By Stan Goodenough
Aug 26, 2007
Hundreds of families in Sderot have refused to enroll their children for the new school year a week before classes are set to begin, citing the ongoing vulnerability of the schools to unrelenting Arab rocket attack.
Like their forefathers down the centuries, this Negev town's Jews have had to live with the threat of violence and destruction wrought by antisemites every day of their lives for the past few years.
More than 5000 Kassam rockets have been fired by Gaza's Palestinian Arabs, with many raining down on Sderot.
Two of the missiles hit the town Sunday morning, destroying a car but causing no injuries.
Despite the Kassam's inaccuracy, a growing number of parents are no longer willing to play Russian roulette with their children's lives.
To protect their offspring and protest the Olmert government's failure absolutely to deal with the Kassam threat, a number of parents are even willing to risk criminal charges for breaking the law.
Israeli law says children have to be registered in schools closest to the town or neighborhood in which they live.
According to reports out of the battered town, as many as 700 out of 4,100 students have not been enrolled. The number of small children being signed up for pre-school classes has also dropped sharply over last year.