To Folks Wondering About Us In Israel

Thank you for your concern. I’ve gotten so many messages since Friday when Israel launched its first attack on Iran’s nuclear sites that I been overwhelmed. Forgive me for sending you this update like a yearly holiday letter. I will do my best to connect with each of you, by and by.  

Early Sunday morning, while Judith and I lay in the dark in our apartment’s reinforced safe room, a luxury many people in Israel don’t have, we could hear jets soaring and explosions overhead. The iron plate protecting the room’s one small window helped prevent my curiosity from getting the better of me. I had no desire to pull it open; the planes and bombs sounded too #%!*/ close.

The fact that I (not some AI servant) am writing this now, is proof that we have (so far) made it through the Iran-Israel War unharmed. 

The last time I heard from so many of you was after terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. The horror stories from that day of infamy shook us, and your messages of support meant a lot. So, I am taking pains to craft this post for all of you now to show my appreciation.

Of course, there have been other dreadful moments since October 7, but the latest stage of hostilities seems different, more menacing. Those of you who have been in regular contact with me understand that, while I am a journalist and documentary filmmaker who lives in Tel Aviv, I don’t pretend to be a military expert or a spokesman for the State of Israel. This personal, unofficial account invites you to consume it with a proper helping of salt.

Now that an Israel-Iran war has exploded around us, I believe that it has the potential for more staggering consequences than what we’ve seen the past two years fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Iran’s so-called proxy militias. With its large standing army, array of ballistic and cruise missiles, not to mention its nuclear capability, Iran is a more potent adversary. Several exchanges I had this past weekend encapsulated the current situation for me.

On Friday, we hosted our son and his wife for dinner. At some point my daughter-in-law asked if it was time for her and my son to go to the United States. It was not a rhetorical question. She has lived in Israel for more than 30 years, having arrived from Ethiopia when she was four, and she has memories of many tense moments in the country. She told me this was the first time she had seriously thought about fleeing.

That evening the threat of attack was so high that the two spent the night at our place, rather than take the chance of walking home. It turned out to be a noisy sleep-over. Between dusk and dawn, sirens screamed four different times. Nothing struck close, but the attacks left death and destruction elsewhere around the city.

The following morning, I was contacted by a next-door neighbor whose building has neither a basement bomb shelter, nor individual safe rooms. She asked if she and her neighbors might be able to use our building’s underground storage area that had once been a bomb shelter. The room, stuffed with furniture, floor and wall tiles, bags of cement, paint buckets, hand tools, scooters, a baby carriage, and more, was filthy. It took four people several hours to set it in order. 

Though the room did not have a certified air-filtration system, and its second means of egress was a narrow, substandard window, the woman said the room would make her feel safer than taking refuge in the stairwell of her building, or running down the street to make it in time to the closest public bomb shelter. 

When I asked her why she hadn’t contacted us before about the space, she told me that she had spoken with someone else in our building at the start of the Israel-Hamas War, but she didn’t follow up. Thanks to Israel’s Iron Dome defense system,“The rockets from Gaza,” she said, “didn’t seem that dangerous.”

The fog of war makes it difficult to know for certain what is happening around me. So, I am in no position to confirm or deny what you have seen in the news and on social media platforms. What I can tell you with certainty is that my family is okay, for now, and Judith and I have no plans to leave. 

Since the war began, I have seen less people on the streets of Tel Aviv. Stores and cafes have been shuttered. Schools have closed. The volunteer organization I work with to help farmers with their crops has suspended outings until further notice.

Most mornings I go out early to exercise. Today, intent on lifting weights and jogging on an elliptical machine, I WhatsApped my gym to ask if they were open. They didn’t respond, so I decided to investigate.

The video below is not a damage report. You can find that kind of information elsewhere. What you will see from me is meant as further proof that I am alive and kicking. 

As a New Jersey-born Israeli, with ties across the great (and flawed) USA, I close with the state motto of Wisconsin, which I took with me from there when we moved to Israel:

“Forward!”