Katherine's story: more on the Problem of Pain and how faith has buoyed a family and thousands of friends

I thought about mentioning a personal story Monday when I talked about the Problem of Pain, It was a recent event, with ongoing recovery, that has both shaken my wife and I emotionally and encouraged us spiritually.

Last month, one of the leaders of the Young Marrieds group at Bel Air Presbyterian that we've been involved with suffered a brain hemorrhage. Katherine Wolf is my age, and my wife had just seen her two days before at a baby shower. Beautiful mother of an adorable six-month-old son, husband weeks away from finishing law school -- prime of her life in every cliché sense. So young, and yet there she was at death's door.

The emails for prayer went out immediately: "Important -- prayers needed immediately" was the first subject line I saw. And after an unbelievable 13-hour surgery that doctors at UCLA weren't optimistic about her chances to come out of, Katherine was stable. Very sick, but stable:

My beautiful girl was fairly unrecognizable until she opened her eyes and a shot of that unique aqua blue flashed out. She had a huge ventilator tube twisting her swollen, torn lips to one side and a feeding tube distorting her nose. Since we’ve switched to a tracheotomy and feeding tube in the stomach, she looks more like Katherine, although her face and neck are still swollen. Her head has been shaved in patches. It looks like an unlovely patchwork quilt. There is a square on the right front part of her head with several angry-looking holes, one of which has a tube coming out of it. There is a large shaved area across the back, where the main vertical incision was. But she still wears the matted ponytail of what’s left on top, darkened by crusty dried blood. Clear tape covers much of the whole mess. There are ‘boo-boos’ all over her body from one ghastly life-saving procedure after another. Tiny machines are attached to tubes entering her arms, hands, abdomen, thighs...which are hooked up to big scary-looking machines crowded around the bed.

Her mom went on in this April 29 account; you can read it here.

Katherine continues to make progress, chronicled at this blog and on this Facebook page, which are followed closely by her friends, who pretty much haven't left the lobby of the UCLA Medical Center since April 21. (My wife and I slept there one night last week.) There is no sugarcoating, only the portrayal of profound faith and an awareness of the steep hill Katherine will climb before she leaves the hospital.

Katherine had a steady day yesterday. Our medical friends continue the attempt to open her natural brain drains by increasing the cranial pressure. The process slows Katherine’s responsiveness but is showing some results. However, her friend, Whitney, brought a “People” magazine and it received 2 “thumbs up” from Katherine! The medical team is fabulous and they are offering superlative care.

Katherine’s heart rate was high and she spiked a fever so they are backing off a bit on her breathing and physical therapy efforts. This is a huge battle. God encouraged Joshua as His people moved to new territory, “Be stong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:)

Katherine's husband, Jay -- I previously admired him for sporting a beard -- has shown a spiritual maturity that has left me in awe. In his shoes, I fear I'd be very angry with God. Healthy angry, hopefully. But angry nonetheless. Jay, however, has been a warrior with immeasurable wisdom.

To me, the most amazing story here has been the outpouring of love and support from Katherine and Jay's friends, particularly those at Bel Air Pres, which became their home after they relocated here from the South. "This is the body of Christ," a pastor said at a special service the Sunday after the next step in Katherine's life began, referring to the way the community had rallied, the way people had forgone work and sleep to comfort and counsel. Katherine's friends also started a little movement to memorize Romans 8, a portion of Paul's letter that reminds us we are "more than conquerers through him who loved us."

At the prayer service, Katherine's mom, Kim Arnold, joked that her daughter had always wanted to be famous; her story now has been told on news programs in Jay's native Montgomery, Ala., where his father is a Baptist pastor, and last night on Fox 11 in L.A. Here is the link to the Fox report and the transcription of a bit that discusses how faith has buoyed the Wolfs, Arnolds and their church family:

Fox: Prayer is what this family knows and does best.

Jay: God has given us everything, in saving her life and in healing her in miraculous ways everyday.

Fox: Still in intensive care, Katherine is showing signs of recovery -- the answers, say the Wolfs, to their prayers.

Pastor Wolf: I believe I am sitting on the frontrow of a miracle, and God is showing up and showing off.

'Zionist bigots like you, Mr. Greenberg'

Most of the e-mail I have received about my profile of Kevin MacDonald, the Cal State Long Beach professor whose books on Jews have been compared to 'Mein Kampf," has been tame and complimentary, most of all from MacDonald, who wrote me Thursday night:

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. I was really worried about a hatchet job and this definitely was not that. There were a few things that I would rephrase or provide a somewhat different context, but I suppose that's what all interviewees say.

His chief adversary, Jeff Blutinger, told me the response has been "overwhelmingly positive."

Thanks for making his gobbledy gook intelligible through your use of clear language.

But Anti-Zionist Wayne, similar to this "analysis" by John de Nugent, shared a different perspective in an e-mail I just received. He begins by thanking me for notifying him about MacDonald, whose books he now intends to buy. Wayne then lambastes me for my alleged desire to curb freedom of speech (nowhere in the article did I suggest this) and informs me that "this IS AMERICA . . . IT'S NOT FACIST ISRAEL (a nation OF Jews, BY Jews, FOR Jews) !"

He concludes with this thoughtful observation:

The truth is that the greatest danger that rascist Jews (i.e, Zionists) fear is NOT the anti-semitic terrorism from non-Jews, but the assimilation ("self-destruction") of the Diaspora Jews into "other" (impure) multi-ethnic cultures, LIKE IN MELTING POT AMERICA!!!!

The Aryan Neo-Nazis fear and hate MELTING POT America!
The WASPs (David Dukes) fear and hate MELTING POT America!
The Louis Farahkan Blacks fear and hate MELTING POT America!
The Zionist Jews fear and hate MELTING POT America!

I believe that ALL ethnic groups are possessed with RACIST factions that want to preserve their pedigree clan! If we must NEVER FORGET the evils and horrors of bigotry and racism, then we have to learn the attributes (psychological markers) of these bigoted factions, no matter what ethnic group they belong to!!

Louis Farrakhan can NOT use the horrors of the history of SLAVERY as an excuse, or justification, for tolerating Black bigotry! Neither can Zionist Jews be permitted to use the HOLOCAUST as an excuse or justification for tolerating Zionist (Israeli) bigotry!!

I suspect that that's the message Professor Kevin MacDonald wants to teach his students!

But I'm quite sure that he'll learn that you CAN NOT criticize the Jewish Community, by documenting its flaws, without facing professional assassination by Zionist bigots . . .umm, like you Mr Greenberg!!!

Coincidentally, this rant was sent to thecreator@thegodblog.org, the account I use for this blog, on which it is very apparent that I'm a practicing Christian who believes in Zionism, though not without criticism, and has a Jewish last name.

An old colleague of mine had a hilarious template letter for replying to such e-mails. It began "Dear Sir and/or Madam," thanked the author for "using fairly grammatically correct language and removing most of the typos" and offered to do better in the future "so you'll be able to spend your days contributing productively to society, rather than devoting time and effort to reminding me of what a miserable excuse for a person I am." Other parts of the letter, which was never sent out but was always good for a laugh, are not repeatable here.

But back to Wayne's e-mail: Notice the difference his insights into my flaws and those shared with me after I wrote an article about Islamopobia for the LA Daily News last year. (Hint: that guy told me I was a sucker for Islamofascists and said, "While you're waiting in line with your prayer rug on the way to the ovens, I'll continue to shine a light on the hate speech that Imams are spewing in Mosque's.")

The pink gorilla and me

It's difficult to explain to a big pink gorilla why as a journalist you don't want to mug for the camera, so I indulged Zack Sher last week at UC Irvine. He and his fellow Anteaters for Israel were celebrating the Jewish State's 60th anniversary with iFest, a week long festival that preceded and partially overlapped Palestinian awareness week, for which I'll be heading down south again this week.

Department of Aliyah: I'm moving to Israel

Well, not really. But it's comforting to know that I could not only move to Israel but in fact become an Israeli citizen. At least that is how I understand a recent ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court, relayed here on the CT Liveblog:

Last week, the Supreme Court of Israel, ruled on a case involved 12 Messianic Jews who sued the government Ministry of the Interior for their legal 'right of return' (and then to become citizens of Israel). The court in its ruling said:

The parties have submitted to us the following notification:

“In their notification dated 13.04.08 the Respondents declared, that the fact that a person is a “Messianic Jew” has no bearing on an application according to Sec. 7 of the Law of Citizenship, as well as an application according to Sec. 4(A)(a) of the Law of Return (as long as the person applying according the abovementioned section of the Law of Return is not considered to be Jewish, as described in section 4B of the Law of Return).

The Respondents declare that in accordance with their notification they will process the applications of all Petitioners as soon as possible, as well as the application of Alvetina Zibareva, and Valentina Zibareva who requested to join the petition on 01.04.08 to the extent that their request is similar.

Due to these circumstances the representatives of the Petitioners requested to remove the petition without a ruling regarding court costs. The Petition is removed by consent as aforesaid.

One blogger explains the ruling this way:

I received a communication today that clarifies the settlement reached yesterday in Israel... The ruling would not cover all Messianic Jews, but would cover many of them: If a person was not a Jew previously (religious definition) but is a descendant of Jews, then they can make aliyah (citizenship) without discrimination for their current faith in Yeshua.

To be sure, I am not a Messianic Jew. Nor do I have intentions to be. But I match the characteristics outlined by the court: The grandchild of Jews though not previously a Jew by religious measures.

I think I'll head south from Tel Aviv. I hear Sderot is beautiful in the spring.

The twilight of daily journalism

More from the Department of Dying Newspapers, I just got around to reading this article that appeared in the New Yorker two weeks ago, and I can't think of a better set of Cliff's Notes on what's happening to my industry. Here's a choice nugget near the top:

Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, said recently in a speech in London, "At places where editors and publishers gather, the mood these days is funereal. Editors ask one another, 'How are you?,' in that sober tone one employs with friends who have just emerged from rehab or a messy divorce." Keller's speech appeared on the Web site of its sponsor, the Guardian, under the headline "NOT DEAD YET."

Singleton: 'Digging for marrow'

The LA Weekly has caught up with the carnage in Dean Singleton's Southern California media empire.

“They’re way past stripping the paper to the bone,” said Joe Segura, of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “They’re digging for marrow now.”

I wrote last month about the bloodletting at my last paper, the LA Daily News -- which appears to have received a final, fatal blow this week -- but the Weekly also discusses the pain being felt at the papers where I started my career, the two-for-one Sun in San Bernardino and Daily Bulletin in Ontario.

WHEN SINGLETON BOUGHT a controlling interest in the Bulletin in 1997, it was part of a blitzkrieg that before long led him to own every daily in the region, outside of the Times, the Register in Orange County and the Press Enterprise in Riverside. The Times became part of that story when it was revealed that its then–parent company, Times-Mirror, had helped to finance Singleton’s purchase of the Daily News, arguably in order to prevent a serious journalistic competitor from moving into town to challenge it.

For Daily News staffers like Mariel Garza, who covered Los Angeles City Hall for two years and has been a Daily News editorial writer for the past four years, the slow bleed in Woodland Hills has been akin to watching a friend succumb to a terminal illness.

Garza said the recent layoffs, coupled with a long period of attrition, have left the San Fernando Valley newsroom demoralized and fearing the paper’s demise.

“It’s like watching a loved one that’s wasting away from Alzheimer’s,” Garza said. “It’s tragic to watch.”

'This is the end, beautiful friend ...'

You know when a friend dies and you are so paralyzed by grief that you can't mourn their loss in words? That was how I felt yesterday afternoon when I got an e-mail about the staff cuts visiting my former paper tomorrow.

* 22 jobs will be eliminated Friday, bringing us to 100 total in the newsroom.
* the layoff package will be the same as the voluntary buyout package last year.
* anyone who wants to voluntarily step forward and take a buyout (same terms) has until noon Thursday to let ron or melissa know.
* those affected include both PT and FT; both guild and non-guild
* ron will stay.
* ron will notify those affected on friday.
* those who take voluntary buyouts will affect the list of those on friday.
* if you have jobshare suggestion, etc., let him know.
* industry and us are screwed, but i still believe in what we're doing and have some hope.
* will help with references etc.
* accrued vacation will be paid out too. exempt worker max is four weeks.
* this is the least of the worst options - dean saved ten reporting jobs
* it's gonna be tough to look good workers in the eye and tell them we have no room for you anymore.
* decide for self whether it's fun, worthwhile, worth saying in, or moving on.
* can't sugarcoat things, can't say there won't be more cuts or that any paper will survive.

At Bible study last night, the fate of my former colleagues was my main prayer request. We journalists have long known these were bad times to be in the business; it's been that way since I started four years ago. And that was one of the reasons I left the LA Daily News for The Jewish Journal.

But I don't think anyone could have expected the cuts to be this stark and this severe. How could they? A nearly 20 percent reduction overnight. Employees given less than 12 hours to decide whether they should take a buyout or risk being laid off anyway. Others knowing that by staying they are costing a friend their job.

I know Ron Kaye, the editor, fought hard to save jobs, and fortunately he didn't lose his in the process. He was so stricken yesterday, I was told he started crying during the staff meeting. Brent Hopkins', the shop steward and eternal optimist who for seven years has fought the good fight, laments what comes next:

This is the worst day I've ever seen here at the paper and I'm sure Friday will be even worse. There is nothing I can say that will make it OK or even make it make sense. These are disastrous cuts that will seriously hamper our ability to produce the paper and Web content at the level our readers expect. It risks erasing all the great leaps forward we've made online and in print.

The next few months will be intensely painful, both for the people who lose their jobs and those who stay behind. As I've said to many of you, the real losers are the people who rely on this newspaper-- they won't be able to find the information they need anymore. Their events won't get covered. Their sense of community will get a little shakier. Once the dedicated journalists who've made this place what it is leave, their expertise will never be replaced. Maybe people won't notice it right away, but in a year, maybe two, maybe more, they'll realize there's a gaping hole left behind that can never be filled in.

This is particularly heartbreaking to me because you guys have given this place everything and asked for little in return. You've sacrificed yourselves for love of the craft and love of the community and the work you've done is amazing. The paper's thinner and our coverage isn't as expansive as it once was, but the stories, photos, layouts, headlines-- everything-- has been fantastic. I'm so proud to see the work you do on a daily basis and honored to be a part of it. I'm heartsick to see such a great operation so callously dismantled.

This is not the end of the Daily News and the people who stay behind will continue to put out as good a paper as they possibly can every day, but it will be very hard. Then again, it's never been easy and the crazy folks who make this place so vibrant and alive will never let this company's mismanagement snuff them out. You'll continue to give more than the beancounters deserve and keep coming back before because y'all are the most wonderful, talented, bad-ass journalists around. Somehow, the spirit will survive, as it always does.

Mazel tov, us!

Jewcy has awarded this week's Jewish Journal with the honor of "ugliest cover of all time." Wait 'til Izzy Grinspan reads the stories inside ...

'Does the News Matter to Anyone Anymore?'

Is there a separate elegy to be written for that generation of newspapermen and women who came of age after Vietnam, after the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? For us starry-eyed acolytes of a glorious new church, all of us secular and cynical and dedicated to the notion that though we would still be stained with ink, we were no longer quite wretches? Where is our special requiem?

Bright and shiny we were in the late 1970s, packed into our bursting journalism schools, dog-eared paperback copies of "All the President's Men" and "The Powers That Be" atop our Associated Press stylebooks. No business school called to us, no engineering lab, no information-age computer degree -- we had seen a future of substance in bylines and column inches. Immortality lay in a five-part series with sidebars in the Tribune, the Sun, the Register, the Post, the Express.

What the hell happened?

Those words, the beginning of a powerful op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post about the state of American journalism, caused much soul-searching for me yesterday. I don't remember these better days, and I know that if journalists are great at one thing, it is seeing the negative in any situation. But I also know that such nostalgia is not just bitter and certainly not sweet, and it's sad to wonder what the future holds for news ink journos.

The column is written by David Simon, executive producer of "The Wire," and it only gets more depressing from that point, particularly when he talks about the thinning of his former employer, The Baltimore Sun, and compares the attempt to repackage newspapers more efficiently and engagingly to the Chevy Vega.

Undie Run: What have we done?

That is a photo from LAist of last night's Undie Run at UCLA. It's been a "tradition" for Bruins to drop down to their drawers and jog off studying at midnight the Wednesday of finals week since spring 2002. And, as my wife just noted, this giant display of debauchery was, gulp, started by a few Christians.

Raising your dog Jewish

Two years ago, both my late childhood dogs died. It was a sad month for my family. Those dogs were members of the Greenberg tribe, and we knew they were gone for good.

The grief we experienced at the loss of such little loved ones made it all the more interesting to learn about the unenviable place dogs traditionally held in Jewish culture.

An elderly friend who likes to pretend he comes from the old country but in fact comes from Detroit tells me that my two dogs make me look, well, goyish. He’s got 3,000 years of Jewish opinion to back him up. Dogs don’t do so well in the Tanakh or in the Talmud. To maintain, as Ecclesiastes does, that a live dog is better than a dead lion doesn’t say much for the dog. To argue, as the rabbis do, that breeding dogs is like breeding swine doesn’t say much for the breeder. It seems that dogs can’t get a break. They are either savage or wild. They drive away the Shekhina; they scare away the needy; they bring blood upon a house. For the tradition, it all comes down to the bark and the bite.

But the tradition doesn’t know about the modern Jewish dog.

In the rest of this short piece from The Forward, David Kaufman argues that his dogs are in fact Jewish. To start, they are so racked by guilt that they can't bark or bite.

They are relatively obedient and remarkably stubborn. They show an annoying curiosity, and their skepticism is tempered by an overbearing, even pushy, eagerness. Most important, though, they will wait. My dogs, bless them, are capable of an astonishing patience where it counts. And in this way, they really seem like Jews: They can sustain whole eternities of impossible hope.

'A horrible example of Jews gone bad'

My post Sunday about why I work at The Jewish Journal got some traction in the blogosphere, much to Paul Almond's dismay. Almond was the name attached to at least one of the comments and, based on the writing style and substance, is presumably the identity of Jewboy. And he was none too pleased to learn that The Forward interviewed me last summer about my Christian beliefs and Jewish background.

paul almond said:

Great - first the "Jewish Journal" and now the Forward put forward this Christian with Jewish parents as someone to be lauded by the Jewish community, instead of someone who is a horrible example of Jews gone bad. I expect the next story will feature a JforJ type who is really a very good person and should be idolized by the Jewish community. Barf

To reiterate what I told The Forward last summer:

No, I’m not involved in Jews for Jesus. No, they have not slipped a mole into the Jewish Journal. I don’t have a special calling to baptize all of “those pagan Jews.” I think when people understand who I am, when they see the sensitivity of my reporting, and the fact that I am just a really curious journalist who does care about this community and is interested in the stories that are affecting it, I think it breaks down those walls.

Rodney King shot

"Just wait. Every few years Rodney King gets in trouble."

That was my first city editor's response when I started working at The Sun in San Bernardino and discovered King was a down-and-out resident of Rialto. I too was a resident of the forlorn industrial town wedged between Muscoy and Fontana, and I wanted to write about my most notable neighbor.

I moved out of Rialto and off that beat, and later left the paper, before King made headlines (aside from this Charlie LeDuff piece). He's back with this one today:

One of Rialto's most well-known residents, Rodney King, was shot sometime around midnight.

San Bernardino Police Lt. Scott Paterson said the details were still fuzzy but that King may have gunshot pellets in his arm and back area. The wounds are not considered life-threatening.

"Early indications are that it very possibly could have been a domestic dispute," Paterson said.

San Bernardino police are still investigating what exactly happened and where, he said.

Rialto Police Sgt. Tim Lane said police logs showed the incident took place at 5th Street and Meridian Avenue in San Bernardino near the border of Rialto and San Bernardino. Lane said King made it back to his house in the 1100 block of East Jackson Street before calling police.

My chance at stardom

Jonah Hill got the cover of Heeb magazine this fall, but it looks like I could have had it if I had played my cards right.

Jewfro -- check
Comic foil appeal -- check
Lumberjack beard -- check ... wait ... just shaved ... uncheck
Lubed bagel -- ummm, pass

More significantly, Hill says he met his sort-of sugar daddy Seth Rogen while sitting behind him during "The Life Aquatic" at The Grove. I was at that movie, at that theater, but probably not on the same night.

Oh well. I hated "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" anyway.

(For those doubting my cred, check out my "dancing" in N.E.R.D.'s "Rockstar" video.)

On my employment at The Jewish Journal *

There have been a flurry of comments here lately attacking The "Jewish" Journal for employing a Christian to write about Judaism. The comments, which are coming from a few people, don't bother me. I have no delusions regarding my insider-outsider role in the LA Jewish community. But they warrant some clarification.

1. I was not hired to educate Jewish people about Judaism. Amy Klein, our religion editor, reports on that. I cover stories that affect the Jewish community, but often are more about Jewishness than Judaism. Think Commentary incarnate.

2. Secondly, Judaism is not a monolith. Particularly in the United States. And while I don't stake a claim to being a religious Jew, the ethnic history of the Jewish people is as much my family's story as it is for most other Jews.

3. I am not at The Jewish Journal to fulfill a Christian mission.

Because many of these comments have come from anonymous users, I have adjusted the settings to only allow comments from registered users. (Sorry, Siamang. I always appreciate your insights and hope you'll register.)

Additionally, I'd like to ask that comments remain germane to the post they are augmenting. If the business ethics of Thomas Kinkade spur you to write a nasty letter about how out of touch the JJ is with the Jewish community, please send it to letters@jewishjournal.com.

* Update: LAObserved linked to this post this morning, and when I read it I felt like I had left something out. So I sent Kevin Roderick this addendum:

One thing I probably should have added is that most people in the Jewish community are not concerned with my religious affiliation. It strikes many as a bit odd -- indeed, The Forward interviewed me about it for a Q&A this summer -- but, as a journalist would expect, most of the people I interact with are more concerned with the relevancy and accuracy of my reporting than with where I pray. For a few others, my employment has been an itchy scab.

The Heeb 100

Joel Stein, who auditioned for "The Apprentice" last year alongside me, made the Heeb 100, as did Ben Goldhirsh, who I'm profiling right now, and Jonah Lehrer, who I am interviewing Monday. It's not clear why anyone made this list from Heeb magazine, but, not surprisingly, I was left off.

The Brad A. Greenberg Blog by GOD

That bit of self indulgence is courtesy of my former colleague at the LA Daily News, the always insightful and incisive Patrick O'Connor. My favorite cartoon he did while I was at the paper was this one, inspired by a forgettable story I wrote about California's quality of life; seriously, what kind of phrase is "ends meat?"

'You are both'

Self-flattery is very unbecoming. That's why I quote others saying nice things about me. (Don't worry. It doesn't happen often.) The comments on my Q&A with The Forward have slowed to a trickle, but Carolyn wrote today that I am "a man more articulate than most." My wife might balk, but I like Carolyn's final point, on which many more people disagree:

It's unfortunate that people seem to think of religion the same way as a sports team. "Well, are you Jewish OR are you a Christian?" If you've studied the origin of Christianity, you know that it comes from Judaism and is very closely related. Some of us are Judeo-Christians, and today's organized religions don't seem to understand what that means. To Brad Greenberg I say that I'm proud of you for declaring who you are and being willing to put up with the replies that it brings you and, as a man more articulate than most, to explain that yes, you are both.

'This is where the Jewish people are at'

It's weird watching the tides of content interest on the Web. For almost two months, a link I posted about the origin of UCLA's Undie Run as part of a comment on LAist.com got almost no clicks. In the past two days got more than 70.

Similarly, the discussion of my Q&A with The Forward on the paper's Website only had three comments the first week it was up. But yesterday there was a flurry of back and forth. This reaction from yehudis particularly caught my attention:

I actually cried reading this interview. This is where the Jewish people are at right now, and it is a very sad story from any angle you examine it.

When I write in birthday cards to my mom, I enjoy moving her to the point of tears (usually of joy). But I can't boast the same about yehudis' sentiment, which I think is related to this recent dialogue on Jewcy.

Everybody into the bomb shelter!

The most interesting part of my trip to Israel two weeks ago was not my meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but having Shabbat dinner with the Bar-On family, a household of kibbutzniks living along the Gaza border.

Daily life in the western Negev region within the range of Qassam rockets is filled with nonstop unease. Five minutes after I arrived for dinner at Kibbutz Nir-Am, a PA sounded the "tveza adom" warning of incoming fire. In Sderot they have 15 seconds to take cover, which I had the enjoyment (!) of doing twice the day before, but on Nir-Am they are that much closer to Gaza and have only six to seven seconds. It didn't matter for me, though. I missed the warning.

A single rocket attack, or even two back to back, is no big deal for people living in the western Negev. For the past six years they have been getting shelled; in late May attacks escalated and during two weeks they were hit by 293 Qassams.

This was the most interesting story I came back from Israel with, and it's this week's cover for The Jewish Journal.

The Bar-On's front door leads into what used to be the veranda, but, thanks to the addition of two mostly windowed walls, is now the living room. The ceiling is rich cherry oak and the floor smooth brick. This is where Mayan and Gabi sit on plump, blue leather couches and watch Nickelodeon, and from where they run when they hear the "color red" warning of an incoming rocket -- "tveza adom."

"If we're sitting in here with the air-conditioning on and the windows closed and the TV on, we can't hear the siren. What does it matter if we can hear it or not?" Marcell asks, growing exasperated. "What can we do? We're going to go where there are not windows, but we are still not protected."

For that reason, when the rocket attacks are heavy, like they were for the last two weeks of May, when 293 rockets were launched from Gaza after a six-month cease-fire broke down, the Bar-Ons often sleep on the concrete floor of a communal bomb shelter about 50 meters from their house.

"I like this one because it is underground," Marcell says, walking down the stairs in the dark. "It's something extra. It's really, really safe."

"Ooh, it smells terrible," she says, before flipping the light switch and revealing a red picnic bench, tile floor and wine cellar décor. About 15 feet by 20 feet, the room is stuffed with upwards of a dozen people on busy nights.

Fortunately, the previous few weeks have been "quiet." Marcell uses that term several times and usually follows it with a grimace, as if the Sderot region has been experiencing the calm before the storm.

Quiet, anyway, doesn't mean silent. It still means three to four Qassams coming their direction each day.

Last month, Uzi and Marcell saw one of the rockets fly above them as they swam in the pool after dinner.

"We knew that Gabi was playing soccer and that Mayan was in bed. We were totally helpless in the middle of the pool, and we saw this bomb fly right over our heads," Marcell recalls. "We jumped out of the pool to see where Gabi was, to see if he was still alive."

He was. But the rocket tore off a room in an elderly couple's home. That direct hit followed the Qassam that landed on the kibbutz restaurant, Fauna, and burned the structure to the foundation, which followed the bomb that tore through one of the dorms rented to students at Sapir College. Amazingly, each time, no one was hurt.

"We have," Marcell adds, "so many stories like that ...."

Why then, you ask -- everyone asks -- does anyone stay here?

Some stay because they are committed to the land, which is inside the Green Line of 1948 Israel. Others because they don't want to be bullied by Palestinian terrorists. But many remain because, as Marcell Bar-On puts it, of "a lack of choice."

If you could choose, would you stay in the area around Sderot?