Routine Emergency

This book explores the meaning of life for Israelis from communities bordering the Gaza Strip, whose lives are bound to the intractable conflict between Israel and the Hamas regime. Based on a psychosocial qualitative study of narrative interviews, photographs, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts created by residents, the book presents the life stories of ordinary people, their perspectives of patriotism and Zionism, and their perceptions of the Gazan Palestinians. Routine Emergency captures these perspectives through analyses of residents’ interviews and photographs, the social media materials and poems fashioned from interviewees’ words. The results challenge simplistic notions of what it means to live in this warzone, offering a multi-layered analysis of life in this region, which alternates between being Heaven and Hell. Written in a reader-friendly format, Routine Emergency, offers new theoretical insights into societal beliefs connected to living in an intractable warzone on the personal, family, community and national levels.

“This book, the product of a comprehensive study that integrates diverse research methods, presents a deep and multi-layered picture of life experiences in a continuous traumatic situation. The authors uncover the complexity and tensions that characterize this experience, which include routine alongside emergency, resilience alongside vulnerability, and hope alongside despair, in their examination of the intimate, family, inter-personal, community and national layers of life in a warzone. In contrast to studies that disassemble and quantify life experiences occurring in the shadow of an ongoing security threat, this book offers readers a  holistic and accessible look into such a life, from the inside. At the book’s center are the voices of the people, who have been coping with an extremely challenging reality, for over two decades.” (Gabriela Spector-Mersel, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, the School of Social Work, Sapir College, Israel)

“A micro-geopoliticalstudy on Jewish-Israeli experiences of living along the tense border with Gaza, the so-called Otef Aza region. It is a much needed, multi-layered analysis of interviews with Jewish residents about their fears and hopes in a contested political environment and ongoing military conflict. Interspersed with photo and social media evaluations, this book provides a richly textured canvas on the complex negotiations of people caught between security needs and justice values, including their love for and criticism of their country.” (Björn Krondorfer, Regents' Professor and Director of the Martin-Springer Institute, Northern Arizona University, USA)

“I sincerely want to commend this piece of work. It is an excellent piece of scholarly research. However, the word research does not do this work justice, as it brings us up close and personal, to the pain of division, the trauma of war, the loss of hopes, dreams and aspirations of a future for all our children and grandchildren. Read it slowly, hear the human voices, picture the faces and take a step or maybe two, deep into their lives, it could just change your life also.” (Rev. Dr. Gary Mason, MBE, BA, Dip.Th, D.D. Phd.)

“Chaitin, Steinberg, Avlagon, and Steinberg bring to the reader the experience of living in a place where the potential for incoming rockets means that life cycles through the lulls between the panic. Through the use of personal life stories drawn from interviews, photographs, and an examination of social media, the authors are able to bring those typically distant realities of protracted civil conflict to the forefront. The perspective of Jewish Israelis living in the Otef region along the Gaza Strip is presented in crisp detail. What transpires is an interesting mix of trauma and also solidarity leading to resilience. Through the words and pictures of those included in the study, we are better able to see and feel their experience and how they view their neighbors in Gaza, which itself is quite varied from sympathetic to blaming. The authors themselves lament about the inability to examine the life experiences from the perspective of those living in Gaza, who must also feel the ‘routine-emergency.’ Such interactions between even Israeli and Palestinian researchers, however, are strongly discouraged, demonstrating just how polarized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become over time. With this in mind, the authors call for a resolution that addresses the needs for all people in the region, on both sides of the border.” (Marie Olson Lounsbery, Professor of Political Science, Director of International Relations Undergraduate Programs, East Carolina University, USA)


“This book is must reading for anyone interested in how war affects the emotional lives and thinking of civilians caught up in it. The authors have come up with a unique study. Using non-conventional research methods, they report on a relatively neglected group of people: Israeli residents who live near the border with Gaza, a Palestinian territory with which Israel has been at war. The authors use interviews, photos and social media material to provide insights not only into the trauma that residents have experienced but also their life stories, their ideologies, their hopes and their resilience in the face of a decades-long intractable conflict. This is truly a view from the inside. For the first time, we have an account of the ways people, including the authors, live with the contradictions, in their words, of "working for peace while being bombed and burned." While Gaza residents have borne the brunt of the conflict with far more casualties, the authors show how understanding the lives of these Israelis under constant stress may help in understanding how people retain their humanity and work to end a seemingly hopeless conflict.” (Charles W. Greenbaum, James Marshall Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)


“This book presents the routine emergency of daily life for Israeli residents living near the Gaza Strip. The success of the book is in its ability to capture moments – usually considered normal for people throughout the world – but, in the residents’ reality, become extremely difficult, often unbearable. Routine Emergency lets us peek into the lives of a quarter of a million people and the everyday difficulties they face, caused by the ongoing war between Israel and the Gaza Strip, which has lasted for over two decades. Nonetheless, residents live full and normal lives, in a reality that is so abnormal. We find people who are victims of a harsh and complex reality, who also demonstrate the will to live, and to carry on with routine life. The book is written in a flowing style and not too ‘academic’, making it a book that peoplewho wish to learn about these residents’ complex lives will be able to easily read. Routine Emergency serves as an important document for understanding the complexity of the lives of Israeli residents living near the Gaza border. From 1885-1891, Theodor Herzl covered the French Parliament, the Palais Bourbon. He described the politicians – “who once lived and had a quarter of an hour of fame” – a sentence attributed to Andy Warhol in 1968. This book presents the lives of hundreds of thousands of people via the prism of interviewees, who deserve all the fame in the world. Residents of the region have up to ‘15 seconds of fame’, concentrated in one book. It is important that everybody reads about them.” (Dr. Moti Gigi , Chair of the Communications Department, Sapir College, Israel)

Julia Chaitin has a PhD in social psychology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and is an Emerita from the School of Social Work at the Sapir College. Julia completed three post-doctorates in the field of conflict resolution and peace building; one with The Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, one with the University of Missouri-St. Louis and one on the long-term, intergenerational effects of the Holocaust at the School of Social Work at Tel-Aviv University. For years, she has worked to bring together Palestinians and Israelis, as well as Jewish-Israelis, who hold opposing political orientations, for peace-building efforts.

Sharon Steinberg holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Applied Biostatistics from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is a Senior Lecturer at the Kaye College of Education, which has a diverse population of Jewish and Arab students from the Negev. Sharon teaches both quantitative and qualitative research courses, focusing on thetopics of narratives, inclusive classrooms, as well as a research seminar on poverty-aware education.

Shoshana Steinberg, PhD, is a senior lecturer (Emerita) in psychology from the Kaye Academic College of Education in Beer-Sheva. Her topics of interest are the theoretical and practical aspects of inter-group relations, dialogue, conflict resolution, peace building and peace education. Shoshana teaches in the Conflict Management program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and her courses focus on Narrative and Conflict and Peace Building.

Elad Avlagon has a BSW from Sapir College. As a social worker, he has experience working with old people and people living in poverty and social exclusion. Over the years, he has gained expertise in narrative interviewing and analysis. Elad interviewed most of the participants for the research in this book.