Where Peace Is a Prayer: A Family’s 12 Days Under Fire
As I sit comfortably at home in Longview, TX, stressed about bad weather forecasts but otherwise peacefully working, walking the dog, and feeding the cat, my niece and her family in Israel are living through something no one should ever have to experience.Before you judge the choices or emotions of others from the safety of your own home or city, take a moment to read what her past 12 days have been like.
Imagine if the most important information in your day was where the nearest shelter is when the sirens go off.
Imagine worrying every day about how to keep your children, your family, and yourself safe.
War Thoughts
Where Peace Is a Prayer: A Family’s 12 Days Under Fire
גאולה אדלשטיין
It is 3am. An air raid siren rouses us from a deep sleep. We go to stand in our hallway, not having time to go to the shelter at the end of the block. Nothing unusual, probably the Houthis again, or so we think, and we head back to bed.
It is 9am, and I discover that our Shabbos plans have radically changed. We have hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and the entire country is waiting with baited breath for retaliation. But it is Erev Shabbos Kodesh. I cook with my mother-in-law, as the magnitude of what has happened begins to hit. There is a sense of giddy euphoria, that maybe we have stopped this evil regime. Somehow, it is combined with a sense of dark anticipation. Friday night, just before the soup, the first siren wails. We grab what we can, and go the shelter across the hall. We hear loud booms feel the ground shake and we wait. We go back out, still hearing booms. Another siren wails, and we head back in.
It is 1 am and a siren wails. We once gain huddle in our rather vulnerable hallway as the walls shake from the booms. It is really unsettling not to feel protected in your own home.
It is 4.30 am, and I am awake. It takes me a moment to realize we were wakened by booms. Booms so loud the giant window in my bedroom is rattling and squeaking. The shaking continues until about 6am. I try to go to sleep, fearing for the rest of the country.
It is 11am, Shabbos lunch, we are talking about which parts of our bodies are expecting a siren. My mother in law says it is her neck, me, it is my lower back. We play board games, we learn Torah, we say Tehillim, we try to be present.
It is Motzai Shabbos. We check the news, scores of injured, and tens killed. Hearts break. I am told that I will not have work the next day. I ask my father in law, a rabbi, about letting family in the States know we are okay, even though it is Shabbos still for them. He tells me how to write it. I do, and am told later that it made a big difference.
It is 12.30am, Motzai Shabbos, and I am sitting in a sanctuary. The sanctuary of a synagogue built in a bomb shelter. It is the closest shelter, at the end of my block.
It is Sunday afternoon, and we are once again in the bomb shelter. Praying intensely, wondering what will be, when we will go back to work, filled with
It is 2 am (I have lost track of the days of the week) , and we are all praying intensely. The siren wails above our heads, and a baby wails nearby. There is a strange feeling of safety and fear intertwined. We are safe, but how we fear for the rest of the country. Despite poor cell phone reception, trickles of news come in. A direct hit in Petach Tikva, in Haifa, in Beer Sheva. The prayers intensify as we await the all clear.
It is two am, and we are all in pajamas, but it might as well be Yom Kippur, the hushed whispers, the fervent Tehillim, the gentle soothing of babies. There is a boom, a thud, and it seems as if the very walls shake.
It is 3am, and we were finally given an all clear. We all climb the stairs out, wishing the neighbors a quiet day, and saying “we hope not to see you soon”. We all sink wearily into our beds, some fully clothed in case of another siren.
It is 10pm, and I wonder, can I shower, or will there be an alert? After half an hour, exhaustion wins. It has been forever since we slept through the night. I go sleep, like I have been now for a while, in pajamas, socks, and a head covering, with a sweater by my bed. Sure enough, at about 12.30, we are running to the bomb shelter. Par for the course right now.
It is 7.15 am, and I am on a bus. Phones start to buzz with a pre-siren alert. I sit tight, hoping we will not have a siren. Moments later, the siren starts to wail. The driver pulls over, and points at the sky. We can see the missile trails like strange, intersecting jet trails in the sky. As soon as the siren stops, he starts moving again. I remain frozen in place. I wonder if we will make it out intact, the fear of falling fragments is real. I feel relief we are moving, somehow feeling less vulnerable, and relief that I will not have to catch another bus. Another siren wails and the bus does not stop. I say Tehillim fervently as we hear boom after boom. I get off the bus and climb the hill to get to the school I work at. As I catch my breath, news starts to trickle in that there was a direct hit on Soroka hospital. I say more Tehillim and go to work with my heart breaking. In the back of my head, I wonder where I said the most intense prayers, in the shul shelter or on the bus.
It is about 3pm and I am finally home, after a long, long day. The tiredness has hit, along with being very shaken up.
As darkness sets in, the dread does too. What time will the siren be tonight? Will we all survive it? What is shrapnel falls? My apartment, with its lovely floor to ceiling windows feels so vulnerable. It is disconcerting to fear something I loved.
In between it all, I am talking to my aunt and uncle in the US. It is nice to have sympathy, and a voice of sanity. In between it all, I talk to my parents too. My sister has been staying with them, along with her son, because of a direct hit nearby. My sister-in-law tells me that she, her husband, and all four of their children are sleeping in the safe room of their apartment, so she won’t have to wake the kids at whatever time am. I see parents running into the bomb shelter, with babies clutched in their arms. Wait, what sanity?
It is 12am. We are once again in the shul bomb shelter, saying Tehillim, saying hello to the neighbors, and calming the children. Several children have been put to sleep in their strollers, so they can be taken to the bomb shelter without being disturbed. They sleep soundly. The murmurs of prayer, combine with the sing-song of Torah learning. I think that this is not the first time in our history that we Jews have been huddled for shelter, comforted only by Torah and prayer. The thought gives me some comfort as the booms continue outside.
Is 3.30pm, Erev Shabbos Kodesh. We have all abandoned our Shabbos prep as the sirens wail and the booms begin. I have another worry too. I was on the phone with my aunt when I got the pre alert. Is she worried? Will I be able to get out in time to light candles? The answer to all the above questions is yes. We all thank Hashem, and run home to continue to get ready for Shabbos.
It is 2.30am, it is Shabbos Kodesh. Once again, we have run to the shelter following a pre-alert. This time, there is no siren, but we stay until 3am just to be safe.
It is 7.30am Sunday. I am once again the bomb shelter/shul saying Tehillim fervently. I was about to leave for work when we got the alert, fully dressed and carrying a cake for one of my students to boot. My husband is in another shul this time, one with its own shelter. A second siren wails, and we keep saying Tehillim. In this surreal reality, there are some funny moments… on the men’s side, there are those in tallis and tefillin, and those in bathrobe in slippers. I get a ride to work with my father-in-law. We discuss the fact that the US bombed Fordow. I ask him if he thinks Moshiach is coming, and he replies that he does not discuss politics. I ponder that on the way to work.
There were no sirens Sunday night. Thank you Hashem! There were sirens instead Monday morning. We sit in the shelter from about 10.15 until about 11. We daven a lot. Somewhere, there is an odd feeling. A feeling of closeness to Hashem. A feeling of closeness to the neighbors. A feeling that I do not want to lose. A feeling that I wish did not come at such a cost, but it is overall, a nice feeling. Maybe, if we can be united, and closer to Hashem, this is all worth it.
Tuesday morning, 4.30 am, I am awake and unsure why. I go to the computer, and check the Home Front Command website. Alerts start to pour in for other parts of the country. When I see their spread, I become sure we will get one too. Sure enough, about 5am, we do. Down to the bomb shelter we go.
About 5.30, we get an all clear. Home again. Before there is time to dress, to digest, back we go. This happens twice more. Once, we get the alert before we are even home. Again, news trickles in, a hit in Ashkelon, a hit in Beer Sheva. Well, we are in a shul. It is a good place to pray, right? Then, there are rumors of a ceasefire. Some ceasefire, we think, as yet another alert comes in. We hear that the ceasefire starts at 7. So, many of us stay put until 7. Then we go home.
Tuesday evening. We hear that there is indeed a ceasefire. We hear that Trump is upset that both Iran and Israel broke it. (is it breaking a ceasefire to shoot back?). Yehuda will be back at work tomorrow. And the night is quiet. We try to sleep.
Wednesday, our 6th wedding anniversary. A feeling of gratitude to Hashem that we made it, and prayers for more years, years not be taken for granted.
Wednesday afternoon, on the way home from work, I stop outside the bomb shelter shul. I say a prayer of thanks to Hashem, and hope that the feeling of closeness will last.
Thursday morning, it is as though we all have emotional jetlag, and I sit down to write these thoughts, a mixture of thoughts in my head. Gratitude and hope, sadness and loss, all jumbled together.
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