Israelis Living by New Rules

The rabbi at Irit Rahamim’s wedding offered a special prayer. Standing under the marriage canopy, he thanked God for allowing Rahamim to live to see this day of celebration.

Not 48 hours earlier, Rahamim and her friends were pinned under a restaurant table as a Palestinian sprayed her bachelorette party with bullets. Three people were killed before a police officer shot the gunman dead.

But life goes on.

With extra security hired for the lavish affair, Rahamim, a dancer, and Liron Bassis, a soccer star, were married while a who’s who of athletes, models and Israel’s nouveaux riches sipped champagne, nibbled stuffed mushrooms and watched an elaborate fireworks display at the Royal Garden Banquet Hall.

For Israelis trapped in some of the bloodiest days of their nation’s history, the routines of daily existence have become fraught with uncertainty and risk. Many insist on putting on a brave face. Focusing on routine is the way they preserve their sanity. So is remembering their duty to survive and sustain the Jewish state.

Defiance, not surrender.

Among a growing number, however, despair has replaced bravado. Confronted by attacks that multiply, move closer and target the innocent at their most unsuspecting moments, these Israelis are changing their very way of life. They stay at home more, restrict their children, shun public transportation, operate with fear.

Existing in Israel has always been a contest between maintaining normality and protecting oneself. The struggle has rarely been as stressful as it is now.

In a poll this month, 68% of respondents said they had reduced their visits to crowded public places; 78% expressed fear that a family member would be hurt in a terrorist attack.

Kindergartens have armed guards. Jerusalem streets and coffeehouses that once bustled are virtually deserted. The demand for guns in an already well-armed society is up 75%. Same for tranquilizers.

For the first time in its 83-year history, the Israeli Scouts, the largest secular youth group in the country, has canceled its annual Passover hiking trips.

Palestinian militants in recent weeks have targeted the core rituals of Jewish life--weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs--and attacked elite neighborhoods and cafes that once seemed immune. A suicide bombing this month at Cafe Moment, a trendy hangout in Jerusalem across the street from the prime minister’s official residence, was an especially debilitating blow.

Each new outburst of violence means adjustments. In a society already obsessed with cellular telephones, family members check on one another several times a day. Jittery waitresses at several Jerusalem cafes told one newspaper that they have the speed dials on their cell phones programmed with their mothers’ numbers, so that they can call instantly if something happens.

In at least one cafe, the management has designated a safe room where the staff can hide from a suicide bomber.

Especially in Jerusalem, where most terrorist attacks have occurred, Israelis think twice before going out at night, attending public events, even buying groceries. It used to be the norm to allow children to get to and from school on their own. That has changed.

Donna Shalev, a classicist who lectures at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, has reprogrammed every minute of her day to make sure that her daughter, Ariela, is safe and to be able to finish chores that now take more time.

She takes her daughter to school, lingering every day just to be certain. Then she catches a taxi to work and rushes back to the school in the afternoon to fetch Ariela. No more buses. A good chunk of Shalev’s budget goes to cab fare.

Shopping and recreation also are a challenge. You can’t just go out. You have to think about where to go and what route to take.

“Everything is a big production now,” Shalev said. “It’s hard enough getting a 9-year-old off to school every morning. Now there’s a lot more planning, a lot of energy wasted. Everything takes longer.”

Trying to decide where to buy shoes the other day, Shalev ruled out a downtown store near Jaffa Street, the site of half a dozen gun and bomb attacks this year, then she eliminated the Talpiot area of strip malls because bombs have gone off twice there. She rejected the big malls--too obviously potential targets. Finally, she chose German Colony, a yuppie, relatively unscathed section of town, and bought her shoes. Two days later, an aspiring suicide bomber walked into one of German Colony’s most popular restaurants. He was thwarted by an alert waiter.

Shalev, who was born in the United States and has lived in Israel for 17 years, said she and many other parents in Ariela’s experimental school refused to send their children on a recent field trip, rejecting the principal’s assurances that it would be safe.

“The principal believes life should go on as normal. But at what price? I’m not willing to pay that price,” Shalev said. “I have to feel I’m in control. I know I’m not, but I have to try.”

One mother of two put it this way: “My friends and I have the same conversation 10 times a day. Where can we take our kids? Where is it safe? The poor things haven’t been to a mall or a park in ages. I won’t let mine go to story time unless there’s a guard there.”

Schools, for their part, have canceled recesses so that students aren’t congregated in exposed playgrounds. Class hours have been staggered at some schools so that large numbers of pupils aren’t arriving or leaving at the same time. At kindergartens, which are not automatically entitled to city-provided guards because of their small size, parents have been raising money to hire protection.

One thing Shalev has not given up on, in what is a big risk in today’s climate: coffee shops. She stops off at the same Aroma coffee bar twice a day, after dropping off Ariela and on the way to pick her up. The cafe is on a congested downtown corner, near the school.

After the March 9 attack at the Cafe Moment and the earlier, thwarted attack in German Colony, numerous coffee bars felt threatened. At Aroma, normally one of the most crowded spots in Jerusalem’s cafe scene, the managers had folded all the tables and chairs and switched to take-out only.

“If we let everybody sit here, there’s more chance of something happening,” duty manager Hamid Rumman said, although he acknowledged that most customers objected to the move.

“You’re letting terror win,” they said. A week or so later, Aroma put the tables out again.

Malls and large supermarkets have had armed guards for a long time. Now even the corner market is likely to be guarded. When people do go out, they eye one another more nervously. Any Arabs are likely to receive extra inspection.

Moshe Rosenblum, chairman of the Israeli Malls Assn., said the number of people going to shopping centers has dropped drastically, even though security is tight. In the days after the Cafe Moment bombing, attendance fell 50%, the largest decline yet, he said. Shoppers on those days were people who had specific things to buy: They entered, purchased and left.

Rafi Ozalbo is a driver for the national bus company. Like many in his seen-it-all generation, he talks a tough game.

“This is our country, and we cannot be afraid,” he said. “Terrorism can happen anywhere.”

But the more he talks, the more he reveals his unease. His route takes him around the northwestern port city of Haifa. In December, a suicide bomber boarded a bus in Haifa and blew himself up, killing 15 people.

“I have an eye on everybody these days,” Ozalbo said. “If someone suspicious is at a stop, or someone I don’t know, I don’t stop the bus. I won’t let him on.”

Airlines have reported brisker than usual sales for the upcoming Passover holidays, when students and many workers get at least a week of vacation. More people apparently want to escape.

Michal Kafra, who covers society for the newspaper Maariv, says Israelis who try to maintain a semblance of normality are losing the battle to inescapable reality. She calls the schizophrenic impulses Israel’s “split screen,” alluding to a night not long ago when local television split its screen to show the latest suicide bombing on one side and a championship soccer match on the other.

“We’ve divided the screen of our reality pretty easily, when half the screen is blood and the other half the good life,” she wrote. Now, “the dividing line has disappeared. Our entire life depends on terrorist attacks, all the time.”

Irit Rahamim said she never considered canceling her wedding after a gunman burst into the Tel Aviv seafood restaurant where she and her friends were having the bachelorette party. In those terrifying moments, she called her fiance and said goodbye.

The couple took special precautions for the wedding, however. Rahamim had her bridal gown blessed against the evil eye. Bassis, the groom, laid on the security: Men with Secret Service-style wires coming out of their ears mingled with the guests. Guards searched women’s evening bags at the entrance, and men were asked to check their weapons.

Carmit Nuna, Rahamim’s best friend and a fellow dancer, came to the wedding to perform as part of the entertainment. She too had survived the shooting that night in Tel Aviv: She heard the pop of the first shot, then someone pulled her to the floor. Moments later, the glass behind where her head had been shattered into bits.

Nuna said she was determined “to go on.” But she was afraid.

“I’ve stayed at home ever since it happened,” she said. “I can’t go out. Every time I hear something, I think it’s a gun.”

A self-described party animal, Nuna was sticking to the sidelines at this party.

Rahamim was determined to be happy.

“God performed a great miracle for me by saving me and allowing me to stand under the huppah,” or wedding canopy, she said. “I feel sorry for those killed and wounded, but I must rise up and go ahead with my wedding, because God gave this to me.”