It’s one thing to be in my neighborhood of Los Angeles and read about missiles launched at Israel.
It’s another when you’re thinking they might hit your bedroom.
I’m here in Tsfat in northern Israel, and in the midst of a happy family gathering, bomb alerts from Homefront Command have started appearing on our phones. Then random sirens come wailing.
We read in the news that “Iran fired a volley of missiles at northern Israel Sunday night, catapulting the region back to the cusp of all-out war after two months of a shaky ceasefire.”
We’re in one of those old houses without a bomb shelter. Authorities caution that if a missile gets through, we must stay away from windows at all cost. Unless a missile lands on a house—at which point it’s pretty much game over, with or without a shelter—the real danger is shrapnel, and windows exacerbate the shrapnel. We read that hospitals are moving underground and that schools will be closed on Monday.
In contrast to the news, however, a weird sense of safety comes over me. I can’t explain it and won’t try to.
When I read that the IDF has shot down the missiles, I’m relieved, yes, but I stay pensive, away from windows, trying to understand why I didn’t feel any fear.
If I told you I felt my life was in my hands as the missiles came our way, it’d probably make for a more interesting story.
But I didn’t feel that.
I felt alive. I felt Israeli.
If fear was hiding somewhere inside of me, it felt oddly empowering to keep it hidden.
Maybe hiding the fear was my own personal missile. Maybe it was my own defiant message to the Jew-hating murderers in Tehran.
I felt alive.
I felt Israeli.
