Shelters, Rockets, and Poker Nights

When the war escalated, I was with my friends playing poker. We didn’t fully grasp the scale of the danger and went to the underground parking lot because it was the closest protected area. Now, when I think back on the whole situation, I actually realize how lucky I am. In a moment of real danger, I had people to stay with, to drink with, and even to have some fun.

Two hundred and fifty meters from us, a rocket fell in Ramat Gan on Sderot Yerushalayim Street. This was probably the most stressful situation I have ever experienced. And somehow, even though I have been through many dangerous situations in the eight years I’ve lived here, I still wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Every day during the war, I kept thinking: is it even worth the risk? I am Jewish, and in other countries, with my Russian passport, I could hide who I am and in some sense feel protected. Here, I am welcomed because of who I am, but I also have to go through terrifying situations every six months.

As a hotel worker in Tel Aviv, I’ve met many people who were affected by the war and lost their homes and property. Most of them were themselves from Ramat Gan, and I know that if the rocket had hit closer to my home, I would now be an evacuee too. Every time I sat in the public shelters, I prayed that all the windows in my apartment would stay intact and in place.

The worst day of the war for me was when my boyfriend and I were desperately trying to find somewhere we could feel more protected, and we ended up staying at his grandmother’s place.

The whole time, she didn’t understand why we insisted on closing the mamad window and the door. My boyfriend even said he understood why so many elderly people are harmed or killed in the attacks — they think that, at their age, it won’t happen to them.

Since October 7th, I have been experiencing PTSD, and it was hard for me to regain any sense of safety. In the past six months, I’ve started to feel less consumed by fear. I think I have even begun to forget that we are still at war.

This war has felt especially stressful because it was so raw, and people just one block away from me were harmed. I dread the thought of a “second round,” and I know that most likely it will happen again.

I have to think about things I never thought about before. For example, when I move in three months and start searching for another apartment, I will look for the closest shelter, and this will be a huge deal-breaker for me.

The war has definitely affected my sense of belonging. When every year you have to go through yet another war, you feel united with the people around you. It’s a kind of unity through struggle that brings people together and creates understanding, because Israel is so small, and so many people know this struggle firsthand, not just from stories.

During these 12 days, my feelings about Iranian people reminded me of how I feel about Russians. I felt so disappointed, because I knew how great their potential was and how sadly they have squandered it. They could have been such a strong and successful country but have lost so much under this merciless regime.

Somewhere near the end, during one of the attacks in the middle of the night, a very sad and emotional conversation happened between my boyfriend and me. We had just come back from the shelter, and that’s when the exhaustion from a week without proper sleep and constant anxiety overwhelmed him. He is also a new immigrant, just like me, but he moved here only four years ago. His first years in Israel were spent either in pandemic lockdown, or in a war with Gaza, or the war with Lebanon, or Yemen attacks, or—now—Iran.

He said he couldn’t take it anymore and didn’t want to keep living with constant anxiety, so he wanted to leave before things calmed down again. I asked him to wait a week and promised that if things didn’t improve, we would leave through Egypt. Fortunately, everything ended before we had to leave.

Now I know that when the second round comes, we will leave the country that very day, mainly because of how much it affects his mental health. It’s already difficult enough to be new immigrants who barely speak Hebrew, let alone to spend our youth coping with the impact of major historical events.

I still believe that peace between Iran and Israel is possible, as it once was. I can only hope that the Iranian people are tired enough of the regime to rise against it. In the meantime, I hope we can find strength in our shared humanity and remember that ordinary people on both sides are the ones who pay the highest price for these conflicts.