The north's race against time

(JNS) — Franz Kafka would feel right at home in northern Israel.

Life here has a surreal, absurdist character with the indivisible mix of the mundane and the potentially catastrophic. A quiet day has only a handful of rocket or drone attacks and we have become used to incessant plane noise and to looking up and around after a boom or two.

Israelis are resilient, but resilience is often the product of being able to maintain one’s routine and “normalcy” within one’s familiar surroundings.

Anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 people have been stripped of their surroundings and have become refugees in t...