I found the secret to Israeli resilience in my local bomb shelter

When all these wars began in October of 2023, we had a private mamad (reinforced room) in our home in Jerusalem. Well, it was supposed to be a mamad, but it hadn’t served that purpose since the house was built in the ‘80s. We used it for storage, and since we were new olim (immigrants to Israel) from the US, of course, it was filled to the brim with odds and ends; residuals from another lifetime.

On October 7th, I recall that there was perhaps only 12 inches of space in which to shelter. The door didn’t close properly. And, of course, we had no sense of what we were actually getting ourselves into as the skies exploded above our heads.

We spent the next couple of days emptying as much as we could, ditching things that had no purpose when survival felt like the only thing that mattered. Alone, new to the country, I remember shaking in my bones when the sirens blared through the valleys. I can still feel my heart pounding from Iron Dome deployments just a block away on the mountaintop. I remember the way the house trembled when interceptions fell to the ground.

Before winter, we moved to south Jerusalem to an apartment with a shared miklat (bomb shelter). A day or two after we moved in, we met our neighbors for the first time, on a Friday night, seeking shelter during a post-candlelighting rocket blitz. That shelter had never been used for its intended purpose. There were no lights, no ventilation, no chairs, and plenty of cockroaches. It was cluttered with broken sukkot poles, old bicycles, a dusty mattress, and graffiti-covered walls.

Realizing we were in this for the long haul, we joined our neighbors in clearing it out. We put down a rug, set up a lamp, added a fan, some emergency supplies, and snacks, and made it livable, at least for short periods of time. Since our apartment was closest to the miklat, we shared our WiFi password so everyone could get the news while we waited during sirens. Over the past two years, we neighbors have met there more times than I can remember, seeking safety in an increasingly unsafe world.

There are plenty of downsides to a shared shelter. You need to be mostly fully dressed at all hours. As our Israeli teens put it, it is tzafuf, squishy. It is unbearably hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and a little awkward when you show up in your bathrobe or silly pajamas. There’s nowhere to rest or lie down, even when you’re stuck there for hours, with nothing to do but wait and pray, while the sky is on fire and the earth shakes. Truthfully, we are packed in like sardines. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes miss the privacy of an in-home shelter.

That said, sharing a miklat with our neighbors taught me the secret to Israeli resilience.

Our first major moment came just before Passover, 2024, during the Iranian attack. It was 2 a.m. We had spent at least eight hours waiting for missiles, drones, UAVs, an entire arsenal, headed toward Israeli airspace. We’d seen the videos of them en route and felt certain that the moment they hit Israeli airspace was going to be the end of life as we knew it.

When the alert finally came and we ran downstairs, we were the first ones there. Soon, the others followed. Everyone greeted each other with big hellos and nervous laughter. The parents of a newlywed couple shared their wedding photos, while the couple thanks everyone sweetly, and we sang “Siman Tov U’Mazal Tov,” and checked the news together. There, I discovered the power of mirrored neurons. My neighbors’ calm made me calm. We witnessed a miraculous moment in history together. And I learned something: I can do this. I can be resolute in the face of chaos. I can walk out of that shelter and live another day.

Since then, we’ve met in that shelter countless times. We greet each other with jokes about pajamas, the lack of sleep, and whatever crisis is on the horizon. We speak in a mix of Hebrew and English, share smiles, food, headlines, and personal stories. We hold each other’s babies, check in on each other’s kids, and offer comfort when someone’s child isn’t home and the rockets are falling. We’ve shared birthdays, milestones, the joy of a new puppy, and the steady reassurance of helping hands. We call each other to make sure we’re awake, knock on doors, send messages — until we know everyone is safe. We know each other’s families, in-laws, nieces and nephews. We each have our respective “spots” when we trickle into the room.

As frightened as we were last Thursday night, confused and alarmed by the reality that Israel might be declaring war with Iran, this past Friday night was a balm. As we were attacked by the Houthis and Iran, we ushered in the sabbath together with  Kabbalat Shabbat, singing loud and clear, harmonies drifting out into the night. When we gathered again an hour later from a second siren, we passed around food from our Shabbat tables (even the dogs got in on it), laughed at each other’s stories, and found comfort in the long, hot hours stuffed together underground. 

I’m moving again, in two weeks. We joke that we’re having the longest goodbye party ever, meeting multiple times a day as the sirens go off. We’re leaving the city, moving to a house with its own private shelter again. And to tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to having a place to lie down and maybe sleep through some of these anxiety-soaked nights. It will change the experience entirely.

But I know I’ll miss this very Israeli phenomenon, the shared shelter. I’ll miss my neighbors’ warmth and their calm, the laughter amid the madness, the joint decision-making in moments that matter, and the deeply comforting feeling that someone is always looking out for you.

We’ve all seen the videos: Israelis taking shelter in tunnels, singing and dancing while the missiles scream overhead. Weddings interrupted, but continuing in parking lots. Schools drowning out sirens with song. It’s inspiring, how, when we’re together, we elevate one another and the moment. We become the nation of unity that God wants us to be.

But more than that, we are a nation that chooses life.

We invest in defense, in early alerts, in giving our citizens time to prepare. We now receive three separate messages before every impact, offering as much clarity as possible so we can get to safety. They have made our lives more confusing, sometimes, but also far safer.

Our enemies spend their money on terror tunnels, not shelters. They turn off the internet so their people don’t know what’s happening. Here, over the last few days, we’ve seen new conversations begin about how to keep every citizen protected in the face of this nightmare. 

We’ve lost too many people this week. Too many direct hits, too many families shattered. We are living in devastating, dangerous times.

But we are still here.
Still singing. Still sharing.
Still holding each other’s babies and dancing at weddings.
Still comforting each other in crowded rooms beneath concrete and fear.

This is what they don’t understand:
We don’t just survive. We live. We love. We build. We protect.

May the memory of those we’ve lost be a blessing.
May the spaces we inhabit be full of light.
And may we never forget what it means to hold each other close in the storm.