It’s different when you’re older. And it’s different when you’re a parent.
There were times in my life—when I was younger, bolder, fatter—when I traveled to and lived in Israel. I walked through the Old City like I owned it. I watched the sun fall behind the hills of Jerusalem, confident the next morning would come. During the second intifada, the sound of sirens and ambulances was part of the city’s background music. You’d hear one siren—an ambulance—no big deal. Two? Still probably nothing. But three? Something bad had happened. Everyone knew the code. Still, I was eighteen. Invincible. I could eat a shawarma under a terror alert and still have room for dessert.
But things change.
At forty-five, it’s different. Not because the missile is any closer, not because the threat is more existential, but because now I have children. And children shift the center of gravity of fear. You no longer imagine your own death—you imagine their terror. Their questions. Their hearts trying to make sense of a world that occasionally explodes. And suddenly you realize that courage isn’t measured in whether you flinch when the siren goes off—it’s measured in what your children see you do next.
It was an evening of absolutely no consequence. We were sitting at a restaurant in Jerusalem. Pizza on the table. Loud conversation. Normal life. And then a siren. Not an air-raid drill, not a test. A real siren. A ballistic missile fired from the Houthis in Yemen—another reminder that no matter how far away they are, there are still people in this world obsessed with finding new ways to remind Jews that we are never entirely welcome.
The missile was intercepted well before it entered Israeli airspace. No one at our table was ever truly at risk. But the siren wailed. The kitchen staff paused. I was reluctant to move at first. My food was getting cold. My American instincts kicked in: surely it’s nothing. But then I saw my kids’ faces. I saw them scanning mine for cues. And I realized this wasn’t about food or danger. This was about education. So we got up. I took them to the restaurant’s kitchen, which doubled as a shelter. We waited it out—maybe five minutes. No explosion. No debris. Just an awkward silence, some uncertain laughter, and the uncomfortable awareness that the world outside wasn’t quite as stable as it had seemed five minutes earlier.
And then it was over. We returned to our seats. Dinner resumed. The pizza was still warm.
What struck me wasn’t what we experienced—it was what the kids saw in the people around them. No panic. No hysteria. No “how could this happen?” angst. The Israelis didn’t blink. They rose, walked, waited, returned. It wasn’t apathy—it was resilience. It was a people who have learned not to waste time on drama. It happened. It’s over. What’s next? For my kids, it was a first encounter with that uniquely Israeli paradox: a people living under threat who refuse to live in fear. They’ll never forget the siren. But I hope they also remember the waitress who smiled and said “yalla, it’s fine,” the old man who didn’t even get up from his chair, the way life restarted without commentary. That’s the real inheritance of Jewish sovereignty—not only that we can protect ourselves, but that we can keep living while doing so.
I’ve thought often about the irony of missile defense. The technology is brilliant—a marvel of human ingenuity, hitting a bullet with a bullet. It saves lives. It keeps children in school and buses running on time. But it also allows the world to pretend. To pretend that firing rockets at civilians is tolerable if they miss. To pretend that restraint is always virtuous. That defense is enough. That safety is the same as peace. Iron Dome saved and saves lives, but it also enables a moral illusion. Missile defense allows our enemies to keep shooting while we smile and carry on. It reduces Jewish suffering just enough to make Jewish suffering palatable. It’s brilliant—but it is not a solution.
I received about a dozen texts after the siren: “Welcome to Israel.” It wasn’t sarcastic. It wasn’t ironic. It was proud. Because to live in Israel today is to no longer be the Jew of the ghetto. No longer the whispering minority praying for mercy in the shadow of a cross or a crescent. No longer the eternal wanderer asking for permission to exist. Today we have something our ancestors dreamed of and died for: the power to protect ourselves. And with that power comes responsibility—not just to defend, but to model what it means to live free. Not to live in vengeance or paranoia, but in confidence. In moral clarity. In joy.
Our enemies will fire. But we no longer need their approval to live. We no longer require their hospitality to be tolerated. We have come home.
The siren was not traumatic. It was not dramatic. But it was formative. Our kids will remember it. Not because they were afraid, but because they saw how to respond. They saw that friends and family didn’t panic. That Israelis kept eating. That security wasn’t a bunker—it was a mindset. A spiritual posture. A refusal to be defined by what others want to do to you. We don’t run from a fight—but we don’t go looking for one either. We don’t teach our children to hate—but we do teach them to recognize danger. To value strength. To understand that Jewish history didn’t end in Auschwitz. It continued in the IDF, in the unbroken resilience of a people who answer sirens not with fear but with faith. Not a naïve faith in the world. Not a romantic faith in progress. But an earned, battered, and enduring faith in ourselves, in our God, in our right to live as Jews—proudly, publicly, and permanently.
The missile never landed. The dinner continued. But something in me shifted. Because when you hear a siren with kids, it’s different. Not because the danger is new—but because the responsibility is. And in that moment, you realize that the lesson you teach will inevitably last longer than the missile ever would.