War is hell, not just on the battlefield but in the bedroom.

The ongoing hostilities between Israel and its jihadist neighbors are forcing couples to rethink familiar patterns of intimacy. When partners are consumed or paralyzed by the news, it’s hard to keep one’s mind clear for romance. 

It gets even more complicated when lovers have different ways of relating to said news. One partner may be proactive, fast to get out of the house and volunteer, while the other curls up on the couch, avoiding anything that might be traumatizing.

“We didn’t have sex at all during the first week of the war,” Sigal from Ramat Gan told Dana Spector in an article for Ynet. “It was all such a shock. We’d sit there from morning until 3:00 am, each of us glued to our own phones. We couldn’t even talk to each other.” On the outside, she says, “I was the same woman, but I was completely disconnected. I couldn’t feel anything at all. My libido dropped to zero.” 

Indeed, with the war still raging and the remaining hostages unaccounted for, “Sex is the first thing to give up on,” Michal Nir, who coordinates the sex therapy program at Bar-Ilan University, told Haaretz. “You have to eat, sleep and breathe. You don’t have to have sex.”

“There’s also ‘survivors’ guilt’ – people taking on the guilt of what happened to women who’ve been kidnapped and punishing themselves as a form of ‘moral duty,’” comments Keren Gilat, who heads the School for Holistic Psychotherapy at Reidman College. “If they can’t experience pleasure, how can I?”

But there’s also the risk that the emotional distancing will translate into long-term issues with intimacy.

Sigal knows this, too. “It’s not healthy going so long without,” she laments. 

Survival mode doesn’t necessarily mean sex is off the table entirely. People had sex in the concentration camps. People with cancer still desire sex.

For women, the impact has been particularly difficult. 

A senior high-tech manager, who finds she suddenly has to hold down her job while simultaneously handling all the household and childcare responsibilities as her husband is away fighting, told Ynet, “I pray that he’ll get hit by shrapnel and that he’ll come home. These past weeks have broken us.”

That brokenness stems in part from what nearly all Israelis are suffering from today: “secondary trauma.” 

Secondary trauma, or “compassion fatigue,” refers to distress that’s experienced indirectly by hearing details,or witnessing the aftermath, of trauma experienced by another person. 

Secondary trauma shares many of the same symptoms as full-on PTSD: intrusive thoughts, avoidance of everyday activities (going to the supermarket, taking kids to the park), irritability and mood swings, negative thoughts (“what is there to live for, anyway?”).

“In reserve duty, I saw some very disturbing videos,” explains a soldier in the Ynet article. “True, I wasn’t there, but I’m inside it. I’ve been traumatized ever since.”

Secondary trauma has entered my household, too. 

A few nights ago, I found myself yelling at my wife, Jody, for something ridiculous: She hadn’t read a WhatsApp I’d sent to her. We defused the situation quickly, but that’s not me – I don’t scream at my spouse. 

Secondary trauma in the bedroom means that getting into a sexy situation can be scary because there might be a siren. That kind of excessive arousal (and I don’t mean the “good” kind) makes it “hard to be in a pleasant, intimate situation,” notes clinical psychologist Gilad Horowitz.

Talli Rosenbaum, cohost of the Intimate Judaism podcast and coauthor of a new research paper on intimacy in times of war, points out that “we are now wired in a way that’s not meant to be the default way of being in life. We’re wired in a hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused state, as if we’re numb.” 

This state of hypervigilance, she explains, is “dissonant with intimacy.”

Rosenbaum wants us to remember that “one of the most important tools for maintaining marital harmony is self-awareness. ‘Am I going into a stress response?’ ‘How do I calm that stress response?’ ‘How do I regulate myself emotionally so that I can go into my more cognitive, logical, rational space?’”

The study Rosenbaum helped compile revealed that nearly half of respondents reported watching disturbing videos from the Hamas attacks several hours per day. “They were almost addicted to watching war-oriented content,” notes Aryeh Lazar, who coauthored the study with Rosenbaum and Ateret Gewirtz-Meydan, an associate professor in the school of Social Work at the University of Haifa. “The amount of viewing time correlated with a self-reported decrease in sexual desire, arousal and orgasm.”

For those who do want to restore intimacy, even in the midst of war, what can they do to make things better? 

It might seem obvious, but patience is the new state of play. “You mustn’t pressure someone who just can’t think about sex right now,” says sex therapist Shelly Varod. “You need to let them heal emotionally.”

Now is the time for baby steps. Look for something small – bird song outside your window or some favorite music playing in the background – to ground you in the reality that existed before Oct. 7. Crack open a bottle of wine. Watch TV together with your partner – just not the news.

Finally, “don’t give up on your grief – not for a moment,” stresses psychologist Ruth Ben-Asher. “It doesn’t mean that you’ve forgotten or you’re abandoning all those who lost loved ones or were actually hurt. [But when] you renew your connection with your spouse and make yourself stronger, you can get on with your grief much better…and not from a place of trauma.”

I first explored intimacy during war for The Jerusalem Post.

Photo by Womanizer Toys on Unsplash

The Jerusalem Post’s Bini Ashkenazi reported earlier this month on an alarming document that began circulating at the Israeli Justice Ministry. It warned that, if war breaks out against Hezbollah, employees should prepare for several days of electricity blackout. 

A separate warning, from the National Emergency Authority, meanwhile, suggested that at least 60% of Israel’s population would face a 24-to-48-hour electricity cutoff, with the possibility of it “lasting up to 72 hours in some areas.” Israelis should prepare an emergency stock of food and water and have a radio receiver with a battery and a first-aid kit on hand.

All this is in keeping with what our military and political leaders are keen to remind us: that, compared to the infrastructure, training, tens of thousands of missiles (many with precision guidance systems) and, yes, another “underground metro” of tunnels Hezbollah has built in Lebanon, Hamas is like mere kindergartners. The big fight with the Iranian proxy to our north will be like nothing this country has ever experienced before.

Where is Marjorie Taylor Greene when you need her?

The conspiracy theorist and QAnon-enamored U.S. Representative scandalously quipped in 2018 that California’s devastating wildfires that year were caused by some kind of “space laser” that set parts of the state ablaze.

While Taylor Greene didn’t call them “Jewish” space lasers, her dog whistle pinning the financing of this alternative reality on, among others, “Rothschild, Inc.” leaves no doubt who she believes is behind these deadly new weapons.

But here’s the thing: I need those Jewish space lasers to be real. Because if Israel goes to war with Lebanon using the same methods we used in Gaza – or, frankly, operational plans common to any conventional war – we will be shattered. We need something new, something surprising, something never before seen, that will deliver an unexpected and devastating blow – without endangering our own troops and minimizing civilian casualties.

It turns out we Israelis have been working on just that kind of weapon. 

Our Jewish laser is a bit more mundane – it doesn’t fire from space but from more terrestrial locations – and is meant to complement the existing Iron Dome which knocks enemy rockets out of the air but requires expensive projectiles ($50,000 each), of which we must ensure a steady supply from overseas.

At the Abu Dhabi International Defense Exhibition in 2022, the Rafael defense contractor debuted a full-scale version of its “Iron Beam” laser system.

“We can focus the beam to the diameter of a coin in a 10-kilometer range,” explained Ran Gozali, executive vice president of Rafael’s land and naval division. By using a laser instead of traditional kinetic interceptors, the Iron Beam has an unlimited magazine, a low cost-per-shot and creates minimal collateral damage, according to Rafael, which has signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin to jointly develop a laser system for use in the United States.

The Iron Beam is a more limited solution compared with what U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed in 1983: a full-on “Star Wars”-like defense system. (The formal name was the “The Strategic Defense Initiative.”) 

Reagan’s Star Wars never got off the ground – in 1987, the American Physical Society concluded that at least another decade of research was required to know whether such a system was even possible – and the plan was ultimately scrapped until 2019, when space-based interceptor development resumed under the Trump administration.

While recent years have seen the incremental deployment of more powerful bombs, anti-ordinance protection systems for tanks, and autonomous drones, we simply haven’t had any kind of truly game-changing jump in war technology, well, since the nuclear bomb (which, despite some idiot Israeli MK spouting his mouth off, Israel is not planning to use…not that we have one anyway).

At the same time, I’m aware that my longing for a weapon like this is a kind of magical thinking. 

Or to put it in a more Jewish context – am I becoming a messianic Zionist?

Zionism – regular plain Zionism, not even its religious variant – essentially marketed to the Jews of the Diaspora the possibility that all their problems could all be solved. 

Pogroms in Europe? Move to Israel. 

Antisemitism on campuses? Zionism will keep the Jewish people safe. 

And not just safe – we’ll shine with innovation, creativity, and new Sabra soldiers who are more fulfilled defending the homeland than protecting the walls of the yeshiva.

Messianic Zionism is everywhere these days. 

The battle cries – “We will utterly defeat Hamas,” “We will get back all the hostages,” “United we will win” – are essentially messianic. 

Rebuild the settlements in Gush Katif? Capture Hamas terrorist leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif and put them on trial for the actual crime of genocide? Flood the tunnels and end the war in one fell swoop? 

All magical thinking, something to grasp onto in our desperation.

The only problem is that, as our texts so often suggest, Messiahs take their time. They tarry. Too often, they turn out to be false.

What if I can’t have my magic Messiah? What if my Zionism needs to be ratcheted down a rung, from “Messianic” to “realistic?” How do we continue to function as Jews in the Holy Land if Zionism can only keep our people “relatively secure” but not entirely safe in a world where, as it has become crystal clear, there is no love lost, to reverse paraphrase author Dara Horn’s latest book title, between the antisemites among us and living, breathing, fighting Jews.

Shalom Hanoch’s hit song from 1985 declares that, not only is the Messiah not coming, he’s not even picking up the phone.

Anyone have Marjorie Taylor Green’s number? It seems we may need those Jewish space lasers now more than ever.

I first shared my thoughts on Jewish space lasers in The Jerusalem Post.

Image of MTG: House Creative Services, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Israeli music student, Jonathan Telsin, a 21-year-old trumpet player from Tel Aviv, has been living in New York City since the fall where he’s studying jazz at The New School in a joint program with the Tel-Aviv-based Israel Conservatory of Music. 

Jonathan was looking forward to an amazing opportunity: Getting to learn from top teachers and students; performing at world-renowned jazz clubs and sitting in at jam sessions around town; the excitement of being at the epicenter of the jazz world.

Then October 7 happened, and nothing has been the same.

Following the devastating attack on Israel by Hamas on that “Black Sabbath,” other New York City universities – Columbia, NYU and Cooper Union in particular – have been in the spotlight for antisemitic and anti-Israel activism. Reports of threats, intimidation and physical and verbal violence against Jewish students have been logged on campuses across the country, culminating in the Congressional farce where the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn could not state clearly that calling for the genocide of a minority group violated their schools’ codes of conduct.

But things have been just as horrific for Israeli and Zionist students at The New School. 

Jonathan has been compiling images and videos of what’s been happening on campus since October 7. Among the clips – which Jonathan explains is just a small sample:

— Posters plastered around campus including those screaming, “Zionists f-off.”

— Several videos of masked pro-Hamas protesters inside The New School’s front gates – on private property, not on the street where it could be argued they’re within their right to free speech – holding signs accusing Israel of “genocide” and “Intifada until victory.” 

— At the same rally, protesters chanted, “Is it right to rebel? Israel, go to hell.” To paraphrase a skit from Eretz Nehederet (the Israeli equivalent to Saturday Night Live), “If it rhymes, it must be true.”

— The New School’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards published a letter saying that blocking school entrances was against The New School’s policies. Antisemites annotated that letter to read, “F- all the Zionists that go to this school [and who are] taking pics of us. Sincerely, go to hell.” Well, at least they were sincere.

— More F-bombs: A video of a man outside The New School with a megaphone shouting “F-you Israel” and “F-you bitch.”

— In the ninth-floor girls’ bathroom: “Abolish the settler state.” In a boy’s bathroom: “Zionism is terrorism.”

— A group dubbed “the socialist revolution” makes clear the anti-Western bias of many of the protesters as they promote an event that “will cut across the imperialist lies and provide the communistic perspective for Palestinian liberation.” 

— Perhaps most egregiously for Jonathan, protesters barred the entrances to three separate New School buildings with large Palestinian flags. In one video, a woman pleads off camera, “Let me in, I have class.” A protester flashes a sign at her that reads, “Support decolonization.” Or else what, you can’t study? 

Inside the walls of the campus buildings, things were not much better as Jonathan shared a video of Amin Husain, a professor at NYU who has built a reputation for spreading hate speech in his lectures. In the video, Husain was invited into a New School classroom where he claimed that all the atrocities Hamas meticulously documented – the murders, rapes, mutilations, and beheadings – were all “fake news” and “Zionist propaganda.” 

Jonathan pointed out that Husain was once a member of the Palestinian group Fatah (the PLO) who proudly proclaimed his participation in “resistance” activities during the first Intifada in Israel including throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. 

The irony of the antisemitic activity happening at The New School is that the institution was originally founded in 1919 by progressive educators who were frustrated by quotas that kept Jews and other minorities out of elite universities. In 1917, for example, Columbia imposed a “loyalty oath” related to World War I upon the entire faculty and student body. Professors Charles A Beard and James Harvey Robinson subsequently resigned from Columbia to join the faculty of The New School, which had adopted a deliberate color- and race-blind admission policy. 

Jonathan saved some of his most strident vitriol for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) which he says is not some innocent home-grown pro-Palestinian group. He pointed to a 2020 study by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy that revealed “a direct correlation between donations to universities by the country of Qatar and other Gulf States and the presence of SJP groups on campus.” 

According to a report by Gabriel Diamond, a political science major at Yale, in The Hill, following the 9/11 terror attacks, Qatar began pumping money – some $4.7 billion over two decades – into American universities.  “It naturally follows that university administrations sitting on cash piles from Qatar would take a hands-off approach to SJP,” Diamond writes.

Note, too, that Hatem Bazian, a co- founder of SJP and now a lecturer in the department of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, also founded American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is linked with the shuttered Holy Land Foundation which sent millions of dollars directly to Hamas before it was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2008. 

While the Holy Land Foundation no longer operates, AMP is still going strong and shares “a striking resemblance to the Hamas charities that were dismantled here more than a decade ago,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The New School administration attempted at one point to bring in a mediator for the Israeli students – an American rabbinical student, Louisa Solomon. While she seemed supportive during the meeting, Jonathan reported, he later saw her at a rally to denounce Israel.

Solomon also boasted on her Instagram page about being “proud to be arrested [in October 2023] demanding a ceasefire to prevent genocide in Gaza.” In separate social media posts, she described herself as “an anti-Zionist future rabbi” and claimed that stating that most Jews might feel similarly on a topic – for example, support of Israel following the most horrific massacre since the Holocaust – is in itself an “expression of antisemitism.” 

Was this really the best representative The New School could come up with?

Has Jonathan felt personally threatened? While he hasn’t physically been punched or hit, one protester thrust a megaphone up to his ear and began yelling. “I tried to move but he just went to the other side.” 

The climate of hate against Jews and Israelis at The New School is so pervasive, he relates, that one Israeli student said she didn’t feel safe coming to campus for weeks after the antisemitic protests started. “She was afraid for her life.”

Another Israeli student in the drama department at The New School was “canceled” from a play she was supposed to star in after she confronted a pro-Hamas student tearing down posters of kidnapped babies. 

“You’re no longer welcome due to your political views,” she was told just days before her final performance – one which she needed to pass the course.

Political commentator and editor Andrew Sullivan lays the blame on the West’s obsession with seeing the world in binary terms.

“If a member of an oppressor class says something edgy, it is a form of violence. If a member of an oppressed class commits actual violence, it’s speech,” says Sullivan on his Substack, The Dishcast. “That’s why many Harvard students instantly supported a fundamentalist terror cult that killed, tortured, systematically raped and kidnapped Jews just for being Jews in their own country. Because they have been taught it’s the only moral position to take.”

Back at The New School, Students for Justice in Palestine published a list of “demands” of the university including ending the partnership between The New School and the Conservatory of Music in Israel, along with a “public acknowledgment” that Israel is a “settler colony” that must be denounced “for apartheid in Palestine and genocide in Gaza.” 

SJP ends its letter with the threat that, if the group doesn’t receive a response by its so-called “deadline,” we will “assume that this university is willingly invested in the genocide of the Palestinian people, and we will respond accordingly and by any means necessary.” (Emphasis is the writer’s.)

Of all the twisted language and epithets that have arisen after October 7, “to find yourself accused of genocide after undergoing a kind of mini-genocidal experience is so profoundly disorienting that I don’t know what world I’m living in anymore,” notes Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi on the Shalom Hartman Institute podcast For Heaven’s Sake.

Evoking genocide is the ultimate dehumanization, he said, even before South Africa began making those claims at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It’s the reason why people are tearing down posters of kidnapped Israelis, Klein Halevi explains. “The notion that Israel has any humanity opens up the possibility that maybe we have a case. And so, to see pictures of kidnapped babies is a threat to a worldview in which there can be no space for Israel’s legitimacy.” 

What does Jonathan want from The New School? 

“We want to be protected. We ask the school to take measures against students who violate their code of conduct, to not give an opportunity for students in an academic institution to call for the elimination of an entire population or community.”

Jonathan said he’s been attending “up to three meetings a day” with The New School administration – to no avail. “They crossed the line long ago. When a student says to another student, ‘I wish you had been in Israel on October 7 so you would have been raped, too,’ or ‘I hope you get stabbed on the street,’ the meaning does not rely on understanding the ‘context.’ Someone has to stop that student and let him know there will be consequences.”

Instead, a New School administrator told Jonathan to “get out of here, leave the building, it’s too dangerous for you now.’ I said, ‘if you think it’s dangerous for me, why don’t you do anything?’ He just gave me a blank look.”

That jives with what Shai Davidai, an Israeli professor at Columbia, has been saying in videos and articles that have gone viral since October 7. “Jewish students are encouraged to stay in hiding while those who celebrate Hamas are allowed to hold their events,” he notes.

Does Jonathan regret choosing to come to The New School? No, he says. “I came here to study music. It was a legitimate choice. But now I’m spending all this time in meetings. Tomorrow, I have an exam. I have so many papers to write and projects to do. But it’s our obligation to fight, for ourselves and for other students – and not just the Israeli and Jewish students – because they will be next.”

I first wrote about antisemitism at The New School for The Jerusalem Post.

All images were provided by Jonathan Telsin, including links to Louisa Solomon’s Instagram posts.

Update: Since I wrote this article, Amin Husain has been suspended by NYU for denying the October 7 atrocities.

Since the war with Hamas started, I’ve been following the news – and its nonstop analysis – mainly through podcasts. If I had to choose just a single episode to recommend, one that expertly explains what’s going on in the region – and ultimately the world – episode 340 of Sam Harris’s Making Sense would be my choice.

In 59 clear-eyed minutes, Harris explains what jihad is in Islam, what its goals are, and how to counter the inevitable horrific outcome. He may not change any minds – as if that’s possible in today’s polarized social media-fueled environment – but for those willing to listen, Harris’s sober elucidation provides a much-needed dose of reality.

Entitled “The Bright Line Between Good and Evil,” Harris starts by bemoaning the fact that, since October 7, “millions of people can’t do the moral arithmetic here or have confidently produced the wrong answer. [That’s] an enormous problem for open societies everywhere—because this should not have been confusing.” 

Hamas’s “Black Sabbath” attack, Harris argues, “should have made it instantly clear, to everyone, certainly everyone on a college campus, that jihadist groups like Hamas are the permanent enemies of civilization.”

The opposite seems to have occurred. 

How did we get to this place of such moral confusion? 

It’s from a fundamental misconception where “we imagine that people everywhere want the same things: They want to live safe and prosperous lives. They want clean drinking water and good schools for their kids,” Harris says.

So, if a particular group starts “behaving in extraordinarily destructive ways — practicing suicidal terrorism against noncombatants, for instance — they must have been pushed into extremis by others.” 

You know, like Israel.

But if it’s not Israel’s behavior that “explains the suicidal and genocidal inclinations of a group like Hamas,” Harris asks, then what motivates the terrorists?

Harris refuses to pull any punches: It’s religion that’s the problem here. Put starkly, “When you believe that life in this world has no value, apart from deciding who goes to hell and who goes to paradise, it becomes possible to feel perfectly at ease killing noncombatants, or even using your own women and children as human shields.”

Indeed, if you take martyrdom and paradise seriously, “it becomes impossible to make moral errors,” Harris says. “If you blow yourself up in a crowd, your fellow Muslims will go straight to paradise. You’ve actually done them a favor. Unbelievers will go to hell, where they belong. However many lives you destroy, it’s all good.”

Harris insists he isn’t trying to tar all Muslims as jihadists. But for the extremists, it’s critical to take them at their words when they cry out “God is great” while raping, burning and beheading. 

“For the jihadist, all of this sadism — the torture and murder of helpless, terrified people — is an act of worship. This is the sacrament,” Harris continues. “This is what you do for the glory of God.”

Anshel Pfeffer, writing in Haaretz, has said pretty much the same thing.

“Acknowledging that Hamas’ killers claimed to be acting in the name of their religion is not maligning Islam,” he notes. “It doesn’t mean they are the sole authentic representatives of a faith that has hundreds of millions of adherents. It is simply sticking to the facts. However, this is somehow inconceivable to almost every Westerner writing or opining on the events.”

If you don’t understand the role of religion in jihad, you can’t understand the problem Israel faces, Harris and Pfeffer stress.

It’s not even about Israel, not really. 

Over the last 40 years, there have been nearly 50,000 acts of Islamic terrorism, Harris quotes a French group that maintains a database of these attacks. “Ninety percent of them have occurred in Muslim countries. Most have nothing to do with Israel or the Jews.” 

Yet, blaming Israel has somehow become embedded in “woke” ideology.

That’s how feminist organizations like CodePink can go “all in for Hamas and accuse the Israelis of genocide.” It’s how LGBTQ activists in the West can support Hamas “when they wouldn’t survive a day in Gaza…it boggles the mind,” Harris laments. 

Can anything be done before the world descends into unmitigated barbarism? 

“Jihadism has to be destroyed in every way it can be destroyed — logistically, economically, informationally, but also in the most material sense, which means killing a lot of jihadists,” Harris says. “We can argue with their sympathizers. And we can hope to de-radicalize them. But we also have to kill committed jihadists. These are not normal antagonists with rational demands. These are not people who want what we want.”

Harris stresses that for change to stick, it has to be local. 

“If the future is going to be remotely tolerable, the vast majority of Muslims have to disavow jihadism and unite with non-Muslims in fighting it. When hundreds of thousands of people show up in London to condemn Hamas, or the Islamic State, or any specific instance of jihadist savagery, without both-sides-ing anything, then we will know that we’ve made a modicum of progress.”

Anshel Pfeffer says the road to recovery starts with acknowledging reality. 

To actually find a solution to the conflict, “accepting the fact that it’s above all a religious-nationalist conflict, and not some race-based and settler-colonial artificial concept imported from Western campuses, would be a good place to start,” he writes.

That’s going to be a tall order and I’m not in the least bit convinced that either the Muslim world or the West is up to the task. If October 7 couldn’t convince them, what can? But without a sober understanding of who the enemy is, we will lose this war.

“We all live in Israel now,” Harris concludes. “It’s just that most of us haven’t realized it yet.”

I first described the connection between jihadism and murder for The Jerusalem Post.

Photo credit to Bret Hartman from TED. Illustration credit to Paul Lachine. You can see more of Paul’s illustrations at http://www.paullachine.com/index.php.

I don’t want to in any way trivialize the horrors of Hamas’s appalling pogrom on Simchat Torah. But as the initial shock recedes and the war proceeds apace, rockets remain a constant, whether from Gaza, Lebanon or further afield.

And, frankly, missiles are messing with my love life. 

True, the human sex drive is strong, but the fear of getting hot and heavy and then hearing the dreaded siren outside your window and having to hustle to get to the safe room – hopefully fully dressed if your shelter is a communal one rather than a private protected room inside your home – well, let’s just say it’s not exactly an aphrodisiac. And how do get in the mood when your mind is filled with thoughts of our soldiers on the front lines, our dead and kidnapped?

This is part of the “hidden” side of war that no one wants to talk about but that’s on everyone’s minds – the way actions that would have seemed mundane on October 6 are now triggers for anxiety. 

Here are ten ordinary activities that are now anything but.

1. Taking a shower. Anything that involves taking your clothes off is a risk these days. If a siren sounds while you’re under the water, do you rush out as fast as you can and head to the safe room in a towel? Or do you stay in the shower and hope that the statistics are with you. (“It couldn’t possibly hit my specific house.”) Are your showers shorter now than they used to? Who would have imagined we’d have to check the headlines before deciding if this is a safe window for bathing?
2. Walking the dog. Our pets need us to care of their needs. But a stroll around the block could be interrupted by missiles. A leisurely walk is now punctuated with thoughts of “Where’s the closest shelter?” and “Could I duck into that building’s stairwell?” Our poor puppy has not been getting his usual exercise.
3. Driving anywhere. Sometimes you have to go beyond your immediate neighborhood. In response, there are numerous “guides” (like this one) offering helpful instructions on what to do if you’re in your car and a siren sounds: Get as far away from your car as you can, crouch low near a building, embankment, or drainage ditch, and cover your head and face with your hands for 10 minutes. I think I’d rather just stay close to home and walk the dog.
4. Going to sleep. What used to be a respite is now a source of fear. I get into bed and imagine sirens waking me in the middle of the night. Is it prudent to sleep in your clothes? What about socks? Shoes? I’ve had to double my cocktail of sleeping meds to get through this period, which makes me even more anxious: If I’m so drugged out, will I be able to make it to the shelter without stumbling?
5. Sitting on the toilet. If, in the before-times, my biggest concern was “How long will I need to sit here for something to happen?” Now, it’s “How fast can I get this out?” This is how the mundane becomes ripe with the stench of fear. 
6. Synagogue and simchas. Prior to October 7, the biggest question about attending synagogue was, “Should I wear a mask or not?” Now it’s, “Can all the people in shul fit into its tiny safe room if a missile is launched?” Similarly, when we were invited to a brit milah in friends’ backyard, the hosts cautioned there’s no shelter, so if any guests don’t feel comfortable, they shouldn’t come. 
7. Eating. Do you accept a Shabbat invitation if the hosts have no protected space nearby? Is it safe to go out to eat (at the few restaurants that are still open), or should you order take-out? How do you time breakfast so, if there’s a siren, the granola won’t go soggy?
8. Dental work. I have a dentist appointment in a few weeks. If the war’s not over by then, do I keep it? It’s just for a cleaning, but the photo my dentist posted to social media of a man in the midst of getting a cavity filled ensconced in the building’s shelter, suggests I may want to postpone.
9. Reading the news. As an admitted news junkie, I read three to four publications regularly. That used to be a joy. No more. Reading the news before bed is a guarantee for nightmares. My wife, Jody, has eschewed reading the news at all; I decided not to look at pictures and video, but even text descriptions set my imagination on fire. Social media is no better – is that a picture of a loved one who was murdered? Is that an announcement of a funeral or shiva? Do I recognize the name?
10. Locking down. This is not about missiles per se but it’s another casualty of war. We’ve long locked the front door when we turn in for the night. Now we’ve added the windows, the exit to the terrace, anything that faces the outside. Are terrorists going to rappel up our building and break into our apartment? Unlikely. But nothing these days runs according to logic. We used the peep hole on our front door even before the war; now it’s a matter of life or death. 

We all need to poop, eat, sleep, walk the dog, have sex and get our teeth cleaned – now all sources of stress. But we should be grateful for our good fortune: mundane annoyances are far better than the horrific alternative. 

I first lamented the loss of the mundane at The Jerusalem Post.

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

Palestinian terrorists detonate a radioactive dirty bomb at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. 

Israel responds by destroying the Al Aqsa Mosque. 

Iranian missiles whistle towards Israel and – miraculously – vanish midair. 

Leading Iranian clerics and politicians mysteriously die on the spot. 

And then there’s the Ark – the Holy Ark that tradition says carried the 10 commandments – which has been discovered under the Temple Mount and is…inexplicably floating.

Those are the broad plot strokes of the sci-fi novel Alpha and Omega, which I finished reading just hours before Hamas launched its shock pogrom on Israel this past Simchat Torah. 

Alpha and Omega was written by Harry Turtledove, dubbed “the master of alternative history” (he has another book set during World War II where Nazis, Jews, Americans and Russians all team up to fight a bigger enemy: aliens). 

While the narrative Turtledove presents is very different from our current reality, I nevertheless found myself at times mixing up what happened two weeks ago in southern Israel with Turtledove’s audacious fictional attacks.

As the events unfolded on that dreadful morning two weeks ago, I found myself hoping against hope that a supernatural presence would intercede, as in Turtledove’s magical realism.

Alas, there were no superheroes with capes to be found anywhere along the Gaza border in the excruciating first hours of the attack. Neither Iron Man nor Captain America have yet to swoop down from the skies to stop the bad guys with their super strength and superior technology. 

I’ve had superhero envy since I was a child when I was relentlessly bullied at school. After one particularly nasty incident, I ran to my father’s home office, which had a window looking out on our cul-de-sac, stretched my arms wide, and concentrated as hard as I could in order to change the relationship between me and my tormentors.

But it’s all just fantasy. There’s no way to turn back time, as Superman did to save Lois Lane by flying around the earth at super speed, or to “unsnap” Thanos’s decree from Avengers: Infinity War.

But there are heroes in southern Israel. They just aren’t supernatural.

Israeli civilians have stepped up in remarkable ways, volunteering to make, pack and deliver food and supplies to soldiers on the front; standing in line for hours to donate blood; traveling for days on multiple flights to get back to Israel to help. The anti-judicial coup protest groups transformed overnight into aid organizations, applying their proven logistics infrastructure to aid a country in its hour of need.

Among the stories of heroism (I’m writing early in the week, so more tales of bravery will undoubtedly come to light) is that of Rachel Adari from Ofakim who, along with her husband David, was held hostage for 15 hours and stalled the terrorists by serving Coke Zero and cookies and offering to teach them Hebrew in exchange for Arabic lessons.

The Adaris were eventually rescued; the terrorists in their home were killed.

Amir Tibon lives with his wife and daughters on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. When they heard machine gun fire, they barricaded themselves in their safe room. Terrorists were literally on the other side of the door. 

When power was cut, the Tibons had only their cellphones to light the space. After spending hours in the pitch black, a text message arrived: Amir’s father, Noam, a retired IDF general, wrote that he and Amir’s mother were on their way from Tel Aviv. 

While racing towards uncertainty, the elder Tibons encountered young people who had escaped the massacre at the outdoor rave. The Tibons picked them up and dropped them off at a location further north before turning around to head to Nahal Oz again. 

When Noam arrived at Nahal Oz, he quickly joined a firefight. Six terrorists were killed; dozens of kibbutzniks – including Amir and his family – were freed. 

Never have the words “Saba is here” sounded so sweet.

Meanwhile, at Kibbutz Nir Am, 25-year-old Inbal Lieberman, the community’s security coordinator, discerned that the sounds she was hearing from outside were not the usual missiles or incendiary balloons. She quickly unlocked the kibbutz armory, distributed guns, positioned her makeshift “staff” strategically around the kibbutz, and successfully repelled the incursion. 

A key decision: disconnecting the electricity from the kibbutz fence, which prevented the terrorists from getting in. 

Finally, there’s Nuseir Yassin, better known as “Nas Daily,” with some 21 million social media followers.

“Sometimes it takes a shock like this to see so clearly,” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). 

What does he see clearly now?

“For the longest time, I struggled with my identity,” Yassin, 31, who grew up in the Lower Galilee town of Arraba, wrote. “Many of my friends refuse to this day to say the word ‘Israel’ and call themselves ‘Palestinian’ only.”

That bifurcation didn’t make sense to Yassin. “So, I decided to mix the two and become a ‘Palestinian-Israeli.’

“But after recent events, I started to think. And think. And think. And then my thoughts turned to anger. I realized that if Israel were to be ‘invaded’ like that again, we would not be safe. To a terrorist invading Israel, all citizens are targets.

“I do not want to live under a Palestinian government. Which means I only have one home, even if I’m not Jewish: Israel.

“From today forward, I view myself as an ‘Israeli-Palestinian.’ Israeli first. Palestinian second.”

That took courage. Thank you, Nas.

And thank you to all the superheroes in our midst. You may not wear a cape or be able to stop missiles enroute, as Harry Turtledove envisioned, but you’re the real deal. 

I first wrote about superheroes in the Middle East for The Jerusalem Post.

Twenty years ago, on July 31, 2002, our cousin Marla Bennett was killed in a suicide bombing at Hebrew University. Marla had just sat down to lunch following her Hebrew ulpan studies when a terrorist detonated the bomb he had planted in a backpack at an adjoining table. Seven people were killed in the blast. Marla was just 24.

Marla and our family became very close during the years she lived in Israel. Telling our children about her death was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do.

I wanted to write something to commemorate Marla’s death on this grim milestone. I could have written about her funeral, which attracted 1,500 people in San Diego. Or the coverage in the San Diego Jewish Press Heritage, which ran for 13 painful pages.

I could have spoken about how Marla and her fiancé Michael fell in love at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, just like my wife, Jody, and I did many years earlier. 

But perhaps the most powerful part of Marla’s story is not the past but the future – specifically, all the babies who have been named after her. Linda Bennett, Marla’s mother, told me that there have been at least 25 children with some version of an “M” name.

Marla was Amanda Pogany’s best friend in Israel (although there were many who claimed Marla as their best friend). “It was a rare kind of friendship; the kind that, as soon as you meet, you can’t actually remember what your life was like before,” Amanda recalled.

When Amanda and her husband Aaron’s first daughter was born, they named her Meira (Maisie in English). “Meira means one who illuminates, a perfect reflection of who Marla was,” Amanda told me.

Eileen Katz named her daughter Ellie Miriam. (Marla’s Hebrew name was Miriam.). Marla and Eileen knew each other from the USY youth movement. Like Marla, seven-year-old Miriam today “is kind, empathetic, an eager participant and a good friend to everyone,” Eileen said. 

Rebecca Birken Yussman lived with Marla in the “Berkeley Bayit” in the late 1990s and also named her daughter Miriam after Marla, “one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever met.” As for her own Miriam, “if she’s your friend, she’ll do anything for you – just like Marla.”

Adam Arenson knew Marla from as far back as pre-school. Adam referred to Marla as “a professional friend,” someone who was cherished “because you know she would take your call or respond to your email, whenever, wherever.”

Adam named his daughter Maddie, which is derived from “migdal or tower. Marla was a towering presence among all who knew her – for her openness, her dedication, her sense of loving life.”

Barri Worth Girvan’s four-year-old daughter Mila was named after Marla, who was Barri’s camp counselor and was “like an older sister to me, someone I always looked up to, so much so that one summer I earned the nickname M.I.T. (Marla in Training),” Barri joked. “Marla had a radiant smile [and Mila] already lights up our lives – and my camera photo stream!”

Jessica Rosenberg shared with me about her 14-year-old daughter Molly who, like Marla, “is intellectually curious, conscientious, generous and silly. She also makes a pretty excellent rainbow challah – much like Marla did!” Jessica reminded me that Marla’s email was marlaann@cheerful.com, a fitting address given that she was “always up, always positive and with a laugh that was contagious.”

Marla’s namesakes are not all girls. 

Deborah Bock Schuldenfrei wrote to tell me that her oldest son, Heshel Max, was named after Marla. What reminds Deborah most about Marla is that Max “is so remarkably kind. He cares so much about his cosmic connection to Mar and internalizes the blessing of her name in his own identity.”

Justin Radell also has a son named Max. Justin and Marla met during Marla’s freshman year. “We would walk to Hillel together on Friday nights,” Justin said. “I became more connected to Judaism during college and Marla was a big part of that.”

The last person I spoke with for this piece was Maytal Lefkowitz – not a parent but one of the children who was named after Marla by her parents Emma and Eric. Bearing an “M” name “comes with huge responsibility,” she told me. “I was named after someone who had tremendous impact on so many people’s lives.”

There were four pillars to Marla’s life, Maytal explained. “Marla believed in Israel. She believed in education. She believed in the Jewish people. And she believed in her friends and family.”

Maytal has lived up to Marla’s ideals in many ways. She is the Far West Regional Social Action and Tikkun Olam vice president for her USY chapter. She regularly volunteers at a local food bank and, like Marla, is committed to Jewish summer camp – indeed, when we spoke, Maytal was in Israel at the Ramah summer seminar. 

Before she died, Marla wrote an essay for the Avi Chai Foundation.

“I’ve been living in Israel for over a year and a half now and my favorite thing to do here is go to the grocery store,” she shared. “I know, not the most exciting response, but going shopping, as well as picking up my dry cleaning, standing in long lines at the bank, and waiting with the hungry mob at the bakery, means that I live here. I am not a tourist. I deal with Israel and all of its complexities, confusion, joy and pain every single day. And I love it.”

We love you, Marla. We will never forget you – and neither will all the Miriams, Maytals, Meiras, Maddies and Maxes who carry on your legacy.

Thanks to the members of the “Missing Marla” Facebook group for your many contributions to this article.

The legacy of Marla’s babies first appeared in The Jerusalem Post.

Two recent headlines about the new Magic Kass amusement park and adjacent DCITY shopping mall make for an instructive contrast.

The Jerusalem Post’s Zev Stub reviewed the new developments east of Ma’aleh Adumim. The headline: “Israel’s newest amusement park brings ‘magic’ to Jerusalem outskirts.”

The headline in Haaretz took a different tack: “Israel’s shiny new theme park and mall that aren’t technically in Israel.”

While Stub’s article is a personal review of the amusement park, the Haaretz piece by Jonathan Shamir leans heavily political. 

“It’s part of the efforts to normalize Ma’aleh Adumim to the Israeli public,” Shamir quotes Hagit Ofran, executive director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch program. The area is “a huge problem for the development of a Palestinian economy, let alone a state.”

But one of the pictures included with the article subverts Shamir’s agenda: It’s an image of an Arab family taking a selfie and enjoying the park alongside their Jewish neighbors. If that’s normalization, I want more. 

The contrast between Shamir’s critique and the photo chosen to go with it illustrates exactly why this part of the Middle East is stuck in a status quo that no one really wants but, at the same time, no one can figure out how to get past: Israel, to much of the world, is a symbol rather than an actual place. 

This Israel-as-a-symbol is not filled with real people who strive to make a living and who mostly eschew politics. Instead, the country has become a talking point used by both sides to virtue signal to like-minded individuals. 

Now, I’m hardly pro-settlements in my personal political views. I would have preferred that most had never been built.

But let’s step back for a critical reality check: The settlements aren’t going anywhere. Certainly not the big ones like Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel and the Gush Etzion block. 

Not the smaller ones either. 

After 2005’s Disengagement and the subsequent Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip, few in Israel have any interest in taking risks that could launch another terror wave. There’s scant political will for making a deal on the Palestinian Authority’s side, either.

If, however, we take as a starting point that the settlements – whether you believe they were established in sin or are the flourishing of Zionism 2.0 – are here to stay, then you are compelled to think out-of-the-box for a solution that will allow us to live in the same space. Maybe not together but neither on the constant verge of violence. 

Symbols, by contrast, don’t allow for innovative ideas; they push people to dig their heels in further.

One of the most interesting approaches I’ve seen comes from the Hartman Institute’s Micah Goodman. In an article he wrote for The Atlantic, based on his book Catch-67, he reviews a proposal developed nearly 20 years ago called “Keep it Flowing.” It’s based on the idea that traditional borders ensuring contiguous territory simply won’t work here. 

Instead, the plan calls for a network of bridges and tunnels to connect Palestinian cities and villages, eliminating checkpoints and allowing free movement below, above and alongside entirely separate Israeli highways. 

“It would not be cheap to implement, because it involves tunnels and bridges, but it would create transportational contiguity for Palestinians,” Goodman writes. “If Israel were to pave this network of roads —and more important, give the Palestinian Authority autonomous control over it — the reality on the ground would be completely transformed. Israel would be able to abolish the main source of friction between the [Palestinian] civilian population and the [Israeli] military authorities.”

(A related plan to build a 37-kilometer bridge from Gaza to the West Bank was mooted in 1999 by French-Jewish architect Mark Mimram.)

To be sure, Goodman is not proposing a Palestinian state – at least not yet. This is not “part of a perfect, redemptive project” – for either side, he notes. Rather, “the occupation of the Palestinians can be shrunk without also shrinking Israelis’ security.” 

Is this what activists on either side want? Not really. But compromise comes in many colors. For Goodman, this kind of “creeping segregation,” as he calls it, could be a good thing. 

Compromise has proved to be beyond the scope of the Israel-haters. 

Recall that, in 2015, SodaStream gave in to a high-pressure campaign by the BDS movement and relocated its bottling plant, the one that had been located not far from where the Magic Kass amusement park is today, to the Beersheba area. The move resulted in the loss of about 500 jobs for local Palestinians and the end of a workplace that was proud of its contribution to coexistence.

I’m not saying that a proposal like Goodman’s is inherently better or worse than two states with clearly defined borders. Nor am I advocating separation over integration as the ideal long-term solution. But it’s at least realistic. The alternative, as we’ve seen, is simply more stagnation.

Israel is here to stay. So are the Palestinians. And so are the settlements, whether they should have been authorized in the first place or not. Did their creation result in injustice? Absolutely. But libeling Israel as an apartheid nation run by genocidal settler-colonialists won’t solve a thing. 

It’s time to move forward, to see Israel and the Palestinians for what they are, and to seek solutions that build up rather than obliterate coexistence.

If you’re still in need of a symbol, though, look no further than the Magic Kass roller coaster. It may have its ups and downs, but once on the ride, we’re all in it together – and there’s no getting off (just like those new highways to be built). But, hey, the view of the Dead Sea is spectacular.

I originally reviewed Magic Kass and the politics of normalization for The Jerusalem Post.

“Why do you Israelis want to wipe us off the map?” asked Zahra.

The question wasnâ€t meant to be provocative; Zahra was merely curious. I was, after all, the first Israeli sheâ€d ever met. And she was the first Iranian – at least someone who currently lives in the country rather than, say, an expat in Los Angeles or the child of Iranian Jews now residing in Israel – Iâ€d had a conversation with, as well.

I met Zahra on a recent trip to Barcelona where I was covering a conference for a client. Zahra runs a tech company in Tehran and had given a presentation, earlier in the day, where she described the difficulties of doing business in the midst of Iranâ€s current economic crisis. 

Runaway inflation (nearly 40 percent at the end of 2018) means that the price of a supermarket item in the morning may not be the same as the price at the end of the day, Zahra explained on stage.

Zahraâ€s story gave me an opening to make “first contact.” I approached the businesswoman during a coffee break.

“I really related to your story about inflation,” I said, “The annual inflation rate where I live was over 400 percent in 1985. We used to joke that youâ€re better off prepaying your taxi fare than using the meter in order to lock in a lower price.”

Zahra looked at me quizzically. What country did this guy, speaking perfect English, come from that had inflation like that? Certainly not the United States.

“I live in Israel,” I said, sensing her confusion

Zahraâ€s eyes widened ever so slightly though her demeanor remained steady. A consummate CEO with a winning, unwavering smile, dressed in pants, a long tunic and a red and cream-colored hijab covering all but a wisp of hair, she brushed past the elephant that had suddenly set up camp in the conference hall and asked if inflation is still high in Israel.

I launched into a simplified explanation of the 1985 economic reforms that would eventually transform Israel into the Startup Nation.

But the next session was starting and it was my job to report on it, so I had to run back to my laptop.

I caught up with Zahra again the next day. Apparently, our brief chat had made an impression. She had already told her family in Tehran that sheâ€d met an Israeli. What she said I wasnâ€t privy to, but now, at least, she wanted to know about more than shekels and startups. 

“What do Israelis think about Iranians?” she asked, her smile as unreadable as before.

Suddenly thrust into the role of unofficial Israeli ambassador-without-portfolio, I paused for a moment to choose my words carefully. 

“I think most Israelis are able to separate the people of Iran from what its government says,” I responded, as diplomatically as I could. “People are basically the same everywhere, donâ€t you think?” 

Zahra nodded.

“We all just want to make a living,” I continued, gaining confidence. “To raise our children to thrive, to be happy.” 

“So then why do you want to kill us all?” Zahra abruptly asked.

I was momentarily stunned.

“Is…that what you h-hear about Israel in Iran?” I stammered.

“Yes, of course,” she said. 

I felt myself resisting her words – they didnâ€t fit my expectations of how a worldly Iranian entrepreneur at an international tech conference would think. That was supposed to be rhetoric from the ayatollahs, not the general population. 

“Well, I have never heard anyone in power in Israel ever say they wanted to obliterate the entire Iranian people,” I replied. “Itâ€s not true, not in the least.”

Zahra kept smiling as she took in what I imagined was new information. I shifted uncomfortably in my dress shoes and fidgeted with my name tag.

“Then why do you shoot Palestinians?” she continued.

I tried to add some context this time.

“If someone is running at a soldier with a knife, the solider has to defend himself,” I said. “If a terrorist is planting a bomb, heâ€s going to be stopped. But the name of our army is the Israel Defense Forces. Its mission is to defend, not to initiate action.”

Was I getting through? I couldnâ€t tell. 

“Donâ€t you think, if the Palestinian conflict was solved, all the other issues in the Middle East would go away?” Zahra asked.

“Itâ€s a little more complicated than that,” I started to say, but we were cut off for a second time as the networking break came to an end. 

Zahra and I exchanged business cards.

“Perhaps someday it will be possible to visit you in peace,” I said. “I hear Tehran looks a lot like Tel Aviv.”

Zahra didnâ€t reciprocate with a wish of her own to sip tea in Jaffa, nor did we shake hands as we parted. (I didnâ€t try, not knowing if her hijab meant no contact with the opposite sex.) 

Afterward, I sent Zahra an email with a copy of the article Iâ€d written about her presentation and a pledge to continue the conversation virtually. 

I never heard back from her. Perhaps the email never got through the Iranian censors.

I hope that Zahraâ€s business trip to the West, in the midst of increasing sanctions on Tehran, wasnâ€t entirely in vain. If nothing else, she met her first Israeli and he turned out to be not quite the monster sheâ€d always expected. 

I first wrote about meeting the enemy in The Jerusalem Post.

“Enough. Just enough. Get on the damn planes.” 

That was the unequivocal response from local Facebook pundit Paula Stern, who posted just minutes after news broke about the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, north of San Diego. 

The planes Paula is referring to, of course, should be heading to Israel.

“It isn’t about money,” Paula implored her American Jewish readers. “It isn’t about the homes or cars you may have now or may or may not be able to afford at the beginning. It’s about your very lives and those of your children.”

Is Paula right? Have the twin shul attacks in Poway and six months before that in Pittsburgh laid bare the existential danger of living as a Jew outside of Israel in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism? 

On the face of it, the argument – “move to Israel where itâ€s safer” – hardly seems valid. Far more Jews have been murdered by terrorists in our tiny slice of the Middle East than in the Diaspora. 

So, unless you include the Holocaust in your calculations, or you have a crystal ball accurately predicting the time and place of a new wave of international pogroms, how can you claim that Jews are somehow safer today in Israel? 

On the contrary: the existential threat is here, with hundreds of thousands of missiles aimed our way from Lebanon and the potential of nuclear annihilation from Iran always lurking just around the JCPOA corner. 

Of course, thereâ€s more to living with meaning and purpose than staying safe at all costs. But that didnâ€t stop our family from fantasizing about escape one Friday night.

Our daughter, Merav and her husband, Gabe, are no strangers to danger. Merav has written eloquently about her life dodging missiles in Sderot, where she is a student at Sapir College. After a particularly brutal few days earlier this year, the couple sought refuge in Jerusalem. They invited friends to drop by after dinner. 

“If you could live anywhere, where is the safest place?” one person asked. The young people, world-weary before theyâ€d even finished their degrees, began listing off regions and countries.

Europe was out – the jihadists had made sure of that. Post Pittsburgh, so was the U.S.

Southeast Asia had seen enough attacks to cross the region off the register even before the Easter massacres in Sri Lanka.

“New Zealand!” one person said triumphantly. “We traveled there after the army. Itâ€s a paradise. The police donâ€t even carry weapons.”

Then Christchurch happened. 

Although that shooter targeted Muslims, the ideology to which he subscribes makes clear that, thereâ€s no love lost between white nationalists and the Jews either. 

The friends around our dining room table became quiet. In a world where no place is safe, the question becomes less about outright prevention than of who do you want around you when tragedy strikes?

Are you more comfortable if the first responders are Israeli? Does it give you solace to know that some of your fellow citizens will be armed and well-trained to take down a shooter (while in a country that maintains strict gun control laws)? Are you reassured that there is a Jewish army to protect you (even if that force sometimes falls afoul of its own high moral standards)?

Moreover, does the shared trauma and experience of living in a “dangerous neighborhood” actually better prepare Israelis to deal with the violence that will inevitably come, no matter where in the world we may be?

That seemed to be one of the messages from the San Diego shooting. Among those in attendance at the Chabad of Poway synagogue were members of a family who had moved to California from Sderot. (That irony has not been lost on anyone: “We left Sderot because of the rocket fire,” the father of eight-year-old Noya Dahan, who was wounded in the attack, told Israeli radio. “We left fire for fire.”)

Almog Peretz, Noyaâ€s uncle who was also injured, commented to Israelâ€s Channel 12 that, “this is sad,” but given that heâ€d lived not far from the Gaza border, “we know a bit about running from Qassam rockets.” 

Peretz credited his experience rushing to bomb shelters for honing his instincts, adding that he “took a little girl who was our neighbor and three nieces of mine and ran.” He hid the children in a building out back, then returned to rescue another family member who was stuck in the bathroom. 

Israeli Shimon Abitbol, who was visiting Poway for a family simcha, said “without thinking twice I lay down on my grandson and protected him.” Abitbol is a deputy director for the Magen David Adom ambulance service and was the organizationâ€s station chief in Kiryat Shmona during the Second Lebanon War.

So, is Paula right – but for the wrong reasons? “Get on the damn planes” – not necessarily for your physical safety but to know youâ€ll be in good hands when needed?

I donâ€t share Paulaâ€s reproach that Diaspora Jewish tragedies like Pittsburgh and Poway should necessarily compel Jews to emigrate en masse. Aliyah is a nuanced and highly personal decision that isnâ€t right for everyone. Ideally, it shouldnâ€t be made as a defensive reaction to horrific events but as a carefully considered choice coming from a proactive desire to belong to a people and a place. 

Still, if current events contribute to such reasoning, as we celebrate 71 years of independence, those of us in Israel will be more than happy to welcome you.

I first commented on Pittsburgh and Poway at The Jerusalem Post.