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Living Between Sirens in Israel
Dear Editor:
As a child growing up in America, I often wondered how Israelis lived with constant terrorism. I would hear about terrorist attack after attack, and I remember thinking, how do they put up with this?
Yet here I am, living in Israel for 16 years now, “putting up with” terrorist attacks, October 7th, an ongoing war, and now a new war with Iran.
And now I see how Israelis do it.
They have no choice. It’s sink or swim, so they swim.
With a black sense of humor and supporting each other like family, we keep going.
Friday, June 13th, we were awoken at 5:00 am by blaring sirens signaling the beginning of the war with Iran and urging us to run for cover to the bomb shelter.
It was Erev Shabbat and we were out of essential groceries, so after things calmed down I went to the makolet at 7:30 am.
As I walked around the store loading my cart with essentials, more and more people started coming in, and it felt like the whole neighborhood was there. People from all spectrums— the elderly to a six-year-old boy; observant and non-observant; Argentinian, Russian, and Moroccan—had come to stock their homes before the war heated up.
People were on edge, but there was also an excited energy in the air because this time we attacked our enemies first. We didn’t wait for them, we took the initiative to defend ourselves, and we knew we had to win. People were making jokes, helping each other pack groceries and carry heavy packs of bottled water to the checkout line.
Friday night we were awoken by four different rocket barrages. Each time the sirens wailed, we ran from our house, across our yard, and down the stairs to the bomb shelter outside our gate.
Saturday night, we were also woken numerous times by sirens.
Sunday night, once again, we were awoken by sirens and the sounds of the Iron Dome exploding rockets above our heads.
So here I am, trying to hold on to normalcy, in between sirens.
Laundry, cooking, and cleaning never felt so essential and so therapeutic. What usually feels like drudgery, is now vital for me and my family to continue functioning and keeping our heads above water.
Making sure we have a clean home, nourishing food, and clothes to wear, are necessary so we can keep up this mentally and physically exhausting reality of having to wake up in the middle of the night and run for our lives.
Appointments, work, school, after-school activities, and the pool opening for summer vacation are all luxuries that have fallen by the wayside.
We’re in survival mode, living in between sirens.
We don’t know how long this will continue, but we’re ready to keep going if we know this will be the war to end all wars here, with G‑d’s help.
We hope that it will bring lasting peace, victory, and Redemption, and restore the Jewish people to living freely in our own land.
Sincerely
Chana Azimov
A Date That Will Live in History
Dear Editor:
June 21, 2025 is a date that will live in history books forever. It is the day Iran paid for its war against the West. It is the comeuppance it has deserved since March 17, 1992, when it bombed and destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentine. It is the beginning of the end of radical Islam’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were laid waste by American bombs. Iran is no longer a nuclear threat to Israel, the Middle East and the free world.
The partnership between Israel, the ‘Small Satan’, and America, the ‘Great Satan’, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump is to be celebrated. Israel softened up the target and America delivered the coup-de -grace.
As President Trump said, “Now is the time for peace”. It is time for Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis to end their reign of terror and allow Israel, Lebanon and the entire Middle East to live in peace. The path towards peace and prosperity is evident, as shown by the Abraham Accords. The consequences of intransigence are also clear.
Sincerely,
Len Bennett, Author of Unfinished Work’
Deerfield Beach, Fl
The Democratic Party’s Antipathy Towards Israel
Dear Editor:
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s bold and necessary military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it is deeply troubling—but not at all surprising—to see progressive Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and even so-called party moderates such as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries rush to condemn the president, not for the content or consequences of the strike, but for the manner in which it was authorized. Cloaked in the familiar rhetoric of “constitutional process” and “war powers,” their criticisms ring hollow—revealing not a principled stand for constitutional fidelity, but rather a deeper, more insidious truth: the modern Democratic Party is increasingly hostile to the Jewish state of Israel and indifferent to its right to survive.
Let us be honest. President Trump’s strike was not a reckless act of aggression. It was a calculated, strategic mission aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear program, which poses an existential threat not only to Israel but to the entire free world. The use of America’s most advanced bunker-busting weaponry to obliterate the fortified Fordow facility near Tehran was not the launch of a “war”—it was the aversion of a catastrophe. The Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and has actively funded terrorism across the globe, was within arm’s reach of nuclear capability. President Trump did what others feared to do: he acted before it was too late.
And yet, what did we hear from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? We heard Rep. Ocasio-Cortez thunder about war powers and “authoritarian overreach.” We heard Sen. Sanders decry militarism and accuse the president of warmongering. And from Rep. Jeffries—whose leadership of the House Democrats should reflect a measured, strategic tone—we got the same rote denunciations, devoid of context, void of responsibility, and utterly lacking any recognition of the moral imperative at stake.
Let’s be clear: the War Powers Act was designed to prevent prolonged, undeclared wars—not surgical strikes against imminent threats. The framers of the Constitution understood the need for a strong executive to act decisively in matters of national defense, especially when lives are at risk. The idea that the president must wait for a gridlocked Congress, perpetually consumed by partisan rancor, to respond to a threat as urgent as a nuclear-armed Iran is not only absurd—it is dangerous.
But the truth is, this constitutional posturing is a smokescreen. The fury expressed by the progressive left is not about legal procedure—it is about politics, ideology, and a deep-rooted disdain for Israel and its right to self-defense. It is about a worldview that sees Israel not as a democratic outpost in a sea of tyranny, but as a problem to be managed, a “colonial project,” or worse, a perpetrator.
Sincerely,
Gordon Petrovsky
Scarsdale, NY