Becoming Israeli — One Missile Attack at a Time

I chose to move to Israel without ever setting foot in it because I believe, deep in my soul, we are fighting for a future that felt out of reach anywhere else.

photo: Stamatina Kiriazou/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay written by Hether Warshauer, who writes the newsletter “Finding Simcha.”

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Writer’s Note: As I’m writing this, we are still cleaning up glass and debris. On June 22nd, an undetected ballistic missile from Iran hit my block. The missile landed directly on a beautiful park fountain, built in 1921, striking 142 feet (40 meters) from my front door while no sirens sounded. Thank g-d, there wasn’t more damage to our apartment, and we were able to go back home that evening. However, over 100 of my neighbors lost their homes. This essay is an attempt to process the last few weeks.

I arrived in Israel for the first time in August 2024 on an aliyah¹ flight from Miami.

It was my 36th birthday, and I’d never been to Israel before. Not even once. Not on Birthright, not on vacation, not even for a layover while working in the region. My husband made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) 13 years earlier, but I had always stayed in the “maybe someday” category — until it became someday.

On a bright and sticky August morning, we landed with our two corgis, Golda and Moshe, too many suitcases, and more hope than plan.

Arriving in Haifa in the shadow of the October 7th massacre, I saw a beautiful city in a country deep in the throes of Operation Swords of Iron (Israel’s name for the Israel-Gaza war). The trauma was still ongoing, and the tension was palpable. Then, about a week after we arrived, attacks from Hezbollah escalated as the IDF began targeted strikes in southern Lebanon. It was a “Welcome to Israel” initiation under fire.

We’ve been through alerts before, as well as missile attacks from Iran, but now? This is something else entirely.

This is the first time ballistic missiles from Iran have broken through Israel’s air defense systems. It’s terrifying in a way that no drill or previous round of rocket fire prepared us for.

We thought we understood the rhythm of war: sirens, a 60-second dash, 10 minutes in the bomb shelter, and then back to life. But this is different.

During the latest Israel-Iran war, we spent 30-to-40 minutes underground each time, often multiple times a day. Golda ate stress crumbs off the ground. Moshe barked at anything and everything. Their morale, all things considered, was high because we keep plenty of duck jerky snacks in the go-bag.

After a missile hit a little too close to home (about a half a mile away), we decided that the underground shelter in our building wasn’t the safest option. Although it’s technically underground, it is mostly used for storage because it doesn’t have a proper blast door. It has concrete walls, oddly damp cushions, and some old construction materials in the corner.

Eventually, for two days, we joined our neighbors in the mad dash to the nearest public bomb shelter: three flights down, across the street, then down two more into an underground bunker.

Until one day, we didn’t make it. The sirens came too quickly and explosions followed. We turned back and huddled in the basement miklat (Hebrew for bomb shelter) as the building shook above us. It was the single scariest moment of my life.

And amidst the chaos, I still went to work praying that the sirens didn’t sound while I was on the bus.

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I’m a writer at northern Israel’s largest referral hospital, and since the beginning of the war, nearly all operations moved entirely underground.

The hospital is home to the world’s largest fortified underground emergency facility, built for wartime and opened in the shadow of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. As someone who has worked in international development and emergency response for 15 years, I can see on a daily basis how and why Israel sets the global standard for healthcare and health system preparedness.

Within 15 hours of the first siren, our hospital moved underground. Entire departments from areas of the hospital that aren’t fortified like oncology, internal medicine, the ICU, and even labor and delivery were relocated as we transformed the main underground parking structure into a five-acre underground emergency hospital.

We don’t just prepare for emergencies in Israel; we plan decades ahead so that life goes on as much as possible in times of crisis.

I’m a storyteller by trade — sometimes through research proposals, sometimes through reports and press releases. But most days, I translate the unthinkable into something human, something people can feel.

I spent my career working in the post-disaster space, watching from a far as the rebuilding phase begins, and it’s always felt meaningful. Now, it feels different because I’m actively living it. I’m living through this alongside some of bravest people that I have ever met.

To me, this war is personal — not something on CNN or BBC where I can pontificate about “what Israel should have done” from the quiet safety of my home in the United States. Instead, I show the reality. These stories aren’t just mine to share; they’re what’s keeping me grounded.

So I keep writing, keep telling my story by capturing the moments that matter, even when everything feels like it’s unraveling. All while refreshing the Home Front Command app, deciding if I can squeeze in a shower before the next siren.

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Many, many people have asked us why we moved to Israel. Why now? Why here? And more recently: Why aren’t you leaving?

There’s no easy answer.

The primary reason was fertility treatment. Israel offers some of the most comprehensive access in the world. We spent three years in the U.S. undergoing an infertility workup that drained our savings. We walked away with an invoice for $60,000 in medically necessary IVF. A price far too steep for a teacher and a government employee, so we did a cost-benefit analysis. In the end, we packed up our lives in America and moved to Israel.

The rest of it was grief. My husband lived in Tel Aviv for many years before we met. October 7th cracked something open in us both, and there was a pull toward Israel, our Jewish identities, and a need to start over somewhere that could hold both our heartbreak and our hope for the future.

But the most honest answer? Because it felt like the right decision for our future and our future family. Even with all the unknowns, even during war.

My husband already understood the nuances of Israel: its rhythm, absurdities, and bureaucracies. I was still learning how to pronounce kupat cholim (national health insurance) when the first siren went off. We hadn’t even received our shipment with all our belongings.

I’m not the same person that I was a few weeks ago. It’s not just the war. It’s the war layered on top of being an olah hadasha (new immigrant to Israel). It’s the exhaustion of adapting to life in Israel mixed with the adrenaline of survival. It’s the full-body shaking when your phone makes a single beep. It’s Moshe barking his little head off every time my parents call from America. It’s Googling whether it’s normal for Golda to tremble this much during sirens. (It is.)

And still, life goes on.

“It will be okay” is a mantra here; Yihyeh beseder, in Hebrew. We say it even when we don’t believe it. Not because it’s empty optimism, but because the alternative is unraveling.

Do I believe it?

Some days, yes. Some days, absolutely not. But I say it anyway. I whisper it to Golda and Moshe. I repeat it to my husband. It’s on loop in my inner monologue because saying it makes it feel just a little more true.

I don’t know what will happen next. None of us do. There is a fragile ceasefire ending the current round of hostilities, but the Iranian regime still has ballistic missiles and nuclear bomb delusions. Hezbollah operatives are still loading rocket launchers on Israel’s northern border. Gaza still simmers, and 50 hostages remain in Hamas captivity.

What I do know is this: I chose to move to Israel without ever setting foot in it because I believe, deep in my soul, in the meaning behind Am Yisrael Chai (the Nation of Israel lives). We didn’t come here because it’s easy or cheap; we came because we were fighting for a future that felt out of reach anywhere else.

After years of what felt like failure, we made a sacrifice: to move to the only place that gave us a real chance to build the family we dream of. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. We knew there might be war. We came anyway. Because we want our children to grow up as proud Jews and Israelis, never apologizing for who they are. Because, even now, under fire, the dream hasn’t changed.

This is where we fight for our future. This is where our family begins. This is home.

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1. Hebrew for immigration to Israel