I was born fifty-three years ago in a city in the North of the country. We were one of the only religious families in the area. During the Six-Day War, I was six years old. I have clear memories of the war, and my parents told me several stories about it.

As a result of this war, my father made an important decision: he decided to build a shelter. My father, a professional engineer, decided on his own initiative to enlarge the building's shelter. He planned the project, brought in workers who dug, enlarged, poured concrete, and built a large, light and clean shelter; like a museum.

In the early years, everyone nodded, seeing him as an eccentric, idea-driven person. My father was not hurt, and he invested in the shelter, which became his hobby.

He repainted it every year (even if it was not used), he installed a ventilation system, a shower and a clean toilet, he built a toy cabinet and bought new games that could be used in case...

During that time, I had grown up, and I was approaching the age of Bat-Mitzvah. I was due to celebrate my Bat Mitzvah on the first of Cheshvan.

The day of Yom Kippur arrived. I remember attending the service from the beginning, and I was proud to fast. It was the last of the three fasts that preceded my Bat Mitzvah.

And suddenly everything changed!

The street filled with cars, people entered the synagogue and the prayer stopped, all the young men got into trucks that were heading for the front lines.

Interestingly, I do not remember hearing a siren. Maybe I did not hear anything because of the commotion. It was then that my mother took me by my hand: "Come home. We are at war," she explained to me.

This was the beginning of the Yom Kippur War.

We ran home not knowing what to do. I then heard a siren for the first time, and the memory of the shelter came back to me...I was not the only one. All the neighbors, of course, went there. My father opened the shelter and everyone entered the beautiful shelter that he had built. I watched the children throw themselves on the board games, the other neighbors settled themselves comfortably on the sofas, and my family and I went into a corner to pray. Then some neighbors approached us and expressed their desire to pray as well. Those people who used to come to the synagogue for the Neila prayer, or not at all, prayed Shacharit and Mussaf, perhaps from discomfort, perhaps from boredom, or perhaps because they really felt a need to pray. The evening began to fall, and at the time of Neila, there was knocking at the door of the shelter. Everyone looked at my father. He went to the door and asked, "Who is it?"

A voice was heard, but the noise inside prevented him from hearing distinctly.

"Shh," said my father. Everyone was silent, and we heard the voice again: "We are neighbors from the building next door."

They did not need to tell us their last name. Their French accent gave them away. It was a family that had been nicknamed "Frank''. They were new immigrants who had arrived after the Six-Day War, convinced that they had arrived in the safest country in the world. They had just discovered a different reality.

In truth, they were not really called Frank, but that's how they were nicknamed, perhaps because it is a well-known name, or maybe because their dog was called Frank. What is certain is that they were not really integrated in the neighborhood. They barely spoke the language, and their mentality was different. They were now asking for permission to enter the shelter.

You should have seen how fast all the neighbors decided that they did not want them to enter.

''Why?'' asked my father. ''They have their own shelter'', retorted the neighbors. ''They should go to their own shelter.''

My father told them; ''it's okay, come in''.

Some neighbors began to protest, but my father showed authority and said, "Let no one take charge of this shelter. You did not pay a cent for all this luxury. This place belongs to you too, okay, but the privilege of deciding who has the right to enter belongs to me since I bought it for a high price."

The neighbors did not accept this argument: "We did not ask you for anything, and you have no right to bring in strangers without our permission..."

I looked at my father, the reserved engineer, who suddenly began to talk:

"Dear neighbors," he said, "it is now the time for Neila. These are the last moments to pray for our fate for the whole year. We address our prayer to the Master of the world: "Open the door to us when the doors are closed." Here my father began to cry. It was the first time in my life that I saw him crying. "We are here in a shelter, and no one knows what fate awaits us. All of us, religious or not, pray to the Creator of the world to open the door to success, health, and peace, and how can G-d open the door to us if we refuse to open our doors to strangers, who are in fact our neighbors. Let us open the doors of the shelter, and the Master of the world will provide us with abundant help."

Hearing such moving words emanating from his heart, everyone made room, and the prayer of Neila began, a prayer I will never forget.

From that day, almost every day there were sirens, and we were very often in the shelter, together with the Frank family.

Over the days, we got closer to this family. I met one of their daughters, Pascal, who was my age. It's a name difficult to forget.

An abyss separated us, but we managed to overcome it because we did not really have a choice. We played together and we are connected in the difficult days of the war.

Pascal also participated in my Bat Mitzvah celebration, which took place, of course, in the magnificent shelter.

The war ended. The Jewish people suffered the loss of 3000 dead, four of whom were from our neighborhood, but not from our building.

Just a few months after the war, the Frank family left the neighborhood. Nobody asked them about their destination and nobody bid them farewell.

Pascal and I, on the other hand, sat chatting in my house until the truck disappeared, and then we parted from each other. She told me that her father had found a good job in the center of the country. I didn't even ask her where. We then took a picture of the truck as a souvenir and we waved goodbye.

The years passed. My family and I settled in one of the localities of Gush Katif. We lived there for years until 2005, when an event occurred that changed our life completely: the expulsion of Gush Katif.

Events were difficult to digest. We fought, we struggled, we protested, but, finally, the incredible happened. We were forced to evacuate our homes, and our place of the residence turned into a desert.

Like everyone else, we were transferred to a sort of city that was erected in a few weeks. From a three-story villa, we moved into a crowded caravan, and my husband and I were left without work. We were heartbroken.

Needless to recount the trauma that the expellees of Gush Katif experienced. Their homes were taken away, and so were their livelihoods. They were left without roots, without occupation, until many of them broke down and collapsed financially. But more serious: their minds and bodies were affected. Many of our children experienced a spiritual and educational downfall.

About two months after the expulsion, at the height of our despair and pain, my mother phoned me.

"A woman phoned and asked that you call her back," she told me, giving me a phone number.

I wrote it down, but due to the pressure of this period, I forgot to call her.

Two days later, I received a phone call.

''Hello'', said my interlocutor, ''do you know who I am?''

"Pascal," I replied, without hesitation.

''I do not believe it, how did you recognize my voice?''

"The voice, not so much'', I admitted, ''but the French accent, I'll never forget," I replied.

''How are you? I worry about everything that you have been through lately. Are you one of those expelled from Gush Katif?''

''How do you know?'' I asked. I think thirty years had passed since we had last seen each other, and we had not kept up.

''You will not believe me'', Pascal replied. ''Like everyone else, I am closely following the story of the expulsion from Gush Katif, and in a newspaper, I saw the picture of a little girl crying. It was you, well, for sure it was not you, but that girl looked so much like the little girl who had cried there in the shelter on Yom Kippur, that I was sure she was your daughter. I had no doubt. I then did some detective work based on the unique name my parents were given in their old address. I told them about the man who built the magnificent shelter. They gave me your parents' number, and that's how I got to you.'' I was very moved by the effort made by Pascal to inquire about my situation. "Thank you," I told her, and I told her about the hardships that we were experiencing.

Pascal interrupted me: "We will have enough time to speak, this is not the reason for my call." ''So, what do you want?'' ''I would like your family to live in my house in the meantime. It is not possible to live like you are currently living''.

''Pascal, I think you have not really understood the situation. I have six children, and I doubt that you could host us even one day... But thank you anyway... "

Pascal then interrupted me:

''If you come to see my house, you will not say that. I will send you a driver to show you where I live, to see if it suits you''.

''Which driver?'' I asked her.

''He will be there in an hour. Come with your husband and decide. If it's not for you, then we'll speak''.

''Ok, I'll talk to my husband''.

I hung up the phone and hastened to report this bizarre proposal to my husband.

I had barely finished speaking when a luxurious car that I had never seen before arrived at the sandy area of Nitzanim. The driver got delayed as he had stopped by several caravans, for the authorities had not given us an address, and he finally stopped in front of ours.

We asked our older children to watch their little brothers and sisters, and we got into the car.

He took us to one of the richest localities in the country. Pascal lived in a palace. I cannot begin to describe her house. It was a huge complex made up of several buildings on a huge area of land, with a tennis court, swimming pool, and large grounds.

We arrived at the main luxurious living room. Pascal kissed me warmly and began to tell us about her life since she had left the simple street where we had lived.

It turned out that her father was considered a specialist in the field of weapons, and it was only a matter of time before he landed a good job. When this happened, they moved to the center of the country, and over the years, her father became independent and grew wealthy. She, for her part, married a Frenchman from an even wealthier family. She had lived in France for several years, and two years before the expulsion, they had made Aliyah and bought the house where they now lived.

''I only have two children, and I have a five-bedroom apartment just for you. You can move here with your whole family until the state gives you a house.

''But it can take years!''

''It may even take a lifetime. I have already spoken to my husband. This is a great place, and you can come here to live''.

''But why, Pascal? Why especially me?''

Pascal looked at me and her eyes filled with tears. "Do you really want to know why you?"
She began a long monologue, mostly in Hebrew with a few words of French. "We made Aliyah. I did not integrate well, and the neighborhood did not welcome us. Everyone called us the Frank family after the name of our dog...I'm sure even you... Nobody paid any attention to us. When there was a siren, we ran to the shelter. There were unknown neighbors screaming and pushing. The shelter was wet and narrow, and we could not breathe. My mother then told my father in French, "I'm leaving, I cannot live like this," and she went out. My father tried to get her back, but she refused. I saw my father run to my mother, while outside, we feared the bombings. I ran towards them, despite my fear, and explained to them that in the building next door there was a nice modern shelter. How did I know? I was a lonely child, I was bored, I had observed for hours the stages of building the shelter... My father took my mother and me and we ran to your building. We knocked, but no one answered. My father then knocked harder. We heard a voice and we asked to enter. Shouts rang out from inside. We understood that we were not allowed to enter. The door then opened and we saw in front of us the argument between the neighbors and your father.

Your father was talking about the prayer of Neila. He said: "Open up the door for us when the door closes" and he began to cry. I then had a brainwave: I told myself that I would always fulfill the Mitzvot, even if I became secular.

I knew you from a distance, I had never dared to speak to you, you were Israeli and religious. Your father then said, "Go, let's open the door for them and G-d will open the door for us too." I saw you crying, and these tears are engraved in my heart forever. That's when we were accepted into the shelter. We entered not only the shelter, but also Israel, the neighborhood, and the hearts of the neighbors. You were my first friend here, you were not aware of it, but you were the one who played a central role in my life. It was such an important time for me, and when we left, I knew we were leaving for good. In my heart, I always remembered the girl who was my first friend in Israel.

So many years have passed, and suddenly, I open the newspaper and I see this child crying again. I started crying. I looked more closely. I knew it could not be you. It was without a doubt your daughter, and I immediately began to plan how I would reach you.
Later, I told my husband who you were, and we decided it was our turn to open the door. You can come and live here, just tell me yes ... please."

We found ourselves in a wonderful and large apartment. Pascal's husband found a job for my husband and me. For the children, we had a problem of sending them to school, but this difficulty was solved thanks to Pascal's private driver... We lived in this luxurious house for seven and a half years. Pascal grew spiritually, and she became religious, taking her husband with her. Meanwhile, we built a house in a Moshav in the center of the country, prettier than that of Gush Katif. The second separation from Pascal was harder than the first. We had become used to being one family, but it was time to separate. This time we knew it was a geographical separation. We will stay in touch until the last day of our lives.