Inspiration from Zion: This is a Love Story

“I hope I don’t see you again.”

That’s not something normal people say to their neighbors. But these are not normal times—even for Israel. And when I said it, I got a smile, a hug, and the same words back: “I hope I don’t see you again either.”

When the siren screams at 3:00 a.m., we bolt out of bed, grab whatever clothes we can, and run to the shelter. There we wait, bleary-eyed: the nice neighbor, the annoying one, the one with two dogs, the elderly couple from the next building who have no shelter of their own, the couple with the newborn—born into war. We listen for the booms, trying to tell which are interceptions and which are impacts. How many? How close?

Explosions always sound nearby. But when one hits close—when the building shakes, your body shakes—you understand how far away the other ones really were.

Eventually, the all-clear sounds, and we file out of the shelter with that rude everywhere but here farewell: “I hope I don’t see you again.”

Not here. Not like this.

We’ve been in and out of the shelter a lot lately.

Operation Rising Lion introduced us to a new kind of missile—monsters the size of buses, with half-ton payloads that make neighborhoods look like earthquake zones or Ground Zero after 9/11. The devastation is worse than anything Hamas or Hezbollah ever rained down on us.

The fear is real.

People around the world are watching. Can even our friends truly picture what we’re going through? What would I think if I had stayed in America and never made Aliyah?

Do people picture us screaming, panicking? Desperately looking for ways to escape, and leave the country, run from the danger? Or maybe they think it’s not so bad, because we haven’t collapsed. Neither is true.

One neighbor’s daughter did throw up from stress once. But generally, the worse it gets, the quieter Israelis become. A room full of normally loud and boisterous Israelis sitting in silence, listening to booms that are way too close, is creepy. So many break the silence with jokes. Sometimes political analysis. Others discuss what food we should bring next time. If we have to be up in the middle of the night, we may as well enjoy ourselves…

After twelve days of sleepless nights and adrenaline-soaked days, I’m exhausted. The stress wore down my immune system, and of course, I got sick. I feel like I’ve been steamrolled. I am grateful I don’t have small children to protect now… that would make the challenge much more extreme.

And yet—I wouldn’t trade places with anyone in the world.

This war didn’t begin twelve days ago. And it didn’t end with President Trump’s ceasefire.

It started on October 7th, when Iran’s proxy in Gaza invaded our land. They raped, tortured, burned, and slaughtered entire families. They took hostages—some alive, some dead.

Iran had been preparing for this for decades. Carefully. Systematically. They built a ring of proxies around us—Hamas, Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, Houthis in Yemen. They built missile factories, raced to develop nuclear weapons, and placed a countdown clock in Tehran, marking the day of our destruction.

They’ve been methodically planning another Holocaust. And they almost succeeded.

But they woke the sleeping lion. A breath before it was too late, we remembered who we are—not Jews with trembling knees, waiting for the pogrom to pass. We are Maccabees. We meant it when we said: Never Again.

Israel rose like a lion.

One by one, we confronted each proxy. Hamas in the south. Hezbollah in the north. The Houthis, the Iraqi militias. And then we turned to the source: Iran.

A country 75 times our size. And in 12 days, we changed everything. The clock ticking to our genocide is no more.

Our tiny nation gained air dominance. Alone.

We paved the way to eliminate the nuclear threat that endangered not just Israel, but America and the entire free world.

It’s a terrible thing to have to stand alone. We have and we could again if necessary but unprecedented collaboration with the United States enabled a swifter, safer obliteration of the nuclear threat from Iran. Perhaps not completely, but enough to remove the sword from our throats.

We also destroyed most of their ballistic capabilities. We saw what just a few of their missiles could do. I shudder to think what hundreds—or thousands—could have done.

Iran’s genocidal intent is not gone, but the capability, at least for now, is.

Still, the war isn’t over. A ceasefire is not the same as unconditional surrender. It is not a solution, it’s a delay of the problem. Iran’s regime still stands. Hamas still holds our hostages. The proxies are still out there. So yes, sooner or later, I’ll probably see my neighbors in the shelter again.

But the thought of going elsewhere never crossed my mind. A friend of mine got stuck abroad during these 12 days, and I actually felt sorry for her. She missed out on what it feels like to be part of the rising lion.

There is no place I’d rather be.

For 2,000 years, Jews dreamed of returning home and living free in our ancestral homeland. Now we are completing that dream – to not only return, but to live freely.

The victory over Iran marks a new dawn. We are teaching our neighbors and the world that we are Zion, home to stay. Their violence will not make us leave. There will be no more Holocausts.

And once the hope of destroying the Jews is eliminated, or at least set aside, there will be room for peace and prosperity, unlike anything the world has seen before.

Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?