As I write this column from a bomb shelter, a bit rattled and “zombie” from the piercing sirens of incoming ballistic missiles or drones, with their accompanying pressure to run for our lives into a safe space, yes, I am rattled.
The sleep deprivation, and even the night that turned out to be quiet from 2 a.m until the next siren at 6 a.m., takes its toll.
I’m exhausted.
But my soul?
My soul feels calm.
I knew when I chose to move to Israel in my late 20s that I was fusing my destiny with Israel’s.
Back then, the volatile and dangerous intifada that targeted civilians, broke out six months into my move. Those were terrifying times. When I’d visit New York or Denver back home, out of fear I sometimes dragged my feet in returning.
But ultimately I returned.
A part of me chose to return to the city of my childhood, and forge my future, my life, with Jerusalem’s destiny.
This time around, when I moved back in 2024 I was here for the Iranian missile attack on Rosh Hashanah eve, also sending us to the bomb shelter. Mentally, I prepared for war. But miraculously, it was all over in one night. By the time I was in the throes of cooking for the holiday, the attack almost felt like it was part of the distant past.
Last July, 2025, when “Am ke-Lavi, Operation Rising Lion” broke out — what became the 12-day war between Israel and Iran — I was out of Israel. It was hard to be and feel so far from my people, as they were living through this miraculous war in which Iran’s nuclear sites were severely damaged.
This time, I’m here.
When the first siren sliced through the peaceful Jerusalem Shabbat air, I was in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, having walked there past the venerable walls surrounding it. I was in shul, in an ancient Sephardic synagogue complex, taking part in the very special Bar Mitzvah of Denverite Mayer Kassai, son of Daniel and Dr. Shevie Kassai, and grandson of Jay and the late Joyce Moskowitz, and Shlomie and Sarah Kassai.
This unforgettable Bar Mitzvah prayer service and Torah chanting unfolded in between piercing, jarring sirens signalling incoming ballistic rockets from Iran, and the immediate counterpoint booms from the Iron Dome, intercepting them.
Unflappable, Mayer just kept on steadily laining, chanting, his Torah portion.
When we sang Mazel Tov and Siman Tov to Mayer, it came from our depths and carried an extra intensity reflecting the historic Jewish moment we were living through.
The sirens kept punctuating the davening, the prayers, yet we kept on praying in this beautiful domed shul in the inner sanctums of Jerusalem, the Holy City.
“Parashat Zachor,” the extra text read on the Shabbat prior to Purim, whose message imparts the erasure of the evil Amalek, was lained under incoming rockets from the modern day incarnation of Amalek, who has sought to wipe out the Jewish state of Israel.
Little did we know then that this sadistic villain of our time was already dead. After 47 years of inflicting on suffering on the Jewish people, on Americans and on his very own Iranian nation, he had just been killed in a collaborative, pinpoint, preemptive strike by the US military and the IDF, making our world safer — saving many lives.
Now China’s second oil resource is being dismantled. So, too, Russia’s drone building resource.
The tiny but mighty Israel, like the biblical David up against the immense Goliath, a microscopic spec on the map compared to enormous Iran, prevailed against this irredeemable, savage mass-murderer.
So now, as I sit amidst a hodgepodge of people in the bomb shelter, as the onslaught of rockets continues, a maelstrom of emotions pulse through.
In between, though, we live! It’s Purim season, after all. There are hamantaschen and other cakes that need to be baked. There are Purim feast dishes that need to be cooked and simmered. There are costume details that need to be completed.
More than all of that, though, there is pent up adrenaline that needs to be released and the special filled-to-the-brim-with-life spirit of Am Yisrael never disappoints. The optimism here is throbbing.The sense that we are living through historic Purim 2.0 is palpable.
Today’s Iran is the modern day state of ancient Persia. Khamenei and his ilk are akin to the Megillah’s Haman and his 10 sons who were aligned with their evil father’s agenda. It feels like we are living through our very own current Megillah that is writing itself.
“Am Yisrael Chai” energy is oozing all over, as it’s literally being sung from the aisles of the grocery store and spilling out onto the streets. Like Haman who expressed his desire to wipe out the Jewish people, so did Khamenei, meanwhile brutalizing his own people. Like Haman, he’s now gone.
And we, the Jewish people, live.
I admit that when the sirens tear through, I get scared sometimes, thinking of the “what if’s.” But of this I feel sure: In spite of it all, there is nowhere in the world I would rather be right now than right here.
In this bomb shelter.
In Jerusalem.
With my people.
Living through this epic Jewish history moment.
On Oct. 7, the barbaric massacre executed by Hamas under the sponsorship of Khamenei’s Iran, I was here, shattered along with the rest of Israel and anyone who stood for humanity.
Now, I’m here, living through the twists and turns of this new Megillah that feels biblical, as the US and Israel fight side by side, united, in this nexus between war and, we hope, impending peace with the people of Iran.
In footage from London, New York and Greece, Israeli flags and old-school Iranian flags fly in the air together, as they celebrate to reclaim Iranian freedom and Israeli relief that the man bent on Israel’s destruction— the head of the snake — was cut, and has been vanquished.
Purim is essentially a celebration of the genocide that was averted. Imagine if on the eve of 1939, the Holocaust would somehow never have come to be; if Hitler’s plans had been intercepted. That’s precisely what happened in Persia long ago.
And that’s what is transpiring right now.
Khamenei was not only intent on our destruction, he was becoming equipped to carry it out. On Purim eve this year, that option is now over.
As the unexpected wail of blaring sirens continue punctuating the night and day, there is one sound that I keep hearing that transcends them: the sweet voice of a Bar Mitzvah boy chanting his Torah parasha, softly saturating the charged air and soaring above it all.
Am Yisrael Chai!
© IJN 2026
