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AS OTS PROTECTS ITS STUDENTS, STUDENTS PROTECT OTS
For students at the six OTS institutions in the city of Efrat and surrounding Gush Etzion, months of shooting attacks on their roads has made traveling to and from school a stressful experience. The purchase of armored buses 18 months ago has somewhat alleviated their fears, though many students remain apprehensive until reaching the safe boundaries of their school or home. But a series of terrifying events right in the heart of Efrat recently exposed the vulnerability that exists even within the community itself: before Purim, a suicide-bombing attempt by a familiar Palestinian worker was thwarted in a local supermarket; on Pesach, another bomb attack was intercepted by alert citizens who prevented a disaster, suffering serious injuries in the process.
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| The city of Efrat selected Rav Yair Dreyfus, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Siach, to light a torch during its 54th Independence Day celebration, in honor of the dedicated yeshiva students and their families who wholeheartedly embrace the pioneering mission of their strategic position. |
As the violent tactics escalated, IDF recommendations for security changed as well. OTS immediately implemented the army's stringent new guidelines, adding extra security guards on nine of its campuses, further increasing lighting and augmenting fences. But on the Seymour J. Abrams caravan campus of Yeshivat Siach, the OTS hesder yeshiva situated on Efrat's Dagan Hill, even enhanced security measures could not prevent a mortar attack on the pre-fabs that house the yeshiva's 40 single students and 15 young families. While gunshots and even firebombs from neighboring Bethlehem and El Khadr have been regular occurrences since the onset of the intifada, the mortars signaled a serious new threat. Yet, to the astonishment of the OTS administration, the Siach community had no intention of evacuating.
"I immediately dispatched a bulletproof van to transport everyone to our Retreat Center, in a much safer place in the center of Efrat," recalls Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. "But when I checked thirty minutes later, only the women and children had arrived. 'We took a vote,' explained the head dormitory counselor, 'and we unanimously decided not to leave our hill. We dare not appear to grant even a temporary victory to the enemy.'"
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