Even When the Missiles Fall, We Never Forget to Dance

I am a law-abiding citizen – I even work hard to avoid parking tickets. But I am also a patriotic Israeli father by choice who has watched his kids and his friends serve hundreds of days to protect our vulnerable but remarkably resilient state. And that’s why, when, my commando son asked if he could host a “modest” Purim party with 30 or 40 of his nearest and dearest in our house, my wife and I said yes – despite the homefront command’s Iranian war limitations on people gathering together.

Imagine this megillah reading. Our readers may not have hit every right note – but they lived the Purim line to maximize fun … with your community. We had an underground reading in our house – and invited one family with six kids to bring that pure, innocent, childlike joy every holiday needs.

Let’s be clear. We live in Jerusalem. For both geographic and spiritual reasons, we have absorbed far fewer bombs than the rest of the country – I think Iranians fear the Golden Dome… or the Rock, the Mosque of Omar, more than the Iron Dome. In Tel Aviv, the regulations not to have too many people concentrated in the same Iranian target, I mean room, make sense.

At 6:15 P.M. the Purim party begins. We have heroes who have done such serious things since October 7 dressed like cavemen, like Rachel and Ross from Friends, like Azula and Zuko from Avatar. As usual, the chance of an Iranian attack looms and my son explains just where our shelter is – and where they can find the shelter next door, too. We’re a lot of people.

We read the megillah. Can you imagine what it’s like to read about a Persian prime minister seeking to destroy the Jews – as the Jewish army is finally fighting back with the American army against the Persian Jew-haters?  Can you image how every line of the megillah resonates – about the desire to destroy even the most innocent among us, about our contributions as Jews to the world, especially with these heroes-who-grew-up-in-my house: a commander from October 7 who lost his number 2 standing right next to him; an intelligence genius who has helped us outdo the evildoers; a commando whose tough service to the country began long before the Palestinian invasion of October 7.

We finish. Then, BOOM – er, the right kind of boom: all the tension so many Israelis carry day-to-day, minute-to-minute, escapes as they start to dance, dance, dance.

I am not wise enough to explain how you navigate between the bravery these kids have demonstrated, the horrors they have seen, and the sheer joy they know how to unleash. All I can tell you is:

1. The Iranians were kind enough not to attack from the time Jerusalemites started reading megillah till way past the time any party had finished.
2. The party my kids threw for themselves and their friends lasted deep into the night – and was so pure, so exuberant, it became clear that it takes a taste of death to consume healthy heapings of life… l’chaim!
3. The message to one another, because they really weren’t being political or performative or historically-minded at that moment was clear: We will not stop dancing!
4. And that is this generation’s secret to our mind-boggling success after the blows we sustained on October 7. Am Yisrael Chai – the Jewish People don’t Just live, we don’t just recreate and improve on past traumas, but even when the missiles fall, we never forget to dance.

The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year he published, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath. His latest E-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred was just published and can be downloaded on the website of JPPI – the Jewish People Policy Institute.