Alum Links Rockets to Online Clock

Aaron Friedman (’03) recently developed a website to show, in real time, the frequency of Hamas rockets against Israel.

Israelhasbeenrocketfreefor.com launched last Friday by Aaron, who now lives in Efrat, Israel. He is the marketing manager at Curiyo in Jerusalem and was seeking a way to allow people around the world to visualize what it is like for Israelis living under constant rocket fire over the past several weeks.

The website clock is directly linked to the IDF Home Front Command system so that it automatically resets each time a rocket heads toward Israel. An 18-year-old Israeli, Yehonatan Tsirolnik, worked with Aaron to do the coding for the site. “This is nothing more than public information that is visualized differently,” he says.

Aaron explains that it is hard to understand what it means that Israel has nonstop rockets flying at them. “When you see a timer that rarely gets above an hour, it makes you stop and think a little more.”

Aaron hopes one day Israel will be rocket free for good. In the meantime, though, over 100,000 visitors have viewed the website clock that just keeps resetting.

Aaron has been living in Israel with his young family for about a year and says, ‘Truth is, probably because of where we live I feel safe. The IDF is doing a great job. And they are a moral army that I can stand behind. I am proud to be here. And despite my deep Chicago roots, there is nowhere I would rather be living right now.”

Read Aaron’s Academy Story posted on this blog last year.