The Iranian missile threat ended at 4:20 a.m., but not before the heavens shook from a blast. I climbed the three flights to my apartment, hoping to get some sleep, but that never happened. It was the twenty-third time in the past seven days that residents of central Jerusalem received a missile alert, warning us to prepare to enter a miklat, the communal bomb shelter, or a mamad, the safe room in an apartment that has one. I had been sheltering in my building’s miklat since 4:01 a.m., sharing 19 minutes of anxious, quiet moments with my neighbors—a young couple and their three kids, all under five, and a middle-aged Sabra woman. We had been through it enough times to know each other’s needs during these miklat moments. We kept the lights off so the children could sleep.

I was living in Oakland, California, on October 7 when I learned of the Hamas terrorist attacks. Images of murder, kidnapping, rape, missiles fired, and Israelis huddling in their shelters seared into me as if by a branding iron. A need to be there, going through this war alongside my Jewish brothers and sisters, pulsed through me. I’ve been trying to understand what had possessed me ever since. It doesn’t make sense to want to be in a country at war where missiles rain down on the people, and lives are lost.

Sirens interrupted Shabbat services twice on February 28, when all this began. Instead of deterring us, those wailings united our minyan in prayer. We finished our davening in an underground parking garage miklat across the street, where our elevated chants seemed to hover over us. We danced with joyous defiance. The realities of war, sirens, missiles lit up my senses. The rhythm of my heart was like that pulse I first felt on October 7. Warm and cold waves rippled through my body. I heard everyone’s prayers as if they were my own.

But a kiddush in this dank basement room? Iranian missiles were powerless to stop it. Several younger members volunteered for the mission to secure a table and the food waiting for us at our shul. The potato kugel never tasted as good as it did that morning.

Between missile alerts and sheltering, I went about my days of war like every other Israeli around me. I shopped as needed, visited friends, ran on Harakevet Road when the Jerusalem gym temporarily closed. I attended my Ulpan (Hebrew) classes, but on Zoom. The Israeli government had suspended in-person educational programs. I hosted a Shabbat dinner for friends. Sometimes I slept in my sweatpants and socks just in case I needed to high-tail it to my miklat in the middle of the night.

That first Shabbat, I had a lunch to attend. But just before I was ready to leave, another missile alert sounded. Should I stay or should I go? This was my first experience living in Israel during a war where missiles could fall anywhere. I was trying to learn the norms. I looked out my window when the missile alert ended and saw people out and about carrying bottles of wine and aluminum trays of food, a common sight on Shabbat. Clearly, the Iranian regime has no clue about Jews. When it comes to a Shabbat lunch with friends, missiles are no match. I went to my lunch, which was interrupted by a siren. We had dessert in the mamad.

Day and night, throughout the week, I heard occasional cannon-like booms and the cracking roar of streaking jet fighters, bombers, and who knows what else. I took comfort in these rumbles from the sky, knowing that the Jewish state was protecting me and that Israel’s best were headed somewhere to confront an ideology of hate. I was grateful. But when an Iranian missile struck a Beit Shemesh synagogue on March 1, killing sixteen-year-old Yaakov, fifteen-year-old Avigail, and thirteen-year-old Sarah Biton, I was reminded that what I was hearing were sounds from a deadly war.

All told, eleven more missile alerts screamed from my phone since my 4:01 a.m. miklat experience seven days ago, five of which required me to shelter in my miklat. One alert woke me up this past Shabbat at 5:29 a.m. My neighbors thoughtfully set up two heaters in our otherwise cold miklat before Shabbat started. Another siren went off during shul at 11:23 a.m. We finished our prayers in the parking garage again, but returned for our kiddush because no one messes with our kiddush.

It was a quiet Sunday—just one alert, but no sirens. Nothing on Monday. I slept through the night. Tuesday morning proved it was too soon for Jerusalemites to relax. I was on Zoom, in the middle of my Ulpan class, when the Home Front Command issued an alert. A siren followed. I headed for the miklat, where my neighbor greeted me. During the ten minutes we had, I learned about her family’s Romanian pre- and post-Holocaust history. After the missile event ended, I went upstairs and resumed my Ulpan on Zoom. Hours later, another alert came, but no siren. I stayed put, writing this article. Then another alert at 5:08 p.m., followed by a siren. I went back to my miklat, where my neighbor shared the history of our building with me, dating back to the 60s.

Hoping to relax, I had a glass of wine with dinner that night. I fell asleep right away, only to be woken up at 12:49 a.m. with a missile alert. Six minutes later, the siren sounded. I headed to the miklat and ran into my neighbor clutching his sleeping child as he scooted down the stairs. His other two were already sleeping on a mattress bundled up in covers. It was another twenty minutes before we got the all-clear signal. I slept lightly. Woke up at six, went to shul in a bit of a daze.

My experience is my own, and at least for now, it’s easier for me to cope than others because I wasn’t here for October 7 and its aftermath. For many Israelis, booms from the sky, missile alerts, and lost sleep are trauma revisited. Then there are the parents who have sons and daughters in the IDF, serving in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and flying missions over Iran. For them, each Tzav Milu’Im (call-up) brings a burden of worry that I don’t directly face. But the thing about living in Israel is that whenever I see a young soldier, it’s as if he or she were my own son or daughter, and I pray: G-d, let them return. It’s what we do here.

I made Aliyah on July 8, two weeks after the twelve-day Iranian war ended and a year and eight months after the Hamas terrorist attacks, when the need to be here first started gnawing at me. I’m living out that need now, but still no closer to understanding its true nature, even after sheltering from missiles twenty-eight times. How does what possessed me and the 3,500 other American Jews who made Aliyah in 2025 override missiles, war, death, and the genocidal ideology of Israel’s enemies? Us Jews are crazy. As Israeli comedian Yohay Sponder testified to during one of his routines, “we are the only people in the world that will rescue themselves to a war zone. So you try and book a flight and there are no flights because all the country wants to rescue themselves into the war.”

I’m not a soldier in Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria. I’m not a fighter jet pilot flying missions over Iran. My life isn’t on the line in that way. Instead, I am an oleh chadash, a new citizen of Israel during a time of war, standing with my people, providing comfort to others in a miklat or mamad when missiles are headed our way. Somewhere in all this, there’s the answer to what has possessed me and the others to know that the place we, as Jews, belong is here, in Eretz Yisroel.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)