American Students in Israel Attending School Amid Missile Alerts
By Hadas Kuznits
HOD HaSHARON, Israel (CBS) -- Some local American students are experiencing the Mideast conflict firsthand.
Seventeen-year-old Max Newman, of Blue Bell, Pa. (top photo), who is spending his summer studying in Israel, says life at Alexander Muss High School in Israel is very different from his classes at Abington Friends School.
"At school we obviously have fire drills, but in Israel they have terrorist drills," he says, "and we've been made familiar with the bomb shelter and we've been made familiar what to do when the Code Red siren goes off."
Sixteen-year-old Melissa Rosenthal, of Montclair High School (far right in photo below), says special precautions are taken when traveling in Israel during times of conflict.
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"Every time we go somewhere, our teachers will point out where the bomb shelter is," Rosenthal tells KYW Newsradio. "(When) there's bomb, it's a really loud siren, and you have 90 seconds to run or quickly walk to the bomb shelter. And we wait for ten minutes. It's nothing to be nervous about."
But some people are nervous. Newman says about twenty of the 170 students in his class have been sent home due to the insistence of their parents.
"They do miss it. I see their Facebook posts saying, 'I miss Israel' and how much they want to be here," he notes.
