In any other country, Sderot would be just an idyllic, well-maintained small town. But in southwestern Israel, less than a mile from the border with Gaza, it’s all that as well as a place where almost everyone suffers from PTSD.

On a recent visit hosted by The Max and Ruth Schwartz Hesder Yeshiva of Sderot, visitors learned that the population has grown by more than fifty percent since 2000. Today, around 30,000 people make their home in Sderot and eighty-two percent of them say they plan on staying.

“Maybe because of the rockets we became strong,” says Davidi. The key is resilience, he emphasizes. “It can be that five days of the week everything is fine and then everything can change in an instant,” he explains.

The challenge is to accept the reality and build, he says. “Terror helps you understand your purpose here. We understand what it is to be a Zionist. Hamas has not beaten us,” he states firmly.