Iran Keeps Firing, Israelis Keep Running, We Keep Scrolling

This news alert comes regularly: ballistic missiles fired from Iran toward Israel. Within moments, millions of Israelis rush to shelters as air defense systems activate across the country. Sirens blare, families grab their children, drivers pull over and run to the side of the road, and entire cities pause as people search for safety.

For the last three weeks, we outside Israel have watched these alerts come several times a day and night. They've come so regularly that our phone dings, we glance at it, and go right back to whatever we were doing. But this is not normal. It can never become normal. No matter how often the alerts come, we need to stay outraged by how abnormal they are.

Resilience Is Not the Same as Acceptable

The human spirit adapts quickly. When sirens interrupt life again and again, there is a life-threatening danger to those running to shelters. But there is also a danger that we begin to treat this as routine. Missiles flying toward civilian populations can never be routine. Running with children to a bomb shelter can never be normal. The fact that Israelis have developed the strength and resilience to endure it does not make it acceptable or ordinary.

Here in America, we do not have reinforced safe rooms in our homes. Our children do not grow up practicing how quickly they can reach a shelter. We do not interrupt dinner, school, or sleep to run for our lives. We live with a level of security we often take for granted. That contrast should humble us and awaken a deeper sense of responsibility to those who don't have that luxury.

What We Can Do from Here

After October 7, the Jewish community outside Israel responded in extraordinary ways. American Jews rallied in the streets. Communities organized missions to Israel. We packed duffel bags, sent equipment and clothing, wrote letters to soldiers we'd never met, and added Psalms to our daily prayers. Many of us reoriented our schedules, our conversations, and our emotional lives around the reality that Israel was at war.

Millions of our brothers and sisters are effectively on the front line because every inch of the country is within reach of missiles.

Now Israel finds itself at war again. True, there are miracles happening each day, and we are fortunately not praying for the safety of hostages right now, but this is still an incredibly dangerous moment for our people. Millions of our brothers and sisters are effectively on the front line because every inch of the country is within reach of missiles. At the same time, heroic soldiers are defending the nation across multiple fronts: in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Syria, and in the skies over Iran. The entire nation carries the burden together.

Many of us outside Israel feel helpless. We can't easily travel there right now, and there's no urgent call for the physical supplies we mobilized before. But our lives cannot simply continue as if nothing is happening. Our brothers and sisters may not expect us to stop living, but they do expect us not to be indifferent.

Set an alert for news about the sirens in Israel. Each time Israelis are running to shelters, pause and pray.

One small but meaningful step we can all take right now: Set an alert for news about the sirens in Israel. Each time Israelis are running to shelters, let it become a spiritual alarm. Pause and say one chapter of Psalms. One short prayer. If they are running to shelters, we can run to prayer. Their moment of fear becomes our moment of connection with God on their behalf.

And along with prayer, reach out in simple human ways. Each time there's an alert, send a message to someone you know in Israel. A friend, a relative, a former neighbor. Just a short text: "Thinking of you." "Praying for your safety." "Stay safe." When they run in and out of shelters, they should know that Jews around the world are thinking about them in that very moment.

Words Are Not Neutral

We must also be careful with our language and with what we post publicly. No one in Israel expects American Jews to stop living, cancel celebrations, or stop preparing for Passover. Life must continue. But there is a reasonable expectation that we won't be tone deaf.

Don't talk about being "rescued" or "stuck" in reference to the place that is home to millions of our people, the homeland we should all be working to move to, and from which those who live there have nowhere else to go.

The Torah teaches the prohibition of causing pain through our words. In our time, that principle extends to the images we share and the complaints we broadcast. Everyone has challenges. Life is complicated everywhere. But at moments like this, we must put our frustrations in context. If what we're facing is not life-or-death, if it doesn't involve running to shelter from ballistic missiles, maybe it doesn't need to be shared widely right now.

Closer Than You Think

And for many in our own communities, this is not distant news. Around us are friends, neighbors, and colleagues whose children and grandchildren live in Israel. Some have sons or daughters serving in the army. Others have grandchildren running to shelters in the middle of the night. Even as they come to work or sit at our Shabbat tables, their hearts are thousands of miles away, following every alert and every update. For someone whose child is sleeping near a shelter or whose son is serving near the border, life is not proceeding normally at all. Acknowledge that. Ask how their family is doing.

Our brothers and sisters in Israel are living through something no society should ever have to endure. Their resilience is extraordinary, their courage inspiring. But we must never let their reality become something we treat as ordinary.

Missiles targeting civilians is not normal. Running to shelters is not normal. Living under that threat is not normal.

And even from thousands of miles away, with love in our hearts, loyalty in our prayers, and sensitivity to those around us who are carrying this burden personally, we must remind ourselves of that truth, again and again.