How It Feels in Israel

A JEWDICIOUS columnist shares his real-time experience today from Tel Aviv.

By Rick Borenstein

Israel takes incoming strikes from Iran over the last 24 hours.

For the past two nights, we’ve slept in the shelter built into our apartment. And thank God we did. At 4 a.m. we were literally almost thrown out of bed by a missile that landed a block or two away. You can’t believe how loud it was. For the first time in 20 months of war, I was shaken.

Living in Tel Aviv during the Gaza War, the daily rocket fire was an abstraction for us. Those who lived in Ashkelon (like my sister-in-law) near the Gaza border, or in the north near the Lebanese border, lived with daily rocket attacks. Our home in Tel Aviv was far enough from both fronts to be relatively unaffected. We never bothered to enter the shelter when the sirens sounded. The odds of being impacted were infinitesimal.

Last night was different. These Iranian missiles pack a ton of explosives (as opposed to a few kilos) and are being intentionally aimed at population centers. You can’t believe how much damage each missile that gets through our net causes. It’s scary. Any thought of escaping out of the country is impossible as our airspace is closed.

At 77, the thought did occur to me: What the hell was I doing in a situation like this? It’s hard to fathom. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going anywhere. I chose to come to Israel and spend the rest of my life here, for better or worse. But fear and uncertainty make light of conviction and ideology, not to mention love and relationship.

Normal life here has stopped. Schools are closed. Anyone who can is working from home, or not working. Traffic is perhaps 10 percent of normal. Demonstrations against the government, a daily occurrence last week, have ceased. Restaurant business is down to nothing. Malls are closed and theaters dark. The reality of war has permeated everything and everybody.

Despite all the “success” Israel has had in reordering our neighborhood, or possibly because of it, we now find ourselves facing the source of our greatest existential threat. No one in Israel doubts for a moment that if Iran had its nuclear bomb already, they would use it against us. This is what I believe and thus on some level — not on all levels — I think we are doing what we must do to survive in this totally dysfunctional Middle East.

Retired life, or in my case, semi-retired life, is supposed to be spent enjoying our grandchildren and having carefree days to pursue one’s passions. There isn’t a grandparent in Israel today that is thinking about anything but the safety and security of their family. Certainly, we are. Our grandchildren can’t understand why someone wants to kill them. This isn’t the world we want them to grow up in.

I hope and pray that we can bring this conflagration to a quick conclusion. I don’t want to live this way. I’m tired of war. I’m depressed about the contradictions our government constantly presents as rationales for continuation. But if we have come this far and survived, I think we need to somehow banish our biggest boogeyman, Iran, so we can truly live in peace and security.

It's in the DNA of the Jewish people to survive and bounce back stronger. We just have to get there.

Rick Borenstein is a “Silicon Valley escapee” who now lives with his family in Israel. He a coach, investor, NGO adviser — and Tel Aviv-booster.

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