This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

We heard the first siren at 8:13 a.m. on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 28th. It was no sur­prise; every­one spec­u­lat­ed about when it would start. We spent Sat­ur­day in and out of the bunker. 

Where I live, in the Hof HaCarmel region, it’s rel­a­tive­ly calm. When sirens sound in neigh­bour­ing areas, I go into my gar­den where I have a view of Mount Carmel. I’ve seen Iron Dome mis­siles rise up from the moun­tain range at night, like a star born from the earth, inter­cept­ing incom­ing mis­siles. I’ve seen shrap­nel fall like shoot­ing stars. I saw a mis­sile with a split­ting war­head dis­in­te­grate. It looked like a squid in the sky, one explod­ing head with explod­ing tentacles. 

In the past few years, I’ve felt fear and anx­i­ety, but I don’t feel them now. I’m trained, like a sol­dier, to jump up and run to the shel­ter at the sound of the siren. I’m trained to wait for the all-clear mes­sage, and then to con­tin­ue my day — robot­i­cal­ly, with­out too much thought or feeling. 

On the way to the shel­ter, I take a moment to scan the sky for falling shrap­nel, like a bird­watch­er search­ing for exot­ic spec­i­mens. There’s some­thing almost rou­tine about this kind of chaos: the unpre­dictable has become pre­dictable. Insta­bil­i­ty and change —para­dox­i­cal­ly — are constant. 

After every siren, when I leave the shel­ter, there’s no look­ing back. Keep your eyes on the moment ahead of you, walk for­ward one step at a time. Lot’s wife looked back — and we know where that got her. 

In this war, my strug­gle is not fear or anx­i­ety. It feels almost akin to the COVID lock­down, with all the help­less­ness and use­less­ness that comes with quarantine. 

Dark thoughts haunt me in the morn­ing. Will this war with Iran be the last? How long will it go on for? How much more of this can I get through? Dur­ing my morn­ing rit­u­als, I clear out the dark­ness like an incense burn­er clears a home. Morn­ing exer­cise is manda­to­ry; as is sit­ting in the sun, going on a walk with a friend, and eat­ing a healthy meal (to bal­ance out the sug­ar binges). Every morn­ing I wage an inner bat­tle: to read the news or not to read the news? Win or lose, this small bat­tle sets the tone for the rest of the day. 

Dur­ing the fight­ing with Iran, when the war­heads have mas­sive pay­loads, it’s noth­ing like the home­made Hamas rock­ets. There’s a feel­ing of play­ing Russ­ian roulette. No build­ing and no bunker will pro­tect against a direct hit. When I drift into exis­ten­tial thoughts, I imag­ine myself as a dancer bal­anc­ing on the tip of a spin­ning die. As long as I keep myself perched on the edge of the die, no mat­ter where it falls, it will nev­er be my num­ber. When the noise around me is very loud, when news sta­tions and social media are sat­u­rat­ed with shrill voic­es and con­flict­ing opin­ions, I imag­ine that all the noise is a mas­sive hur­ri­cane, dark and threat­en­ing, and I pic­ture myself walk­ing calm­ly through the eye of the storm. 

One breath at a time, one step at a time. 

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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