Views from a bomb shelter: All alone amid a cacophony of missile booms – comment

October 2024 started out with a bang in the worst possible way. When news came of over 500 missiles launched from Iran at Israel, I wasn’t safe at home or at work with my colleagues. I was stuck at my father’s home in Modi’in, waiting for a grocery delivery not knowing if his flight would even make it home in time for Rosh Hashanah. 

As the alerts popped up on my phone and the sirens started wailing outside, I grabbed my computer and headed into the bomb shelter, closed the door, and listened as the evening silence was interrupted by a cacophony of telltale “booms” from missile interceptions. 

I first went about trying to continue my work, as well as I could with poor wi-fi and a lack of air conditioning and proper ventilation in my father’s apartment. There is always that desire Israelis seem to have of fighting for normalcy, to keep pushing forward and not let the fact that dangerous missiles are flying toward us, only luck and IDF innovation standing between us and a possible demise. 

How do we keep sane? 

Keeping up that veneer of normalcy is easier than it sounds. But it’s a mask, hiding our own abject terror at a sense of danger we have no control over.

And for me, it’s made worse by the fact that while I’m in Modi’in, my fiance and two cats are still in Jerusalem. So is my grandmother. So are most of my friends and coworkers. At first, I took solace in the fact that Jerusalem is safe – Jerusalem is always safe after all. Then I got the alerts for Jerusalem, and my mask crumbled. 

Jerusalem isn’t exactly known for having accessible safe rooms. Would they be okay? 

As I write this, I keep trying to make sure everyone is okay, trying to calm down my own panicked heart. I want to believe that “together, we will win.” But right now, in this bomb shelter in Modi’in, I’m all alone. And all I can do is hope that everything will be okay, that my loved ones and I will see tomorrow.