Where is it Dangerous? Where is it safe? It’s all about perspective.

“Isn’t it scary living in America?”

“Are you not afraid of getting shot from those crazy people who have guns?”

At the time I was asked this question, I was on a chartered tour bus.

In Israel.

It was the summer of 1989. I spent part of that summer picking mangoes and tending the banana fields in a Northern Israeli kibbutz.

1989 was the year the first Arab uprising, or intifada, raged in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. A few weeks before my arrival in Israel,   Arab terrorists ambushed a Jerusalem-bound tour bus off a winding mountain road. Fourteen tourists were killed.

That’s the kind of Israeli news that reaches American media. Still, at 19, I ventured off for my adventure in Israel. Alone.

1989 was also the year of a horrific schoolyard shooting in Stockton, California.

That’s the kind of American news that reaches Israeli media.