Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Is Israel Safe?

Is Israel safe?  I asked this exact question before I knew I would ever go to Israel.  The answer I received from a Rabbi was, "Israel is more safe than the USA. We live very free lives without fear. It's an incredible feeling."  I could barely wrap my head around this statement.  How is Israel safe?  Israel is surrounded by people that hate the country and hate the Jewish people.  Yet, he is telling me it is safe.  Not only did I pose this question, I have heard it asked many times and the answer is always yes, Israel is safe.

When the Lord laid it on my heart to say yes to going, I sought out the answer to this question again from someone I know and the answer was, "Israel is more safe than any place".  I emailed my friend Josh Hasten as well, his response, "I honestly feel safer here than in any major US city. 100%."  I also frequently asked my pastor Trey Graham this question and his response was yes every time. 

Since traveling to Israel, I am now the one being asked, is Israel safe? 

I left for Israel on April 9, 2018 and returned to the USA on April 20, 2018. During that time the following events occurred in the US:

  • On April 9, 2018 in Gloversville, New York a student shot another student several times with a BB gun.  
  • On April 12, 2018 a man was shot in the stomach in the parking lot of a middle school during a track meet.
  • On April 15, 2018 a freshman at Binghamton University in New York was stabbed to death.
  • On April 15, 2018 in New Orleans three men sexually assaulted two women.
  • On April 20, 2018 a student in Florida was shot in the ankle.
I researched news in Israel during the time frame I was there and found nothing notable.  Yet, in my own country at least 5 crimes took place. 

Now yes, Israel was dealing with and continues to deal with issues with those surrounding her borders, but inside those borders it is safe.


In the evenings after a long, incredible day of
touring my pastor would say "you wanna take a walk?" Whoever said yes would then proceed to walk from our hotel to the Western Wall, which was 2.5 miles.  The first evening I took a walk, we took a different route and it was much longer than 2.5 miles. It was beautiful. We observed the normalcy of Israel and not the sensationalized news of Israel we see in the US news. We saw a pizza delivery driver, a gorgeous park with people spending time together, and we walked through an outdoor mall.



These pictures show the Western Wall. It is an amazing place. The bottom picture depicts a street we walked down on our way back to our hotel. On this very street Trey Graham stated "This is the scary place your friends and family warned you about." In fact it was so scary, I was blessed with a free water and a free juice from two different Arab store owners.





The picture and video seen here was on another walk to the wall.  We stopped at a movie that was playing and witnessed a group of young people blasting music, dancing, and being together in the streets of Jerusalem.






A Rabbi said Israel was safe. My friend Josh Hasten said Israel was safe.  My pastor and friend, Trey Graham said it was safe.  But then, I experienced Israel for myself.
Is Israel safe?  My answer is a resounding yes!

2 comments:

  1. Lovely posting! Of course, one does have to take into consideration the size difference of the US and Israel to put crime statistics into perspective, but on the whole I would say that Israel is safer than the US or Canada, where I'm from. I was born in Toronto, moved to Israel as a grad student, and have lived here for 30 yrs. I would not hesitate to walk around downtown Jerusalem in the middle of the night, but I wouldn't try that in Toronto.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for reading the post. I agree the size difference needs to be considered. It was great to see for myself how safe it really was! I look forward to visiting again one day! Did you plan on staying when you moved as a grad student?

      Delete

Thank you for stopping by!!