Fourteen-year-old Mazal Dahan looked up shyly and smiled as campers sang Hebrew songs at Camp Gan Israel in Gaithersburg, a summer camp for Jewish children.
Her Israeli hometown suffers seven rocket attacks a day, said the brown-eyed girl. But over here, it is quiet and nice.
Dahan and four cousins are among 11 girls from the Gaza Strip who are spending the month at camp and living with host families in Gaithersburg. Ten boys from their Southern Israeli town of Sderot are attending a day camp in Northern Virginia. The camps are covering the children’s expenses, including airfare, medical insurance, room and board and sightseeing. The hope is to give the youngsters a respite from life under siege — and some spiritual sustenance to help them back at home.
‘‘There are moments that you would not know that they were any different,” said Rabbi Sholom Raichik, of the visiting children. The girls love make-up, shopping and music and get in squabbles with their friends ‘‘like any other teens,” he said. Other times, stress is evident in an irrational response or collective holding of breath at the sound of a siren.
Raichik, director of Chabad Lubavitch of Upper Montgomery County said Chabad centers in the Washington, D.C., area organized the project. Sderot has been under attack from terrorist groups such as Hamas the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for seven years, he said. This year, more than 1,000 rockets and 1,200 mortar bombs have been dropped on the town.
Several months ago, the Dahan family was enjoying a celebration at synagogue when a rocket hit, said the rabbi’s niece Chemy Raichik, 19, a visiting camp counselor from Israel. Twelve-year-old Morag Dahal experienced so much trauma and stress that the left side of her face and neck were paralyzed. Her smile has relaxed since she has been in Maryland. The Chabad community helped her and two other girls celebrate their bat mitzvah, or coming-of-age, in a religious ceremony followed by dancing.
‘‘It’s similar what they have,” said Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum, who runs the Gaithersburg camp and serves as chaplain to the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department and the Maryland National Guard. He likened the children’s behaviors to post-traumatic stress he sees in soldiers returning from war. ‘‘When it comes to fun, that’s a way to be normal again.”
On Monday, the Dahans and their friends bubbled over with laughter describing their first time ice-skating, yachting in Annapolis and a trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore This week will bring a visit to the White House and trip to New York.
The girls have learned yoga and therapeutic beading; some have learned to pray.
‘‘She wants to continue,” Chemy Raichik translates for 14-year-old Dorin Dahan, who only speaks Hebrew. ‘‘It developed her to feel so thankful and appreciative for people...She feels much more secure, much more relaxed, she sees that there is another lifestyle.” For the first time, she felt safe writing in a diary.
Dahan’s cousin Lotem Dahan, 12, excitedly described fancy cars and squirrels. People have good manners in America, she said. It’s a very beautiful place.
The girls are having a wonderful time, assured 9-year-old Hanna Vriskin of Gaithersburg, whose family is hosting. ‘‘I can’t sleep at night, it’s very loud.”
