Trembling in Jerusalem

When I heard the first air raid siren on the morning of Shabbat/Simchat Torah, I was confused. The chilling sound of an air raid siren means a missile or rocket is hurtling toward your area. But who was attacking us? Hamas? Hezbollah from the northern border? Iran? When the siren ended, I heard a faint boom. The missile had landed somewhere, but not nearby.

A minute later, a second siren pierced the air. When Israelis hear an air raid siren, we’re supposed to run to our building’s bomb shelter, or (in more modern buildings) our “protected room,” built of steel to guard against both bombs and chemical attack. But I live in a 900-year-old house in the Old City of Jerusalem. We have no bomb shelter. There is a bomb shelter in the building across the lane, but it’s filled with furniture and stored stuff of the residents. I stayed in my living room.

My husband was already at synagogue, so I was alone in our apartment. I wasn’t scared. Because we live just a few hundred meters from the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site and Islam’s third holiest site, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, I knew that no Muslim attackers would be crazy enough to aim a projectile at the Old City and risk destroying Islam’s holy sites.

About 45 minutes later, the siren again pierced the air, followed a minute later by another siren. Clearly, we were under attack. Because it was Shabbat and Simchat Torah, I did not turn on my cellphone or computer to find out what was happening. Had there been danger to me or others that required my doing something, Jewish law would have permitted me to use electronics. But just to satisfy my curiosity was no excuse to violate the holy day.

I grabbed a book of Psalms and recited several chapters. During the 38 years I have lived in Israel and the many wars we have endured, I had only one traumatic experience with an air raid siren.

A few years ago, during one of our mini-wars with Hamas in Gaza, my husband and I had taken two of our grandchildren, ages four and six, to the park across from the Old City. As we exited the park, the blare of an air raid siren caught us by surprise. Home Front Command’s orders are to find shelter in the nearest building, but there was no building anywhere nearby. Next best is to lie down on your stomach, using your arms to protect your head. If you have a child, obviously you cover their body with your own.

Panicked, we started running to a tree across the road. By the time we got there, the siren had stopped. It took much longer for the rapid beating of my heart to slow down. We later learned that the missile landed at the western edge of Jerusalem.

In the War

Jerusalem is 80 kilometers (49 miles) from the Gaza Strip. It takes a rocket launched from Gaza one and a half minutes to reach Jerusalem. Over Shabbat, the siren in Jerusalem sounded around nine times. But I wasn’t unduly worried. We’ve had these rocket attacks from Gaza many times before. Almost all of them are intercepted by the Iron Dome or land in empty fields, causing occasional property damage, but rarely an injury.

I was both paralyzed by shock and galvanized into action.

As soon as Shabbat was over, I turned on my computer, and everything changed. The news struck me like an avalanche of horror. The Hamas terrorist incursion into dozens of Israeli communities, with hundreds dead and many women, children, and elderly taken as captives to Gaza, was like a horror movie come to life. My tears flowed.

I was both paralyzed by shock and galvanized into action. My neighborhood WhatsApp group went wild: Mothers whose sons had been called up for active duty listing their sons’ names to pray for them; phone numbers we shouldn’t answer because there’s a cyber-attack on Israel; online groups to recite Psalms; calls to donate blood; forms for elderly and people living alone to receive social services; collection centers in our neighborhood for cans/non-perishable food for civilians stuck in bomb shelters in the south and toiletries (toothbrushes, deodorant, etc.) for soldiers; and a form to sign up to host citizens near the Gaza border so they don’t have to remain in bomb shelters. We immediately signed up to host a family in our home, but today got the word that the evacuation of Gaza-border communities has been cancelled due to the danger on the roads.

Jerusalem has an eerie feeling. Supermarkets and grocery stores are open, their shelves mostly empty by now. Stores, malls, restaurants, pizza shops, and all schools are closed. Even health fund clinics that don’t have a bomb shelter are shuttered. Busses are operating on a skeletal schedule, many drivers having been called up for active duty and busses commandeered for the army.

I just got news that a neighbor’s son, missing since Shabbat, was found dead.

The Jewish Unity Factor

This was a surprise attack on Israel, but truthfully, I was not surprised. The Jewish People’s miraculous survival over 4,000 years of history, through wars, massacres, expulsions, crusades, pogroms, and the Holocaust, could never have happened without Divine protection. And Divine protection depends on one factor alone: Jewish unity.

Please pray for all of our soldiers and civilians, and especially the captives in Gaza. And one more thing: Love your fellow Jew. All of them.

During the last nine months, Israel has been torn apart by internecine animosity never before seen in the reborn State of Israel. Protests for and against judicial reform have been hateful, and sometimes violent. The forceful breaking up of a Yom Kippur prayer service in Tel Aviv stoked the flames of hatred and mistrust between Jews of different religious perspectives,, sending shockwaves throughout the nation. I felt foreboding that only something grave and calamitous could unite us.

It came -- the bloodiest single day in modern Israel’s history. Now we are united again, in grief and determination to defeat the enemy that wants to destroy us—all of us, with no religious or political distinctions.

Today my son was called up for active duty. He is at a base on the border of Gaza. I pray, tremble and cry over the news.

Please pray for all of our soldiers and civilians, and especially the captives in Gaza. And one more thing: Love your fellow Jew. All of them.