The Mundane Side of Life During War with Iran

Things still need to be fixed, just different stuff

In spite of the ceasefire that has prevailed for a few days now, there was a 7 am warning of the possibility of incoming rockets or missiles Saturday morning on my kibbutz. It passed uneventfully. Iran may have ceased firing but the Houthis are still coming at us.

I have written and published podcasts throughout this crazy time - particularly since June 13 - trying to give a sense of what real life has been like, as well as bigger picture analysis and insights.

Today, I thought I’d share some of the more mundane day-to-day issues that never make headlines.

What is it like living in the midst of barrages of ballistic miles traversing thousands of kilometers and targeting civilian populations?

Safe Room Door

It’s a thing. It’s the law. Every home in southern Israel, where I live, must have a safe room. It is designed to protect those shut inside from missiles and rockets.

When I moved in to my current home I looked inside the safe room. Ooh aah. Big safe room. With built in cupboards and AC. Fantastic. Did I even try to close the door? Nope.

So, when the sirens began wailing on June 13, I learned quickly that my safe room was – well – pretty safe. Just that the door wouldn’t close and seal. Which made it, technically, not totally safe.

And I learned quickly that this phenomenon is widespread. You would think that once installed that a safe room is safe forever. Not so.

I quickly found a “safe room door guy” and, because I live on a kibbutz, pretty soon it felt as if half the place had heard and was checking in on me to see if they could fix it. They meant well. But…

That’s the thing. In Israel. Everyone can do everything even if they have no clue. It’s at once endearing and can be maddening. It is also the essence of this country and how it was built and why we are still standing.

No is not an option.

Eventually, one of the many professional safe room door guys I had spoken with - actually pleaded with to come and fix my door - arrived.

“Is this unusual,” I asked him, genuinely curious. My home was recently renovated. How could the safe room door not close?

In fact, he explained, the problem is very common. Firstly, especially with newer homes, things settle. Foundations, walls, door frames, they all shift. Then there’s the reality of this area – that we are pretty much constantly absorbing high impacts. We are coming up to two years of war with Hamas. The Gaza Strip isn’t terribly far from my doorstep. We hear constant “boomim” as they say in Hebrew. The ground shakes too. Windows rattle. Things in homes move, even if ever so slightly. And so the doors – that really must close with precision so that there is a seal – they often become a touch skewed.

Note to self: Check safe room door for proper closing every few months. At least now I have a safe room door repair guy in my contacts.

Tires

I have had more car tire issues in the last year since moving to the south than in the previous 50. And so it continues. My Tel Aviv-based daughter had reached her breaking point after last weekend (after ten days of Iranian missile barrages) and found a ride to Be’er Sheba, which is a half hour drive from my home. We agreed that I’d dash down and get her in the afternoon, when there tended to be long pauses between missile alerts. Be’er Sheva – a city of approximately 250,000 was hammered during the short war with Iran.

About ten or fifteen minutes into our return trip, on a stretch of highway where traffic flies by way over the speed limit, one of our front tires exploded. Yup. Just like that. And I had just had all my tires checked. So it was not because of neglect or inattention.

A good friend told me a few years ago that in Israel, no matter what, all tires should be changed every two years. The heat burns through the rubber, no matter what the best before date says. And particularly living in the south, I find myself on rougher roads much more frequently. And I drive a city car. It’s all wrong.

Within seconds, we heard a strange noise and the car began to lilt to one side. We kept our cool and my daughter managed to steer us onto what passes for a shoulder on the highway.

If you have never driven in Israel, I am certain that the civil engineers here look at minimum international standards and shave them as close to the line as possible, if not a hair over. Many roads have no shoulders. It’s a space thing. Cloverleafs don’t exist. Merge lanes onto highways at high speeds are perilously short.

Fortunately, this highway had a semblance of a shoulder.

Within minutes a young man stopped and took care of it all in a jiffy. He happened to be Arab, likely from one of the many Bedouin towns in the area. He was lovely and even though we told him we had called “yedidim” – a volunteer network throughout the country that sends someone to assist with whatever the emergency is, within minutes – he insisted on taking care of it.

And, yes. I spent the following day with my tire guy in Ashkelon. Actually, she’s a tire gal. Only someone originally from Paris can run a greasy tire shop with her brother and present with elegance. Sandrine. She was also beautiful. And she knows her tires.

Pigeons

Of course, the weird noise in my kitchen began just before the Iran conflict on June 13. The unmistakable, horrible noise of pigeons. There had been a nest above the AC unit on my porch, but I thought that they had moved to a new neighborhood. Seems not. During the war the noise was constant. I was convinced they had somehow penetrated the roof and were living between walls. Who knows. They may be there too. But one of my general helper guys was here on Friday and noticed that there were two dead baby pigeons. And broken eggs. On. my deck. Very close to the kitchen where I hear pigeons, constantly.

My helper guy told me that it’s a big mitzvah (good deed in Jewish law) to remove a nest in accordance with Jewish law. Who knew?

Yes, he told me. Find someone ultra-orthodox (not hard in these parts where 50% of the people living in nearby Netivot vote Shas – the Sephardi/Mizrachi ultra-orthodox party) and they will be so grateful that you have given them an opportunity to fulfill such an important mitzvah. You’ll be rid of the pigeons. Win-win.

That’s my priority task for the coming week. To help someone perform a mitzvah and rid myself of nesting pigeons.

I’ve included a selection of media I’ve done in the last two weeks.

I’ve been writing a fair bit in the last while but this piece – published hours before Israel attacked Iran – confirms my long-time hunch that I really might be a witch. When you live in this area in particular, there are signs – if you pay close attention. I mention some of them in this piece, which turned out to be quite prescient. Honestly. We woke up on Wednesday, June 12 to just another day in paradise. I had a TV journalist coming down to do a documentary interview at my home. I was thinking of the usual day to day stuff. Groceries. Working out. This and that errand. But something, no, many things – were off. And I said that afternoon to the journalist who had popped by and was in a hurry to finish up our interview and make it to Tel Aviv for Pride celebrations – I told him that something big was up.

And then all hell broke loose. The signs were there to be read and interpreted. Wild, eh?

Here is the link to that piece. My editor, of course, was pleased. So pleased that he had it paywalled. That moment has passed so you can read the whole column at this link now.

Additional columns can be read here.

I had a great time speaking with Nigel Hannaford of the the Western Standard (Canada) last week. We discussed Iran, of course, the shifting geopolitics of the region and, of course, how Canadian diplomats were reacting very slowly to the whole crisis. It has become something of an embarrassing pattern, that Canada seems incapable of servicing its citizens in crisis. And it seems to be particularly bad when the brown stuff hits the fan in Israel. You can listen to the interview here:

And now – I must immerse myself in a special podcast series I’m working hard to get out beginning on Tuesday. It will likely be in three parts……because it includes at least five different interviews and is on a topic that I felt was taking on a life of its own earlier in the week. And since - wow. Has it ever popped.

Stay tuned. It’s hot. Relevant. And not about Iran or Gaza for a change.

Wishing you all a peaceful weekend. May the missiles sent our way explode in the atmosphere. No more impacts for a while. Please.

I hope you have had a restorative weekend.

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Thanks, as always, for being here.