war,” Adi said. “It was not our war.”

“We had the strength and could have fought,” Liat said. “But it was a time to practice restraint.”

The Price of Security

At Burbank Airport, the security procedures instituted during the Gulf War are still in place and, according to airport officials, they are probably going to stay that way for a while.

“People have been really understanding about why we can no longer have the skycaps check in luggage at the curb and about having to wait in lines to check in their own bags,” said Elly Mixsell, manager of community relations.

She said everyone seems to be getting along just fine with new Federal Aviation Administration requirements.

Well, not everyone.

The regulations make traveling more difficult for the elderly, the disabled and people with bad backs.

“Tom Greer, our director of airport services, suggests that people who can’t lift their own luggage should ask one of the skycaps to help them through the baggage area,” Mixsell said.

“There is nothing that says a passenger can’t have someone help them in that area.”

Which begs the question: Who is going to help the skycaps?

“Since we can’t ticket bags at the curb anymore, our income has dropped about 50%,” said Roderick Williams, a veteran skycap.

“People with families are really having a hard time,” he said. “For that matter, so are people without families.”

Overheard

“My worst fear during a Scud warning came when I was outside with my dog once, and he was doing what dogs do outside, and he refused to go into the house until he was through doing it.” --Adi Makov at Grant High School