‘We meet again’: Inside the ‘pajama party’ at a north Tel Aviv bomb shelter |
The siren began sounding as Roberto Sciunnach was hauling his second mattress down the concrete steps to the shelter, off the side of a cavernous parking lot and two stories below north Tel Aviv’s spacious Basel Square.
Above ground on this temperate Saturday evening, the usually bustling plaza was close to empty, its cafes shuttered per government regulation. When Sciunnach got down the steps — after calling to his wife that he was close, he’d make it in time — the shelter was nearly empty as well, though that was soon to change.
Within minutes, the rooms were bustling, as a swarm of adults, children, dogs, strollers, bags, mats and mattresses filled the space. It wasn’t yet 7:30 p.m., but families with young kids knew that now was the time to settle in for the night.
After weeks of anticipation, the war with Iran had finally begun, the second in eight months, plunging the country into uncertainty as sirens sounded across Tel Aviv and Israel, warning of incoming Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.
The denizens of this shelter came here for safety. But what they said they found was the impromptu community created when dozens of Israelis are packed together underground, waiting out a war. The shelter’s occupants came from different countries, brought different kinds of food with them and had different opinions about the war, but they were all united in the hope for a quiet night.
“We have a full bag of games, and we’re making it as normal as possible so the kids don’t feel it,” said Sciunnach, father to a two-year-old boy and a 6-month-old baby girl, pointing to a set of MagnaTiles sprawled across a mat. “For my son, this is just a game, a party. If you ask him what he’s doing there, he’s sure it’s a pajama party.”
Sciunnach and his family spent the June war in their building’s shelter, but this felt both more secure and more convenient, with no need to run up and down the stairs to their apartment every time a siren sounded. They’re at the shelter with another young family from their building, prepared to hole........