It comes as a surprise to many people, but Israel is a pretty safe place to live. It certainly compares favorably to any city in the US, though oddly, to an American, Israeli cities aren't more dangerous than small towns. Unlike the US, danger doesn't come in the form of crime, but in the form of terror. In many ways this makes it easier to deal with. Security can be effective, because we know what needs to be secured: places were large numbers of people congregate.
A few months ago we were walking though a park with some friends from overseas, when one of them suddenly exclaimed, "What's that!" I turned around, an saw that he was pointing to this sign. The sign says: bor bitahon (בור ביטחון) - security well. To be more precise, 'bor' can mean well, hole, pit, and bitahon is from the root b-t-h along with words such as: batah - trust in, betah - sure. When talking about wells, a bor is the kind of well where you walk down to the water, in contrast to a b'er, which is a well where you draw up the water.
Anyway, a bor bitahon is a specially constructed hole, that's designed to direct the force of an explosion straight up. Back in the days before suicide bombers, it was relatively common for our enemies to try to plant bombs in public areas. A bor bitahon is where you put one of these bombs, if you find it in time.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at December 28, 2004 04:36 PM