A View From Israel’s Bomb Shelters: Find Hope and Connection Despite the War

In between rocket sirens, kids being home, and work piling up, we find moments to live.

Israel is yet again at war with Iran, and ballistic missiles are being fired indiscriminately at population centers around the country. Already, 11 have been killed in this round of missile barrages. May their memories serve as a blessing, and a guide for the rest of us.

I’m often asked by people living outside of Israel, “What’s it like? How are you holding up?”

I answer by saying that we’re once again living in between. Living in between means that when we get alerts of upcoming air raid sirens and missile attacks, as many of us as possible go to the bathroom before entering the bomb shelter. It means we gather the dogs wherever they may be and bring them to the shelter. It means we try to get work, laundry, cooking, dishes, and showers done immediately after getting an all clear, in the hopes of a gap before the next barrage. On Monday morning, the third day of the war, that wasn’t the case.

The Jewish adage of “if not now, when?” and Horace’s “carpe diem” (made famous by Robin Williams’ John Keating in Dead Poets Society) come to mind. We seize every moment we can to make sure everything gets done.

On Sunday, while making food baskets to exchange with neighbors for the upcoming holiday of Purim, which began on Monday night, I was interrupted by several air raid sirens warning of incoming missile barrages. Some of those missiles are suspected to have been either Kheibar missiles or cluster bomb warheads that evaded Israel’s air defense and resulted in several direct hits within a radius of 10 miles from my house.

God bless our kids. Both of my children are under 10. Like all other children their age in Israel, they lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, where we were in isolation for 16 weeks in the first year alone. They didn’t catch it. They lived through two years of war from October 2023 until 2025, including hundreds of rocket barrages from Hamas in Gaza, and a 12-day war between Israel and Iran.

They have become all too familiar with the bomb shelter in our apartment, which has become their full-time bedroom. We make it as hospitable as possible, but there are still the regular sibling issues: one not wanting other people on his bed, the other being bothered when his brother wants to use a tablet a bit too loudly, and four humans and three dogs trying to fit into a single room. This gets especially interesting during missile barrages at night when everyone wants to sleep.

My children have not had what I would call a normal childhood. While there are certainly effects of this, they are having what is now considered a normal childhood in Israel, and we often remind ourselves that we are not alone and that everyone is going through this together.

Things here are a bit different than where I grew up, in Toronto. The village expands to a much wider circle. It was especially essential during the years between the COVID pandemic and the war, when most people had a sense of normalcy, but we were dealing with my wife going through breast cancer. Since that time, we have been graced enough to be able to pay forward some of the kindness shown to us then. That village mentality, where everyone is family, and kindness really pulls us through times like these.

Kindness especially. I ask my children every day what kind thing they did for others. I remind them in the morning or throughout the day to focus on being kind and doing something kind. Whether there is school or we are all staying close to home, there are always opportunities for kindness.

Without kindness, we would not have been able to make it through what we have been through for the past six years. Without kindness, my children would not be nearly as resilient as they are today. Without kindness, we would not be able to live in between.

My advice is simply to be kind. Whether you are living life in between or just living life, be kind, help others, and remember that even the most trying circumstances are, as the closing song from Avenue Q says, “only for now.” This war is transient. The missile barrages, as scary as they may be, will pass. Israel will still be here. My children will grow up.

For now, I will hold both the trauma of the air raid sirens and the joy of the quiet in between them. We will still celebrate Purim. We will smile and laugh. We will learn to live with kindness and pray for calmer days filled with peace.

Raphael Poch is the Director of PR and Communications for Aish, a volunteer EMT, and freelance PR Specialist. He is a former theater director and journalist. He currently lives with his family in the town of Efrat.