A year ago,as Hamas rockets from Gaza rained down almost daily on this Israeli border town,Stanley M Chesley,president of the Jewish National Fund,was on a solidarity visit here and realised that he saw no children playing outdoors. It was too dangerous. Chesley,an aggressive class-action litigator from Ohio,decided that something needed to be done. These kids cant go to a park,so lets build a park inside where they can go, he told his colleague Russell F Robinson,chief executive of the fund,a century-old Zionist organisation that collects coins in blue metal boxes in synagogues and Jewish centres. That is how a 21,000-square-foot bunker of a recreation centre was born in the industrial sector of this city. It has a small indoor soccer field,video games,fun-house mirrors,a climbing wall,rooms for birthday celebrations and $1.5 million worth of reinforced steel. The site,an abandoned textile warehouse,has been refurbished with $5 million from the Jewish National Fund and painted in cheerful colours. Although not every part of the roof is protected against rockets,the building has many reinforced areas that double as functional spaces,including the soccer field and a computer room. When a rocket is launched,a siren sounds to give residents 15 seconds to take shelter,making it easy for those inside the centre to move to the reinforced parts. That time frame did mean,however,that the centre would not get the merry-go-round that had originally been planned; shutting it down would have taken more than 20 seconds. Hourly shuttle buses to the play centre will operate from the middle of town. This is the biggest blue box in the world, said Chesley,referring to his groups familiar containers,as the first children,dressed in costumes for the Jewish holiday of Purim,spread throughout the building. The new recreation centre has two rooms set aside for counseling and a staff of mental health workers. Emotional trauma among the young is an area of great focus not only in Israel,but also in Gaza.
