I went to sleep on Thursday night, June 12, having seen the following day’s Jerusalem Post headline: “Israel considers striking Iran in coming days.” It didn’t look good, but it didn’t look imminent, either. But life – and fighting for it – is full of surprises.
I half woke up at 6:30 Friday morning, checked the news, and saw that what we had thought was a possible future event the night before had already begun – with five waves of airstrikes. I gasped groggily and sleepily sobbed a little before fully waking up.
My wife had decided not to wake me at 3 a.m. when the first of many warnings was broadcast on everyone’s phones. This one announced that Israel had just preemptively attacked Iran and that Israelis should prepare for more alerts and sirens telling us to get out of bed and into our safe rooms, shared/public bomb shelters, or protected spaces nearby.
“More important for you to sleep,” she told me in the morning, sharing what I had missed a few hours earlier.
Waking up to Operation Rising Lion
I surely did not feel like a “Rising Lion” as I woke up – although that’s what Israel is calling the surprise attack against its mortal enemy about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) away – only about 12 minutes by ballistic missile.
The Post and I were not the only ones who were surprised at what was happening. Basically everyone, including Iran, was bluffed by the POTUS/PM Western-Mideastern leadership duo of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The sports group I look forward to every Friday morning had just been canceled because gatherings outside were now banned. “Anyone who wants to come anyway – come at your own risk,” a chat group admin wrote. “And take care of yourselves.”
My daughter’s graduation ceremony this week would also be postponed, as well as the concert another daughter had invited me to in Herzliya – and basically everything else eventful that was supposed to happen in much of Israel, many events being canceled or postponed indefinitely.
Israel sees this as a necessary, “commanded” war (milhemet mitzvah), having decided that time has run out for what have apparently been futile and diversionary negotiations. There are 613 biblical commandments, and the Jewish state began this war (coincidentally?) on 6/13. It was also this year’s only Friday the 13th – a rather unlucky one for Iran.
WE WERE all preparing and bracing for what was expected to be a ballistic Shabbat in Jerusalem. I went to get water at the local mini-market, but they had already run out. “We’ll get more on Sunday,” the manager said. Not wanting to wait until then, I went to the local supermarket and got a few of the last six packs of 1.5-liter bottles that were left.
We prepared ourselves and our safe room for the expected retaliation. There is a public shelter in the deep recesses of a building across the street for those who don’t have their own – or feel safer or want to be more sociable in a public one.
Right after I had made “Kiddush” on Friday night, the first siren went off. We decided there wasn’t time to wash hands for bread to then start eating in the safe room, so we went right in – and very soon after heard the first Iron Dome defensive booms shooting down Iranian missiles. We were already used to this from when Iran had attacked twice in 2024, but this felt different – like they were more angry and desperate. We waited the recommended 10 minutes and came out of our safe room to continue the Shabbat meal.
A few minutes later, when the main course was about to be served, the second siren of the evening sounded, sending us back in. This was not going to be an easy Friday night. Another siren woke us up in the wee hours; we stumbled back into the bomb shelter, then back to sleep after we had waited long enough.
The morning after
IN THE morning, my wife and daughter went to a local synagogue but came back an hour early. “They rushed through the prayers and Torah reading,” my wife said, “and the bar mitzvah kiddush that was supposed to happen got postponed.”
This congregation is a mix of National Religious (dati leumi) and ultra-Orthodox (haredi) members. She told me that most of the former didn’t come: We figured that they were following Home Front Command orders, and some of the men might have gone back – again – to military reserve duty. The haredim who came must have believed that they were following a higher Commander who wanted them to come together for religious prayer duty.
But as I was told by a well-known member of the congregation – who was stuck overseas in the Czech Republic trying to get back – the two different approaches are mutually respected, and those holding them happily coexist.
I had gone to a different neighborhood shul, where another bar mitzvah kiddush did take place – in the bomb shelter.
The celebrating family actually has Iranian roots. All of the boy’s grandparents, who came from Los Angeles and Atlanta for his bar mitzvah – and are now stuck here because of the war – had escaped from their homeland after the 1979 revolution. The man I spoke to from the other synagogue said that they also have several Islamic Revolution escapees.
After Shabbat, we heard that our more northern compatriots didn’t have such a peaceful one: They had been bombarded with over 200 ballistic missiles, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 200 others.
So, while Israel continues to attack Iran over 1,000 miles away, we were fortunate to spend Shabbat with some escaped Iranian expats and their families, who have been rushing, like us, into their own bomb shelters – fleeing once again from the current iteration of the genocidal Iranian regime they had fled from more than four decades ago.
May free Iranians soon be able to say, “Malateh Iran zendeh hast” – “the nation of Iran lives,” as we say, “Am Yisrael chai” – “the nation of Israel lives.”