The only *fatality* was the terrorist. The security guard was hit by the truck, was taken to the hospital unconscious with wounds not considered fatal, but he does need a refu'ah sheleimah. For some reason no one reported his name. The Jewish community owes him our tefillos — at a minimum.
I originally commented because I think casualty includes all injured or incapacitated as well as those killed. So I was correcting your "it appears that the only casualty is the terrorist himself".
From what I have seen and experienced in our outdoor markets, it is business as usual, with a continued supply of fresh fruits, vegetables, pastries, biscuits, sweet-meats and fish being offered and bought by a large variety of our mixed population. Of course the prices have increased, but with some experience and patience it is still possible to find the more reasonably priced items, when they have been available for more than a day or two.
Scott, I think you have exaggerated a bit about our lack of sleep. A lack of sleep means that when you are tired and sleeping it is deeper and more significant, so most people get by without difficulty and the rate of accidents on our roads due to poor driving has not changed. However, the risk of accidents on walking down the stairs leading to below-ground shelters is greater than the possibility of when a shelter gets a direct hit, so for the elderly whose legs are frail, it is better not to go at all or possibly not to wait for the siren but to begin the descent after the different warning sound (on all cell phones), which is often about 10 minutes before the actual siren is heard. This siren is in those places that have been identified as being more likely to receive the actual missile or drone, at a later stage of its flight. Most of these are struck by defensive anti-missile missiles, but the fragments form them can still fall with danger to people (and older buildings), still outside.
The amount of jokes and humour expressed in these shelters is quite amazing, especially when children are present. Neighbours who have shown dislike of each other at other times, somehow behave as if they are firm friends--no kidding! Many of these shelters are communal for all of the people living in the same building and it is here that one meets the friendliest people having entered a shelter after being out in the street going between shopping centers and the siren sounds. Again I write with experience because I prefer to walk rather than travel by the less frequent busses, and I don't own a car.
I think there are two big differences between this Iranian war much less sympathetic than the previous one:
1) It seems this round is a "war of choice" like elective surgery-- to take out something very dangerous but still not imminently life-threatening.
2) Degrading the Iranian missile threat could have been done by Israel a) quickly without regime decapitation and b) without massive, mid to long-term U.S. involvement.
Both a) and b) put American Jews specifically in a very uncomfortable situation because popular pundits are now saying openly and repeatedly (and convincingly--not sure if they're wrong) that 1) Israel dragged the U.S. into this war--which is bad enough, and 2) Israel committed the U.S. to yet another doomed-to-fail attempt at long-term regime change in a Middle-Eastern country which will needlessly cost U.S. in money and lives.
American Jews are always paying the price for the ire of pundits who (again, perhaps rightly) view Israel and the Israel lobby as having way over-the-top influence on U.S. foreign policy.
I want to be honest with you. Many Americans are feeling genuinely ambivalent right now, and I think it’s worth explaining why.
After October 7th, we felt united with Israel. The situation was clear, Israel had been attacked and was defending itself. This feels different. We’re struggling to understand the urgency behind why Trump and Israel chose to act when they did. What was the pressing justification?
That uncertainty matters, because Iran’s response, however severe, reads to many of us as a reaction to being struck first. That’s a different moral dynamic than what we saw before.
We’re proud of Israel’s initial strike, but we’re genuinely wrestling with what it means for America’s role in all of this and its implications for American Jews. And today’s attack has made clear that our fear is not abstract , it’s justified.
I think that tension between pride, confusion, and fear is what’s driving the ambivalence you’re seeing. I hope that helps explain where a lot of us are right now.
With love and deep caring from an ambivalent American Jew.
If you think we struck Iran first, you do not know how Hamas or Hezbollah logistics work.
But there was legitimate reason, had we did hit Iran first rather than cutting off the head of an already attacking snake. You cannot wait until someone who promises to wipe you off the earth actually obtains nuclear weaponry before acting.
Would you have only supported war with Iran if we had waited until after they had nuclear missiles aimed at us? Or would they even have actually fired at us before the war would get your support.
But in any case, October 7th was funded and armed by Iran. As was the rocketfire from Gaza afterward. A Hamas attack or a Hezbollah attack is an Iranian attack.
You have highlighted the difference between Israelis and Americans. We have heard Bibi talk about Iran being on the brink for decades and we don’t feel that anything has changed. We don’t view it the same way. That reflects the ambivalence that I spoke about.
Thanks for your comments, they have given me food for thought.
I acknowledge that you are probably accurately depicting the thoughts of many American Jews, and explaining why they feel that sense of ambivalence.
I think that the attitude you're describing is misplaced, for two basic reasons.
1) I'll echo what Micha said above, which is that in a post-October 7th world, Israelis have learned that waiting until the enemy is ready to strike is a fatal mistake. Moving forward, we will act preemptively to make sure that those who threaten Israel with destruction don't acquire the means to do so. When Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and others say that they intend to destroy Israel and kill its Jews (along with Jews wherever else they reside), we have learned the hard way that this is more than empty rhetoric. Waiting until Iran can rebuild would be disastrous; the same is true for Hezbollah.
Moreover, again echoing Micha, Israel did not strike first; this is an ongoing war that started, at the latest, on October 7th, and we all know that the tentacles of Iran are behind everything that has happened since then. So suggesting that Israel was somehow in the wrong for doing this makes absolutely no sense to Israelis. There's a reason that 93% of Israeli Jews support this war. In fact, many Israelis were troubled when Trump imposed a ceasefire on Israel and Iran after 12 days last June. We were happy for the quiet, but also assumed that the job was not really done, and further military action would be needed. This, then, is not a new war, but a continuation of a preemptively-concluded campaign that should have continued for longer.
If the ambivalence is about the role of the US and whether Trump should have done so from a purely American perspective - that is a better question; and while I still think that it was the right thing for America to do - Iran wants to eliminate Israel first, the West second - the use of the American military here and now can, at least, be debated. Still: if American Jews have less sympathy for Israel because of their reluctance for the US to be involved - I find that extremely troubling and nonsensical.
2) Let's work with the assumption that Israel was wrong to attack Iran, and Iran was, for all its tyrannical tendencies, just responding to an initial attack. (I can barely type those words because I reject them so wholeheartedly - but let's go with that for now.) That would mean that American Jews should castigate the Israeli government for its poor decision making... but why should Israelis, who were not privy to that decision and whose attitudes had nothing to do with Bibi's decision, deserve less sympathy? If anything, does that not make them greater victims, in that they didn't choose this war, and nevertheless are forced to pay the price in so many different ways? Again: if the Israeli government makes a decision with which you disagree, and which causes greater anguish for Israelis, why do Israelis (as opposed to the government or war cabinet) deserve less care and concern? I don't understand the logic.
Your points are well-argued, and I don’t want to dismiss the genuine anguish that underlies them. But I think they actually illustrate exactly what I was trying to say, rather than refute it.
On the existential stakes: you write from the position of someone for whom this is not abstract. For Israelis, the threat from Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas is visceral, immediate, and personal. Sirens, shelters, displaced families, fallen soldiers — this is daily life. That reality shapes everything about how Israelis perceive this war, and it should. The 93% support figure you cite is not surprising given that context. When your physical survival is on the line, the calculus is entirely different.
For most American Jews, it isn’t. That’s not a moral failing — it’s simply a different reality. Ambivalence, or even criticism, from a community that is not absorbing rockets or losing sons in Gaza looks very different from where you’re standing than it does from where they’re standing. The existential weight is simply not the same, and pretending otherwise doesn’t serve anyone.
On your second point — you argue that Israelis shouldn’t lose sympathy simply because their government made decisions they had no part in. That’s a fair principle in the abstract. But you yourself just told us that 93% of Israeli Jews support this war. You can’t simultaneously argue that Israelis are passive bystanders to their government’s decisions and cite near-unanimous public support as a vindication of those decisions. Those two arguments cancel each other out. If the 93% figure is meaningful — and you clearly believe it is — then the distinction between “the Israeli government” and “the Israeli public” on this particular issue is not a meaningful one. American Jews who wrestle with the ethics of this campaign aren’t confused about who to direct their concerns at. They’re responding to exactly the reality you described.
Supporting a war and being responsible for that war are not the same thing. If one person is against a war and another supports it (though he had no hand in making it happen), should the former not feel any sense of sympathy when the latter's house is bombed, saying, "Well, you wanted this?" I don't accept that logic.
You’re right that supporting a war and being responsible for it aren’t the same thing, and I wouldn’t want to suggest that Israelis who back this campaign deserve to suffer for that position. Of course they don’t. Nobody’s house should be bombed, regardless of their politics.
But I think your analogy works better for an individual than for a society. If one person in a neighborhood supports a decision and their house gets caught in the crossfire, yes, their political view is entirely irrelevant to the sympathy we owe them. But we’re not talking about a minority view here. When an overwhelming majority of a society supports its government’s military campaign, that society has collectively and democratically endorsed the direction its leadership is taking. That doesn’t make ordinary Israelis villains, and it doesn’t mean they deserve less human compassion. It does, however, make it harder to sustain the clean separation you’re drawing between “the government that chose this” and “the people who had no hand in it.” Those people, in their vast majority, are raising their hands and saying: we support this.
Acknowledging that isn’t victim blaming, it’s just taking seriously what the 93% figure actually means.
The only local Jewish email I get is from TC Jewfolk
I think the Jew folk is a leftist franchise
There was no mention of Israel in the last issue only vague blatherings
I speculate they are funded by the federation to be mediocre
I emailed last year asking about the slant and he said you can unsubscribe
I'm completely tuned out of the local Jewish community and Facebook but see lots of Israel flags and pro-israel stuff when I dip my toe on FB but will not engage in that wasteland
My news comes from here and YouTube no radio for a year since classical public radio went Gaza news
Unfathomable how much firepower remains in the hands of the bad guys
We've never had more power and it's never been a better time
At our Conservative synagogue, we have an appointed person to update us with the latest news from Israel, but we only hear it if we attend Shabbat services. I'd be happy to add a clip at the very end of my video podcasts (Tai Chi Kindness or A Story & a Song) if you can refer me to a clip? or script?
Thanks - I would be happy to provide a clip, but I'm not sure what you're referring to. You're more than welcome to use the video in this article, which I took on Tuesday from my porch. If you have something else in mind, please let me know.
I could use your clip, but better for viewers to know what part of Israel you're at and tell us what your day is like to be in the midst of war. Most Americans I know cannot fathom what you're going through. If you want to make a clip and refer people to your substack, that's OK too - free publicity for you!
Really appreciated this. Ty for articulating.
The only *fatality* was the terrorist. The security guard was hit by the truck, was taken to the hospital unconscious with wounds not considered fatal, but he does need a refu'ah sheleimah. For some reason no one reported his name. The Jewish community owes him our tefillos — at a minimum.
Agree completely.
I saw this about the security guard's identity: https://nypost.com/2026/03/14/us-news/security-guard-injured-in-michigan-synagogue-car-ramming-idd-as-longtime-police-officer/
I originally commented because I think casualty includes all injured or incapacitated as well as those killed. So I was correcting your "it appears that the only casualty is the terrorist himself".
Yes, I think you are correct. I wrote this before I heard about the guard.
From what I have seen and experienced in our outdoor markets, it is business as usual, with a continued supply of fresh fruits, vegetables, pastries, biscuits, sweet-meats and fish being offered and bought by a large variety of our mixed population. Of course the prices have increased, but with some experience and patience it is still possible to find the more reasonably priced items, when they have been available for more than a day or two.
Scott, I think you have exaggerated a bit about our lack of sleep. A lack of sleep means that when you are tired and sleeping it is deeper and more significant, so most people get by without difficulty and the rate of accidents on our roads due to poor driving has not changed. However, the risk of accidents on walking down the stairs leading to below-ground shelters is greater than the possibility of when a shelter gets a direct hit, so for the elderly whose legs are frail, it is better not to go at all or possibly not to wait for the siren but to begin the descent after the different warning sound (on all cell phones), which is often about 10 minutes before the actual siren is heard. This siren is in those places that have been identified as being more likely to receive the actual missile or drone, at a later stage of its flight. Most of these are struck by defensive anti-missile missiles, but the fragments form them can still fall with danger to people (and older buildings), still outside.
The amount of jokes and humour expressed in these shelters is quite amazing, especially when children are present. Neighbours who have shown dislike of each other at other times, somehow behave as if they are firm friends--no kidding! Many of these shelters are communal for all of the people living in the same building and it is here that one meets the friendliest people having entered a shelter after being out in the street going between shopping centers and the siren sounds. Again I write with experience because I prefer to walk rather than travel by the less frequent busses, and I don't own a car.
I think there are two big differences between this Iranian war much less sympathetic than the previous one:
1) It seems this round is a "war of choice" like elective surgery-- to take out something very dangerous but still not imminently life-threatening.
2) Degrading the Iranian missile threat could have been done by Israel a) quickly without regime decapitation and b) without massive, mid to long-term U.S. involvement.
Both a) and b) put American Jews specifically in a very uncomfortable situation because popular pundits are now saying openly and repeatedly (and convincingly--not sure if they're wrong) that 1) Israel dragged the U.S. into this war--which is bad enough, and 2) Israel committed the U.S. to yet another doomed-to-fail attempt at long-term regime change in a Middle-Eastern country which will needlessly cost U.S. in money and lives.
American Jews are always paying the price for the ire of pundits who (again, perhaps rightly) view Israel and the Israel lobby as having way over-the-top influence on U.S. foreign policy.
Scott,
I want to be honest with you. Many Americans are feeling genuinely ambivalent right now, and I think it’s worth explaining why.
After October 7th, we felt united with Israel. The situation was clear, Israel had been attacked and was defending itself. This feels different. We’re struggling to understand the urgency behind why Trump and Israel chose to act when they did. What was the pressing justification?
That uncertainty matters, because Iran’s response, however severe, reads to many of us as a reaction to being struck first. That’s a different moral dynamic than what we saw before.
We’re proud of Israel’s initial strike, but we’re genuinely wrestling with what it means for America’s role in all of this and its implications for American Jews. And today’s attack has made clear that our fear is not abstract , it’s justified.
I think that tension between pride, confusion, and fear is what’s driving the ambivalence you’re seeing. I hope that helps explain where a lot of us are right now.
With love and deep caring from an ambivalent American Jew.
If you think we struck Iran first, you do not know how Hamas or Hezbollah logistics work.
But there was legitimate reason, had we did hit Iran first rather than cutting off the head of an already attacking snake. You cannot wait until someone who promises to wipe you off the earth actually obtains nuclear weaponry before acting.
Would you have only supported war with Iran if we had waited until after they had nuclear missiles aimed at us? Or would they even have actually fired at us before the war would get your support.
But in any case, October 7th was funded and armed by Iran. As was the rocketfire from Gaza afterward. A Hamas attack or a Hezbollah attack is an Iranian attack.
Micha,
You have highlighted the difference between Israelis and Americans. We have heard Bibi talk about Iran being on the brink for decades and we don’t feel that anything has changed. We don’t view it the same way. That reflects the ambivalence that I spoke about.
Thanks for your comments, they have given me food for thought.
I acknowledge that you are probably accurately depicting the thoughts of many American Jews, and explaining why they feel that sense of ambivalence.
I think that the attitude you're describing is misplaced, for two basic reasons.
1) I'll echo what Micha said above, which is that in a post-October 7th world, Israelis have learned that waiting until the enemy is ready to strike is a fatal mistake. Moving forward, we will act preemptively to make sure that those who threaten Israel with destruction don't acquire the means to do so. When Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and others say that they intend to destroy Israel and kill its Jews (along with Jews wherever else they reside), we have learned the hard way that this is more than empty rhetoric. Waiting until Iran can rebuild would be disastrous; the same is true for Hezbollah.
Moreover, again echoing Micha, Israel did not strike first; this is an ongoing war that started, at the latest, on October 7th, and we all know that the tentacles of Iran are behind everything that has happened since then. So suggesting that Israel was somehow in the wrong for doing this makes absolutely no sense to Israelis. There's a reason that 93% of Israeli Jews support this war. In fact, many Israelis were troubled when Trump imposed a ceasefire on Israel and Iran after 12 days last June. We were happy for the quiet, but also assumed that the job was not really done, and further military action would be needed. This, then, is not a new war, but a continuation of a preemptively-concluded campaign that should have continued for longer.
If the ambivalence is about the role of the US and whether Trump should have done so from a purely American perspective - that is a better question; and while I still think that it was the right thing for America to do - Iran wants to eliminate Israel first, the West second - the use of the American military here and now can, at least, be debated. Still: if American Jews have less sympathy for Israel because of their reluctance for the US to be involved - I find that extremely troubling and nonsensical.
2) Let's work with the assumption that Israel was wrong to attack Iran, and Iran was, for all its tyrannical tendencies, just responding to an initial attack. (I can barely type those words because I reject them so wholeheartedly - but let's go with that for now.) That would mean that American Jews should castigate the Israeli government for its poor decision making... but why should Israelis, who were not privy to that decision and whose attitudes had nothing to do with Bibi's decision, deserve less sympathy? If anything, does that not make them greater victims, in that they didn't choose this war, and nevertheless are forced to pay the price in so many different ways? Again: if the Israeli government makes a decision with which you disagree, and which causes greater anguish for Israelis, why do Israelis (as opposed to the government or war cabinet) deserve less care and concern? I don't understand the logic.
Scott,
Your points are well-argued, and I don’t want to dismiss the genuine anguish that underlies them. But I think they actually illustrate exactly what I was trying to say, rather than refute it.
On the existential stakes: you write from the position of someone for whom this is not abstract. For Israelis, the threat from Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas is visceral, immediate, and personal. Sirens, shelters, displaced families, fallen soldiers — this is daily life. That reality shapes everything about how Israelis perceive this war, and it should. The 93% support figure you cite is not surprising given that context. When your physical survival is on the line, the calculus is entirely different.
For most American Jews, it isn’t. That’s not a moral failing — it’s simply a different reality. Ambivalence, or even criticism, from a community that is not absorbing rockets or losing sons in Gaza looks very different from where you’re standing than it does from where they’re standing. The existential weight is simply not the same, and pretending otherwise doesn’t serve anyone.
On your second point — you argue that Israelis shouldn’t lose sympathy simply because their government made decisions they had no part in. That’s a fair principle in the abstract. But you yourself just told us that 93% of Israeli Jews support this war. You can’t simultaneously argue that Israelis are passive bystanders to their government’s decisions and cite near-unanimous public support as a vindication of those decisions. Those two arguments cancel each other out. If the 93% figure is meaningful — and you clearly believe it is — then the distinction between “the Israeli government” and “the Israeli public” on this particular issue is not a meaningful one. American Jews who wrestle with the ethics of this campaign aren’t confused about who to direct their concerns at. They’re responding to exactly the reality you described.
Supporting a war and being responsible for that war are not the same thing. If one person is against a war and another supports it (though he had no hand in making it happen), should the former not feel any sense of sympathy when the latter's house is bombed, saying, "Well, you wanted this?" I don't accept that logic.
You’re right that supporting a war and being responsible for it aren’t the same thing, and I wouldn’t want to suggest that Israelis who back this campaign deserve to suffer for that position. Of course they don’t. Nobody’s house should be bombed, regardless of their politics.
But I think your analogy works better for an individual than for a society. If one person in a neighborhood supports a decision and their house gets caught in the crossfire, yes, their political view is entirely irrelevant to the sympathy we owe them. But we’re not talking about a minority view here. When an overwhelming majority of a society supports its government’s military campaign, that society has collectively and democratically endorsed the direction its leadership is taking. That doesn’t make ordinary Israelis villains, and it doesn’t mean they deserve less human compassion. It does, however, make it harder to sustain the clean separation you’re drawing between “the government that chose this” and “the people who had no hand in it.” Those people, in their vast majority, are raising their hands and saying: we support this.
Acknowledging that isn’t victim blaming, it’s just taking seriously what the 93% figure actually means.
The only local Jewish email I get is from TC Jewfolk
I think the Jew folk is a leftist franchise
There was no mention of Israel in the last issue only vague blatherings
I speculate they are funded by the federation to be mediocre
I emailed last year asking about the slant and he said you can unsubscribe
I'm completely tuned out of the local Jewish community and Facebook but see lots of Israel flags and pro-israel stuff when I dip my toe on FB but will not engage in that wasteland
My news comes from here and YouTube no radio for a year since classical public radio went Gaza news
Unfathomable how much firepower remains in the hands of the bad guys
We've never had more power and it's never been a better time
Ruach to you and Israel
Am Yisrael Chai ✡️
At our Conservative synagogue, we have an appointed person to update us with the latest news from Israel, but we only hear it if we attend Shabbat services. I'd be happy to add a clip at the very end of my video podcasts (Tai Chi Kindness or A Story & a Song) if you can refer me to a clip? or script?
Thanks - I would be happy to provide a clip, but I'm not sure what you're referring to. You're more than welcome to use the video in this article, which I took on Tuesday from my porch. If you have something else in mind, please let me know.
I could use your clip, but better for viewers to know what part of Israel you're at and tell us what your day is like to be in the midst of war. Most Americans I know cannot fathom what you're going through. If you want to make a clip and refer people to your substack, that's OK too - free publicity for you!