I didn’t vote for Netanyahu. I don’t Like Trump. But I’m grateful for the missiles that missed us

My dad, a Pittsburgher, mentioned that friends and family have been asking him how we’re doing here in Israel. I’m really touched that people are curious and concerned, and I thought it might be helpful if I write about what we’ve experienced over the past week.

I am Larry Rubin’s second daughter. My husband, Barry, and I moved to Israel nine years ago with our four kids. We live in Efrat, which is about 25 minutes south of Jerusalem and next to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. I love it here. I work as a content writer in a tech firm and Barry runs a leadership consulting business.

The most recent string of events began last week when there was talk of Israel attacking Iran. Everyone had opinions about if/when this might happen, but no one was prepared for the sirens that went off at 3 a.m. Friday morning. When sirens go off it’s not just from outside, but every smart phone in the house shrieks and flashes. It’s a really jolting way to wake up. We are lucky that we have a private safe room in the basement of our house, so we all rushed there and slammed the door. Many people don’t have this luxury and they have to go outside to communal shelters.

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Since Oct. 7, we’ve had to use the safe room a number of times due to rockets from Hamas or the Houthis, so we know the drill. But the messages we received from the Home Front Command app were different this time. We learned that Israel had attacked Iran and we were expecting retaliation. When missiles are sent from Gaza or Yemen, we are allowed to leave the safe room after 10 minutes, which is enough time for the Iron Dome to intercept the explosive and for the shrapnel to fall. But ballistic missiles from Iran require a longer stay in the safe room, so we stayed for a while, processing the news. No one slept much that first night.

The next day we were told to stay near our safe rooms — all gatherings were restricted so that people would largely stay home. Synagogues would not be operating, schools and offices were closed, and only essential business would be open. Think of COVID lockdowns, but with more doom.

I went to the grocery store to buy food for Shabbat and snacks for the safe room. We weren’t sure how long we would have to be in there. The lines in the supermarket were snaking throughout the aisles, similar to when a blizzard is predicted and everyone runs to stock up. That night we had several sirens — each one requiring roughly 30 minutes in the safe room, and we spent Shabbat staying relatively close to home. We learned that Israel had successfully attacked Iran’s weapon stores and nuclear facilities, and also the Iranians had managed to hit in the center of the country.

By Saturday night we got the memo that all schools and places of work were closed indefinitely. My younger kids were wrapping up their school year anyway, so they are not missing actual learning, but they are missing end of the year parties and trips, sports events and all the great things that generally happen in June. My son’s yeshiva had to close since the safe rooms were not entirely adequate for this situation, so he is learning remotely now and living at home. My oldest son is needed at his army job, so he has been staying in his apartment in a suburb of Tel Aviv. I am working remotely. There’s no schedule or sense of how long this might last.

For the next several nights we were awakened by sirens and we had a few during the day. It became clear that Iran was targeting Tel Aviv, which meant that those of us in the greater Jerusalem area were not being attacked quite as frequently. Everyone here is tired and grumpy from lack of sleep and routine, but the kids have freedom to hang out with their friends as long as they are not far from a bomb shelter, and we’ve really been making the best of a crappy situation. I’m fortunate that my kids are not overly anxious — they don’t panic when there are sirens, and they happen to be at their wittiest when we’re in the shelter, so they keep me entertained and it reminds me that things could be so much worse. My brother Raimy, who lives in Rehovot, in the Tel Aviv area, is still getting multiple sirens a day. Missiles have hit buildings in his neighborhood. He has little kids at home who have nothing to do all day. So it’s been really hard. (For the record, I did invite him and his family to come stay with us, but for now they’d rather stay home … )

In case people want to know how I feel about the political players in this saga: I am not a fan of Netanyahu. I didn’t vote for him in any of the five elections we had over the past number of years. I think he was once a brilliant politician with strong ideals, but in an effort to stay in power he’s kept other leaders from being able to grow and develop under him, he’s sold out to special interest groups and he’s made a mess of things. I recognize that Oct. 7 happened on his watch, and I also don’t know if another politician could have pulled off this dramatic attack on Iran. So it’s confusing and complicated.

I really do not like Trump. He does not seem to value anything that I hold dear, and his words and actions make me ashamed that he is the president of the United States. I also don’t think that another politician would have enabled Israel to attack Iran successfully. Trump has greenlighted the sale of weapons to Israel that are directly responsible for keeping my family safe. I don’t like being grateful for President Trump, but when missiles are targeting my family, I feel gratitude toward everyone involved in intercepting them.

I’ll end by saying a bit about Gaza because I believe that mainstream American news does not report accurately about the situation. For decades, Hamas has taken aid from around the world and used it to build terror tunnels and fund terror activities for the sole purpose of killing Jews. They stole money from their own people in order to kill our people. Aid is being sent to Gaza daily and Hamas continues to steal it, starving the Palestinian people and using them as pawns in an attempt to convince the world that Israel is the bad guy.

Israel does not hate Arabs. Israel hates Arabs who want to kill Jews. Two million Arab Israeli citizens living alongside Jews in this country, and we have a ways to go in terms of learning how to live together seamlessly, but there is no animosity for Arabs who want to live peacefully in this region. There is no genocide in Gaza. Israel needs to wipe out the Hamas entity and the tunnel infrastructure to ensure that there will never be another Oct. 7. The Israeli army is not targeting civilians or denying them aid — civilians have been killed despite Israel’s best efforts, because war is awful and imprecise, and because Hamas uses women and children as human shields, insisting that they stay in the line of fire even when the Israeli army has warned them to leave. I don’t know why a reader would believe me over CNN and NPR — but remember a few weeks ago when the U.N. announced that 14,000 babies were about to starve to death in Gaza, sparking outrage across the world? And then just days later, when those babies did not die, the report was quietly walked back — because it was never true.

Or when a bomb fell in a hospital parking lot in Gaza earlier in the war and the media outlets shamed Israel for targeting a hospital? When it was determined that it was a Hamas missile that had hit the area, those same outlets failed to print retractions in any meaningful way. The narrative they want to see is that Israel is the aggressor. Just this morning Iran had a direct hit on Soroka Hospital near Be’er Sheva — but I don’t even know if this will make the American news.

But if tomorrow the Gazan people would return our hostages and swear off of terror, there would be no more war. You don’t have to like Netanyahu, or think that Israel is perfect, but I hope you’ll recognize that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are threats to Jews everywhere. Israel didn’t go looking for this fight — we don’t like sending our children to war. We very much want to live in peace and we will fight for that right if we must. As a Jew and as an Israeli, I am fiercely proud of what our nation has accomplished in Iran and I pray that there will be a long-term resolution in Gaza that allows Palestinians to live freely and prosperously as Israel’s neighbor.

It’s hard to keep this brief, as I clearly have much to say on this topic. And it’s unnerving to write this without knowing who will read it and what their politics are, but if you have any questions or if you’d like to be in touch, feel free to email me: Kallyrubin@gmail.com. Thank you for reading, may we all witness a peaceful Middle East very soon. PJC

Kally Rubin Kislowicz grew up in Pittsburgh, and made aliyah from Cleveland to Efrat in 2016.