Thousands of Israelis lost their homes to Iranian missiles but thousands more Israelis have mobilised to clear the rubble, fix smashed windows, supply essentials to those who lost everything, furnish temporary accommodations and cook meals for anyone who needs.

Almost a week after the ceasefire and you could get whiplash from the speed with which Israelis have gone back to their regular routines. Streets are clogged with traffic, beaches are crowded (despite the arrival of seasonal jellyfish in many places), kids finally had their end of year graduations, summer camps are gearing up for the end of the school year, plays and shows are back on at theatres and clubs and people are back to holding hostage vigils in public places that are once again crowded.

And here and there as you drive through certain Israeli cities you suddenly come across a damaged street or building, some hoardings with a bombed out building peaking out, some historic old buildings with shattered tile roofs or broken windows, repair work ongoing.

The Weizmann Institute lost its cancer research building to an Iranian missile but the campus has reopened and some of the world's most dedicated scientists and grad students are back to working on making life saving breakthroughs.

The war against Hamas continues. Down in fields and greenhouses near the border you can still hear it, the pursuit of gunmen who helped orchestrate the atrocities of October 7, the dismantling of yet more attack tunnels, weapons caches and booby trapped buildings. Despite the weakening of Hamas the work remains dangerous. In the last week alone more soldiers have fallen in the ongoing fight for Israel's safety. We are acutely aware of the price of freedom and security.

Tomorrow will be a better day

In the scheme of things while our country is at war this is a very minor issue, but for my daughter who has been passionate about Gilbert and Sullivan her whole life this is huge. She's probably one of the greatest G&S experts in Israel, she knows all their productions, the stories of the actors and singers who first performed them, the historical background to when and how they were staged, every detail about the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

She's always dreamt of being part of full production of G&S and this year she finally had the chance, singing in the chorus in one of her favourites, "Yeoman of the Guard". I hear her practicing each day, voice exercises, snippets of songs, accompanying herself on her guitar or piano, devoting

hours of her spare time to getting it just right. She's been so excited (and nervous) about opening night this week, glowing with enthusiasm.

It was already a wartime project, something to focus on away from the news and concern for all her friends currently serving in the military.

Then came this new war. What should have been a dress rehearsal became a remote zoom rehearsal and of course no one knows when they will be able to perform. Opening night should have been tonight.

It feels tone deaf to say any of this right now. People have lost their lives, their homes, been stranded overseas, been stuck for hours in shelters, received yet another emergency call up to the army leaving their families and lives on hold for who knows how long.

And this is sadly a very necessary existential war against a foe who has pledged time and time again to wipe out Israel. When someone keeps saying they want you destroyed and embarks on a programme to develop nuclear weapons and an extensive array of missiles you take that threat very seriously.

But that doesn't change the pang every parent feels at watching our kids' lives turned upside down yet again. These are the kids who's schooling, graduations, teen social lives and so much more were messed up by covid pandemic chaos. These are kids who've lived through so many wars, rockets, terrorism and then October 7th and the ensuing war. So much loss and trauma, so many interrupted and cancelled plans, so many times "normal" life has had to be put on hold.

Things that seem trivial or like frivolities, but really are the little (and often big) things life is made of, the chance to be in a play, an overseas trip, camping with friends, an internship, summer camps, going to see a show or a concert. Simply going out for a run or a bike ride without having to plan the route according to wear one can take cover. Playing in the park without first figuring out if it will be close enough to shelter in case of an air raid siren.

These ordinary and special things, experiences kids should have, but which get cancelled, postponed or adapted. And that last is the key. Because our kids haven't given up, they still plan and dream, they have their eyes on the future. They have learnt to adapt, to be all the more creative, to be resilient. With my own kids, but also when I'm out volunteering or in the park or wherever I meet youngsters so full of resolve, with a sense of purpose and a determination that they will create a better world and a brighter future, they will protect their country and care for those who need caring for. But they will also have fun and enjoy life and find ways to be happy in the now, however difficult that may seem.

So my daughter keeps rehearsing, practices her parts, does her voice exercises. She's going to do this, whether it's next week or next month, the show must go on and she's so looking forward.

Maybe it's hard for people outside of Israel to understand, but this is not some kind of baseless "hatred" between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, most Israelis feel an affinity and great sympathy with the Iranian people who have suffered under the brutal rule of the radical Islamist regime since Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution in brought him to power in 1979. Prior to that revolution Israel and Iran enjoyed warm friendly relations. Khomeini's new regime broke off relations with Israel and designated Israel an enemy.

The campaign against Israel is part of the ideology of Khomeini and his followers, a twisted regime built on his specific interpretation of a specific stream within the Twelver Shiism sect of Islam.

Khomeini despite being a Shii was influenced by the Sunni Egyptian Jihadi theologian Sayid Qutb, one of the leading ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Qutb's works inspired his ideas on revolutionary Islam, but also anti-Semitism (Qutb was virulently anti-Western, but also anti-Jewish and obsessed with various conspiracy theories about the Jews).

Both the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran and Hamas in Gaza are offshoots of Qutb's ideas and share a common root, despite Hamas being Sunni and Khomeini being Shii.

Historically there were streams within Shii Islam for whom concepts of purity and impurity were fundamental, and at various times in the history of both Iran and Shii areas of Yemen, there were Islamist theocratic regimes who issued edicts against non-Muslims, especially Jews, based on this belief that they were "unclean" and threatened to "contaminate" the pure Shii population.

Thus at various times during the Islamic period in Iran there were laws stating that Jews could not go outside in the rain in case a raindrop touched both a Jew and a Muslim, Jews had to step off the pavement if a Muslim came towards them in case they should touch the Muslim and so defile him and so on.

There were also periods of forced conversion and pogroms, most infamously in Meshhad, where the Jews were given an ultimatum in the late 18th century to either convert or die, some Jews fleeing to other communities such as Herat in Afghanistan, others choosing to publicly convert to Islam while in secret living as Jews like the Marranos in Inquisition Spain.

Despite this history though there were many periods when Jews in Iran were able to flourish and enjoy good relations both with their Muslim neighbours and the ruling dynasty. The Jewish presence in Iran predates the advent of Islam there by many centuries. There was a Jewish community there since biblical times, when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnetzer exiled vast numbers of people from the Kingdom of Israel to his empire. The Purim story happened in Persia. The connection between our peoples is long.

The State of Israel enjoyed good relations with Pahlavi dynasty ruled Iran in the first decades of Israeli independence when Jews from Iran were free to travel to Israel and many made aliya out of Zionist beliefs, not because they were fleeing hardship.

Israel to this day has close cultural ties with Iran. In modern Israel there is a large community of Jews of Iranian descent, including leading Israeli singers such as Rita, the various members of the legendary Banai family, Rita's niece Liraz Charhi and modern day litugical composer and singer Maureen Nehedar. All have released music with Persian influences, several have recorded albums of Farsi music. Iranian Jews have held high office in Israel, including commanding the IDF and Israeli Air Force and President of the State of Israel.

And yet for the Islamist regime in Iran Israel is a thorn in the side of their vision of "pure" Islamic Middle East under their concept of Shii theocratic hegemony.

To this end Khomeini and his successor Khameinei have invested great resources in working towards Israel's destruction. They have built up proxies in Shii communities throughout the Middle East, weaponised them into revolutionary militias to become vehicles of Khomeinist influence in their communities, tentacles of a military infrastructure designed to both project Iranian Islamist ideology and power, but also to encircle Israel in a destructive noose. Hizballah in Lebanon, assorted militias in Shii majority Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, even Sunni Hamas in Gaza and further afield.

This deep seated ideological and theological hatred of Israel is at the heart of this war. The Islamist regime has been conducting this war against Israel for decades now via its proxies, all the while developing Iran's own capacity to wage direct war against Israeli via the development of increasingly powerful long range missiles and drones, and its nuclear weapons project. All the while a clock in central Tehran counted down the minutes and hours to Israel's destruction at the hand of the regime.

Israel waited for years for Western diplomacy with the government of Iran to yield some kind of detente, or at least a moratorium on Iran's nuclear and missile programme. To no avail. The Islamic revolutionary regime continued working on the means to destroy Israel even in the face of Western sanctions, diplomacy and negotiations. The decision of the Biden administration to unfreeze Iranian bank accounts only served to hasten the Iranian project by freeing up funds to finance the plan to destroy Israel.

Which brings us to now. Israel could wait no longer to take decisive action against the Iranian nuclear weapons programme and the increased production of deadly ballistic missile and drones to deliver this doomsday payload.

For years leaders of Iran's regime have pledged to wipe Israel off the map. They backed up these threats with military action via their proxies and an advanced weapons programme of increasingly sophisticated missiles and drones, plus work to manufacture their own nuclear weapons. This is an existential threat that Israel can't ignore. When someone pledges to kill you over and over and over again while engaging in a build up of ever more destructive weapons you have to take that threat seriously to protect your citizens. That is what Israeli is doing now, launching a pre-emptive strike at the eleventh hour as Iran is on the cusp of building their nuclear bombs.

I just wanted to update everyone that we're OK, very tired, but doing OK.

Friday evening until Saturday morning we had barrage after barrage of ballistic missiles to our area, constant air raid sirens. The missiles from Iran have been targeting civilian areas, towns and cities, crowded residential areas.

Thankfully most missiles were intercepted but a few still got through that there were casualties including fatalities and extensive damage in the crowded cities of central Israel. Our immediate area was safe but we heard the interceptions and impacts loudly.

At one point the whole building shook and the heavy reenforced steel blast door of our shelter shook. I was the only with a direct view, and the way the door vibrated I almost wondered if it was going to implode. It was just a second or two, a brief, massive boom when everything shook, but it seemed to stretch out so long. We found out later that one of the missiles had scored a direct hit on a town about 15 miles from us decimating a residential street and killing two people, wounding others. What we felt was the edge of the shockwave from that blast all this distance away.

Our shelter is small, windowless and underground, very hot and stuffy, but we are very grateful to have it. It's like human tetris trying to get everyone in at night when people just want to sleep but there isn't room for the whole family to lie down at the same time.

We tried to make things a bit more light hearted for the kids, joked about having a "picnic dinner" in the shelter, joked that it was really silly we made soup because nope, no way we were eating hot soup in a crowded little shelter. And we sang together, and we read Psalms together and prayed too.

We've been through a lot of rocket and missile attacks but this is the most intense I can remember. The missiles from Iran are much bigger, more lethal and pack a far larger warhead than those fired at us by Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis. The damage one of these things can do, just one, is far greater, and we had plenty of damage from the smaller rockets. It's always terrifying to know that someone is shooting projectiles at you, whether they are smaller or bigger, they are all designed to kill, but this time is definitely more terrifying still. We've had hundreds of these huge Iranian missiles fired at us, even if only a very few get through the air defences, that's a lot of damage.

I'm awake at 0230 because we just had another alert to get to shelter because of expected incoming missiles in our area. Again. All night there have been air raid sirens in the north and far south, I think attack drones from Yemen and ballistic missiles from Iran. Now the densely populated central Israeli cities are being targeted again.

We can hear explosions in the distance, getting closer. Sirens going again now for us. Lots of booms and thuds. We're following local civil defense instructions, staying in our shelter, listening to the alerts, hoping and praying for the best.

Middle Eastern elders

As with the Houthis attacks on Israel, there is an extreme irony in the way the modern Iranian Islamic Republic has gone after Israel with a single minded hatred.

Very simply, there are vast numbers of Iranians in Israel. Most of them Jews, yes, but still with a deep connection to Iranian language, history and culture.

Israeli Jews and Iranians are after all the most prominent remnants in the Middle East of the region's ancient civilisations, predating the Arab and Islamic conquest and to this day clinging to languages and literature that tell the story of the time before it was Arabicised and Islamified.

Unlike the Jews, most Persians lost their ancient religion and became Islamified, even adopting the Arabic script for writing the Farsi language. And yet they retained a keen sense of Persian history and identity, that they were scions to one of the ancient Middle East's greatest empires, a vibrant and influential civilisation who's ruins remain in stunning archaeological sites across Iran and in Iranian literature and folklore, most famously the Shahnameh national epic, and even imprints on the languages and cultures of the Arab and Turkish empires who supplanted them, with both Arabic and Turkish full of loan words derived from Farsi, including terms relating to court life and government, such was the inlfluence and stature of Persian culture even in the eyes of those who sought to dominate it.

Iranians and Jews, Iranians and Israelis, share this feeling of being the older siblings of the modern Middle Eastern peoples, repositories of knowledge of times and cultures buried under the conquests of later civilisations. This kinship of fellow ancient peoples has come up in conversation with many Iranians over the years, both nations appearing in the Bible. Maybe that's the reason Khomeini and his successor Khamenai held such a deep hatred for Israel, Israel reminded them of their own pre-Islamic roots, a nation standing up for its identity and culture, a lone non-Muslim majority country in the heart of the Middle East, a people with a different language and a different script from all their neighbouring Arab and Islamic states.

Jews from Iran and neighbouring Judeo-Parsi speaking communities such as Afghanistan and Bukhara, were among the first to return to Zion in the modern period and develop the city of Jerusalem beyond the walls of the historic Old City during the 19th century. The names of wealthy Bukharan and Persian Jewish benefactors from this period can still be seen on historic Jerusalem buildings originally built as orphanages, soup kitchens, synagogues and community housing for the Jews of Jerusalem. Israel became the biggest world centre for Persian Jewry.
Unlike Jews from most of the rest of the Islamic Middle East, most Iranian Jews came to the Land of Israel out of Zionism rather than as refugees because they had been expelled. Until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran Israel had close ties to the country, with shared economic and military interests. Israelis and Iranians visited each others countries, shared technology and intelligence. 

With Israel home to the largest community of Persian Jews in the world they could be found in all parts of Israeli society, from working class artisans and shop keepers in the markets to prominent musicians, senior generals, a Chief Rabbi and president and more. 

Just as there is something absurd about the Houthis in Yemen attacking Israel with its large, thriving, Yemeni Jewish community, so too the notion of the Iranian leadership counting down Israel's destruction with a giant clock in Teheran and a nuclear and missile programme they openly describe as being developed to wipe Israel off the map. 

Precious ordinary

I'm functioning on coffee and adrenalin this today after a mostly sleepless night following the 3am wake up call from Israel's emergency alert system broadcast on all frequencies.

The war has gone on so long that what's known here as "emergency routine", ie trying to keep as "normal" a routine as possible in the shadow of a most abnormal wartime situation, has become the new normal. Loads of people drafted to the reserves, hostages still suffering in the Hamas tunnels under Gaza, constant air raid sirens due to missiles fired by the Houthis in Yemen... But I've been wanting to be able to write something simple and genuinely normal for so long, just something normal, because in between the abnormal we fit in the ordinary and even the special, but with so much going on around us the ordinary becomes all the more precious and we are grateful for it.

And now we're being instructed to stay close to shelter and to wait for something even more abnormal, a new emergency on top of the existing wartime crisis. The country has been told to shut down, everyone is to stay home close to shelter. So we wait and we pray and we hope it will blow over.

I wanted to be able to write about something normal but at least I can write about food.

We're lucky that our shelter is near the kitchen, so we are staying close and cooking for Shabbat. It's a cliche, but we do have a lot of ripe bananas so my husband is making banana bread. My son made a cheese and vegetable quiche Thursday evening, before he went to bed.

We have hallah and lots of other things in the freezer: bean barley soup, moussaka, various smoked fishes, a few fillets of hake and Nile perch, a whole chicken, cakes and blintzes leftover from the recent Shavuot holiday, some bags of frozen vegetables. The cupboard in our shelter is well stocked with tins and packaged foods, water.

Food preparation is a good way to keep busy, try not to think too much, hope we'll be able to do a supply run to my elderly uncle round the corner because he'd been planning to shop Friday morning. We always make extra portions so we can stock his freezer too.

It turns out that what you do while wondering if Iran is going to fire (nuclear?) missiles and maybe armageddon is cook for Shabbat while staying close to the shelter and praying and hoping for a miracle of peace.

Jaffa Nights

3am Israel time we had air raid sirens and emergency alerts on all frequencies warning us to get to the bomb shelters.

We are used to air raid sirens, or as used to them as one can ever be, the Houthis militias in Yemen fire missiles at us on a regular basis, thankfully almost always intercepted in the upper atmosphere before they hit.

Tonight though we could feel it was something different. It wasn't just an air raid siren, it was the warnings on all frequencies and the special Home Front directive immediately cancelling all large gatherings and warning everyone to stay close to shelter, make sure that they had supplies of water, food that doesn't require cooking, hygiene supplies, medications etc because an incoming amissile ttack was expected soon.

Which is why it's 0432 and I'm wide awake with a stomach full of butterflies from the waiting. Could be imminent, could be tomorrow, days from now, who knows.

Hard to believe that a few nights ago on the spur of the moment my husband and I actually went out for the evening. It was the Islamic holiday of Eid al Adha and the seafront town of Jaffa was lit up with holiday fairy lights, restaurants full of Muslim families enjoying festive meals, the seaside promenade had a party atmosphere packed with families strolling and picnicking, the air a heady mix of seasalt and the sweet aroma of apple and fruit flavoured tobacco from the nargilla (sheesha) pipes being smoked by groups of laughing and smiling men in their holiday finery.

At the marina giggling young women and families with children enjoyed boat rides on pleasure craft decked out in colourful lights, upbeat Arabic dance music blaring from speakers.
At a music club near the old docks people were standing on the terrace enjoying drinks from the bar as they waited for a performance of the Gipsy Kings to begin. The Gipsy Kings! My husband was driving and I don't really drink, so we were sipping on water, delighted to have found ourselves standing space right up front near the stage, the set list tapes to the boards right in front of us. The organisers apologised for a slightly late start, with so many revellers out for Eid and the hundreds of concert goers it was taking more time than usual for everyone to find parking. And then the Gipsy Kings came on stage and whisked us all away to faraway places and the nostalgia of our school years, songs in languages we only partly understood but vibrant rhythms and melodies combined with soulful voices that were as electric as when we were kids.

It was a wonderfully dynamic, upbeat concert, most of us dancing our way through, right up front, eye contact with the smiling guitarist right there, shared appreciation of the happy vibes all around, the infectious positive energy.

More even though than the beautiful music, the smiling warmth of the crowd and the frivolity of just having fun was the simple, blissful escapism of feeling normal, completely, peacefully, normally normal.

And we got through the whole evening with no sirens.