Where are you safer?

So, if you were a parent and had two sons, one living in Israel and the other in a comfortable southern California suburb, for whose safety would you be most concerned? If you listened to the U.S. State Department and the TV news, you’d be terrified for your son and his family living in Israel. You might not realize that TV news is horribly selective in what it portrays. And you might not realize that the State Dept.’s “travel advisories” are as much political statements as reliable indicators of safety (“The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens…to defer travel to Israel”). Now my experience is not necessarily representative of all, but it is my experience. In my years in Israel, I have never had a gun shot at me, or near me. In fact, in 10 years of living in Israel, not once have I heard a gun fired (except one that I was shooting in a sports range). My brother, on the other hand, had a bullet go through his house (where I grew up) last night. Less than two feet from his wife’s head. (There are reasons I won’t go into that indicate it was a random shooting.) In 10 years in Israel, I’ve never been assaulted; during our 2 years in southern California, I was. In 10 years in Israel, our car has not been broken into; during our 2 years in southern California, our car was broken into and vandalized. In 10 years in Israel, I’ve never seen a dead body; in our time in So. Cal, my wife saw one (in the alley behind our apartment). The point is not that these things couldn’t happen to us in Israel, but that they haven’t. But you wouldn’t guess it from the news or the travel advisory.