A few minutes ago early this morning, my daughter returned home to Toronto.

In Israel on a seminar with educators and group leaders when the war with Iran began, like millions of others she spent most of a week in and out of a bomb shelter. She and her group were evacuated through Ashdod to Cyprus, and from there she was to have circuitously made her way here. Yesterday, while waiting to take off, Iran launched the attack that culminated in a missile strike on Sheba Medical Center in Beer Sheva. Due to that attack and countermeasures the flight was cancelled, even as far away as Cyprus. Admirably adapting, the organizers got her group out through Egypt.

My son remains, for now, studying in Jerusalem.

Though I experienced a missile attack when I was in Israel in late October 2023, it was several orders of magnitude less perilous than what is happening now. It’s hard to contemplate, seeing the devastation in Bat Yam, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other places. And it’s frankly much more frightening when it is one’s children, one’s family in peril, rather than oneself.

My cousin and two of my wife’s cousins have been back in combat in Gaza for weeks now. My nieces, their children, my nephew and dozens of my cousins have lived with the daily and nightly barrage of powerful missiles for a week.

And that’s only my close family. All 10 million Israelis are my family. They are yours too.

Why did Israel attack Iran? Why now?

Imagine this: You have been a homeowner for several decades, in a place where your great great great grandparents had their homestead, and theirs before that. A neighbor blocks away from you determines that your presence there is intolerable, and begins an inexorable, unrelenting campaign to burn your house down, with you in it.

He sends the township after you with allegations of misdeeds.
He organizes others from across the town to scream and yell in your driveway and vandalize your house.
He tells the local tv station that you are doing horrible things, and they salivate at the prospect of a salacious expose.
He recruits your close neighbors, on all sides, to attack you - throwing firebombs, breaking in, beating your kids as they come home from school.
And he begins to build a catapult with the biggest molotov cocktail you ever saw, aimed at your house.

You try to reason with him, with your neighbors, with the wild crowds in the streets. You go before the town council to plead your case. You try to get HIS neighbors to talk some sense into him.

His efforts finally surround you with neighbors on all sides pelting your house with dangerous projectiles. Your kids are injured. In your house, there is now open argument about what ou must do to protect yourself.

Now it’s too late.

One day, at your antagonist’s behest, your neighbors rush the house, kill one of your kids and abduct another. They cause great damage, and continue to threaten. The catapult is almost ready, the rag in the bottle is lit.

So you do what is necessary. You act to protect your family. You defend yourself from your close neighbors, with enough force to incapacitate them. You use whatever means are at your disposal to defend yourself. You have fewer threats right in front of you. But you know that a few blocks away, the same person who murdered your child is arming his greatest weapon.

It’s your family. What would you do?

The match was lit, the arm raised to deploy the catapult. Your options narrowed to one. You protect what remains of your family.

That is what Israel is doing. That is what any of us would do. And that is what we all must do. Protect ourselves, protect our sisters and brothers, and whether here or in Israel, whether in military terms or legal, legislative or social ones - it must become more costly to attack Israel and the Jewish people - or to facilitate that attack - than it is to leave us in peace.

We are at a moment, perhaps unique in our lives, where what we do and what our sisters and brothers in Israel (who fight with each other, as siblings do, who disappoint each other, who don’t talk for days or weeks, who sometimes resent or scream at each other) do will have consequences for generations to come.

We come back to this: we can pray, act, stand, and give.

• Our brave chayalim and chayalot in the IDF, the courageous families under fire across Israel, they all need your prayers. In person or in synagogue, spoken aloud or said in the heart, seek their protection and their victory over evil.
• You can act to ensure that your representatives at every level of elected government stand steadfast with our community and with Israel. See our CALL TO ACTION to find out how, and use the contact info in the newsletter to be in touch with Congressman Lawler, Senator Schumer, and Senator Gillibrand.
• You can call out antisemitism wherever and whenever you see it. It is your responsibility as much as it is mine. We all take care of our family. Let us know when you see it. [email protected], or [email protected] for harassment, vandalism or violence (after calling 911).
• You can come together as we have so many times since 10/7. Be ready. Read our newsletter, emails, and social media to stay connected.
• You can give now to help. Secure our community, and directly help the thousands who have been made homeless by Iranian missile strikes, the hundreds who have been wounded, the families of dozens who have been killed. Help the hundreds of thousands if not more who continue to be traumatized by these unrelenting attacks. Click HERE.

What wouldn’t you do for your family?