On the seventh anniversary of the first Qassam attack on Sderot, residents gathered for the first ever public hearing in the town in one of its only protected public buildings. The hearing culminated a year of SHATIL field work in the embattled town and presented testimonies of residents to a public committee and the media. Aimed at giving Sderot residents a voice and strengthening their influence on decision makers, the hearing highlighted the continuing social and economic problems of Sderot and called on the government to take responsibility for its citizens.
"The social Qassam is more dangerous than the military one," testified Sderot resident Mark Ifraimov, who immigrated from the Former Soviet Union in 1996 and helped initiate a community center for Kavkazi immigrants, or Mountain Jews as they like to be called. "The rockets only worsened an already dire situation. The Kavkazi community, of which I am a part, suffers from discrimination and under-representation at every level. My parents, who are educated people, work in factories and are treated poorly. This isn't the 1950's. This is happening here and now."
In an evening of moving testimony and fruitful dialogue, residents' love for Sderot and its people and their desire to stay even under difficult circumstances was a recurring theme. Elise Gigi, who has been living in Sderot for 44 years and whose house was destroyed by rocket fire: "This is a great town. How come nobody is doing anything? I lost everything and nobody took heed of us..." And Michal Lavi, who directed the movie Mediterranean Fever, said, "I'm worn down, many of my friends are no longer here, but we can't abandon this place."
The residents' testimonies will be added to others collected throughout the town and included in a report SHATIL will prepare on citizens' views of government failures on the home front to be sent to government officials and the media.
The hearing ended with a decision to form a task force of Sderot residents, public representatives such as Israel Prize winner Prof. Yona Rosenfeld, Ha'aretz's Lily Galili, NGO heads and SHATIL. The task force will work to find systemic solutions to specific social and economic problems and lobby the government to fulfill its obligations.
The public hearing was organized by SHATIL in cooperation with local activists and NGO's with the support of the Hanns Seidel Fund and the Sderot Cinematheque and was widely covered in local and national media.
