Tag: rockets

Two years of war and a happy country?

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

I returned from Israel on Friday. It was a long return trip, waking up at 5 am IST (10 pm Thursday night ET) and leaving early in the morning from Haifa to get to Ben Gurion airport. The long flight to JFK was easy but was during the day so I didn’t sleep much. A 2 hour layover and I was on my flight home. I got to my house around midnight, 26 hours after I woke up in Haifa.

The long trip gave me a lot of time to think. Dealing with jetlag upon my return gave me more time to think. This was a different trip for me. I knew going into it that I needed to be in Israel for my soul. I wasn’t touring the ‘normal’ way and was going to spend a few days just being in Israel before a day of work in Jerusalem and then 3 days up north working. It was a day about my relationship with Israel and Israelis, not about the Jewish connection to Israel. I was in Jerusalem but not the old city. I didn’t visit the Dead Sea or Masada. I did spend time on the beach, hanging in restaurants with Israelis, visiting schools and youth programs, and being connected to ordinary people.

On the plane returning and in the past two days, I have found myself reflecting on the ordinary people of Israel. Israel is typically rated one of the happiest countries in the world. This despite living in a very tough neighborhood with genocidal terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah on their borders. Terrorists try to come in every day to murder Israeli people and Iran is an existential threat. This was before the horrors of October 7th. Yet in the 2025 survey of the world’s happiest countries, Israel ranked 5th. A country that was attacked and invaded in 2023 where over 1,200 people murdered in the attack. A country at war with so many of her citizens called back to serve in the reserves. A country being villified by the international community based on terrible lies, being called terrible things, all due to Jew hatred. A country that had the north evacuated due to daily rocket attacks and who spent time almost daily in bomb shelters. This is the country that was the 5th happiest in 2024?

This past week helped me really understand how a country facing all these challenges could be the world’s 5th happiest country (for comparison, the United States was 21st). In Israel, they focus on what they have rather than what they don’t have. They focus on gratitude not desire. It’s a country that realizes that gratitude is a far better way to live than envy.

It got me thinking about my life and the changes I have made in the past few years. My dad dying in September 2022 was a life changing event for me. Not just because I lost a parent and mentor. It was a realization that the end is closer than any of us want to acknowledge and the question is more about who we want to be and how we want to live than how much we can have.

So I have changed my life. I removed a great deal of stress. for decades, my job was filled with stress. I’m just as busy and working just as hard but now it is without the stress that I used to have. I make sure that I am rested and not burning the candle at both ends. I make sure to eat and eat healthy. No more skipping lunch because I’m too busy. I eat healthy now – whole foods rather than something quick. Today I had the time to make a fresh salad for lunch, cutting up lettuce, tomatoes and other veggies rather than grabbing something quick to stuff down my throat because I had no time between meetings.

On this Israel trip, I got to meet people who were doing the same thing. People who lived by their values so they moved their family to the north to repopulate that area after the war. While many people won’t move back, there are many who realize how important it is to live there and are choosing to do so. The high school student who had the opportunity to decide whether he wanted to take the exams for his bagrut (high school diploma) and decided not to take them. As he shared that with us, I could feel his trepidation as he was waiting for criticism. Criticism that he didn’t get. The early childhood teacher who loved his job and the children he interacted with. The little tricks he did for them and the joy in their faces as he did them. The care in his voice as he talked to them and way they were truly little people, not just kids.

I talked with people who are more concerned about the mental health of IDF combat soldiers than their personal income. They are volunteering tremendous amounts of time to do their part in providing for the mental health care needed for these soldiers. Each time an IDF combat soldier commits suicide, a little piece of them dies, so they work to reduce that number to zero. They invest their time, their money, and their heart and soul.

I went to visit Hapoel Jerusalem Football Club (HJFC), a team that is much more than a professional team in the Premier League for men and women’s soccer. Their social programs are changing the face of Jerusalem and the future of Israel. Hersh Goldberg-Polin (z’l) was one of the leaders of their fan club. I wear my Hapoel Jerusalem FC shirt with his face on it proudly. It speaks to people living by their values, choosing to make the world a better place which means they are happier in their daily lives. Read the post below which describes somebody’s experience with the girls program of HJFC. It’s extraordinary.

I used to believe that I could never make Aliyah (move to Israel) because I want to live like an American in Israel and to do so is extremely expensive. There is a saying about life in Israel that explains this well.

People don’t move to Israel to become financially rich. They move to Israel to be spiritually rich. To be emotionally fulfilled. To have meaning in their life. You don’t have to move to Israel to have those things. We can choose them in our daily lives. Yet in America, we rarely do. We place money ahead of our values. Our answer to the saying, “You can either be happy or right” is often to be right. The lesson I was reminded of on this trip is that we don’t have to make those choices. We can learn to focus on what matters. Being happy. Enjoying life.

When I came back from Israel, my oldest son was home for the weekend. It was great having him home for the weekend, even though we didn’t do anything. Just having him around was nice. My best friend’s son is getting married next weekend and I’ll be there to celebrate. A few days later, my younger son is taking the LSAT and has to go to Ft Myers to take it (that’s an entirely different story). So we’ll drive down to Ft Myers, stay in a hotel, he’ll take the LSAT and then we’ll drive home. 8 hours in the car together along with a night at the hotel together. Priceless. That’s the key to being happy – enjoying every minute and the opportunities they present.

I think of my dog, a now 10 month old chocolate lab. She gets excited to see me every morning, not because I’m going to take her outside and give her breakfast. Not because she’ll get treats and do a puzzle. She gets excited because we are together. When my wife comes downstairs and comes home from work, my puppy is filled with anticipation and realizes she is the luckiest dog in the world because she’s with her people, with her pack. That’s how I want to be.

Israel taught me that. Despite two years of war, they cherish every moment. Despite a year of rockets falling on them and rushing to their safe room day after day after day, they found ways to appreciate things. As I sat on the beach in Tel Aviv, breathing the fresh air, listening to the waves and people all around me, I realized just how lucky I am. It’s not about the things I have or don’t have. It’s not about the size of my house or my bank account. It’s about the people in my life. Recognizing the beauty in the world around me. The gifts of life.

I have been to Israel 24 times. Trip 25 is scheduled. What a gift. What a blessing. As I look at that image, my heartbeat slows, any stress disappears, I relax and realize just how lucky I am. And when we realize how lucky we are instead of thinking about all we don’t have, the world is a much better place.

The Children of Israel

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

Over the past two years the media has focused repeatedly on the children in Gaza. The suffering they faced. Some real, some made up. Stories they were real and that were made up.

They denied much of what happened to the children of Israel on October 7th. They completely ignored what happened to the children of Israel from October 8th until today. Spending this past week in Israel, I have had the opportunity to interact with many children here. Children in pre-school, elementary school and high school. Parents of young children who have struggled the past two years about what to say to their children, how to protect them from the horrors, and parents who are IDF reservists, struggling with the fact that they have been gone from their children’s lives for more than half of the past two years. It’s not something that can be ignored.

I visited a preschool in Carmiel, in the Northern District of Israel, often included in the area of Israel called the Misgav. It’s a town of 55,000 that is beautiful and as we drove through, you could see how wonderful a place it is. The preschool (Gan) I visited had 35 students, agest 3 and 4, and as we walked in, they were running around, happy, laughing, and inquisitive. They were excited to see new people and happily smiled at us, walked around us, and when we sat to talk, pulled up their own chairs to sit with us or sat on playground equipment to be a part of the group. They were wonderful, happy, normal children. It was amazing to see.

At one point, we moved inside to a smaller room to sit and talk without the children around us. We learned that the room we sat in was the safe room for the Gan. When the rocket alerts went off, this was where all 35 children and the staff of 3-5 teachers would all have to get into within 30 seconds. I ran a JCC with an early childhood center that had hundreds of children. Monthly, we practiced our fire drill in which we had to get all the children out of the building. We timed it an regularly had them all out of the building in under 5 minutes. Each class had no more than 16 children with 2 teachers. The alarm was loud and many of the children would hold their ears, cry, or be upset. In Israel, at this Gan, they had to get 35 children into a small room within 30 seconds. Who knew how long they would have to keep the children in this small room. Packing 38-40 people in this small room for any amount of time would be a challenge. Yet the teachers did it. The children did it. They managed. I think of how difficult that must have been on the children and on the teachers and am astounded that the children aren’t afraid of the room and don’t want to avoid it. That the room doesn’t hold terrible images for the teachers. The trauma is real and yet they are dealing with it.

We visited an afterschool program in Kiryat Shmona that has a special program for the children who live there. It’s hard to imagine, but with the 2 years of Covid and the 2 years of the war, these children have had 4 years of learning interrupted. A child in 1st grade at the start of Covid is now in 5th grade and has barely been in school. How do you overcome the deficits that occurred both developmentally and educationally? What has to happen so that these children have a chance at a normal life and learning the basic tools that they missed, both educationally and socially? My youngest son spent his entire senior year doing online learning due to Covid (before you freak out, the schools were open and there were many reasons why we began and then stayed with online learning for him). It wasn’t easy for him to overcome the social deficits as a result of the last semester of him junior year and his full senior year being done online. We created a plan and it worked. That was just over 1 year for a 17/18 year old. Not 4 years for a 6-9 year old child. These children in Kiryat Shmona and other evacuated communities may need years of remedial work to deal with the academic deficits, let alone the social and developmental ones. Who’s talking about the damage done to them?

I spoke with a 37 year old father who has spent more than a full year since October 7, 2023, in the IDF reserves. He talked about his struggles when he returns home. He has two children – two children who have not only missed having their dad in the life for more than half of the past two years but who also know that he has put his life on the line every day he wasn’t at home. A father who has trauma to deal with so isn’t the same father that left them on October 7th to defend the people of Israel and the Jewish people. A father who struggles to be there for them all the time. Who talks about these children? Who is taking care of their needs? Where is the attention on the children of those brave soldiers who have kept going back to serve to defend not just their country but the Jewish people? Why is there no outrage at the damage to them?

We talked about a school that one of my friend’s children attend. In one classroom there is a teacher who has spent a great deal of time in reserves. There are two children dealing with the loss of family members on October 7th. Why is there no outrage about these children, living in the center of the country, who know the cost of war and the cost of freedom better than most people in the United States? Why is there no outrage at the impact on these children of losing their teacher for so long?

We have a generation of children of Israel that face enormous challenges. Who have faced enormous stress. Who have lost loved ones, parents, and friends due to the Hamas attack on October 7th and the ensuring war to keep Israel safe. Where is the outrage about what they have to deal with? Where are the world’s children’s organizations who are so critical of Israel, forgiving of Hamas and their responsibility?

This past week in Israel has shown me a new price that is being paid by Israel and the Jewish people. The price is being paid by our children. I don’t think we’ll know the exact cost we have to pay for quite some time. It’s a high price for sure, one that the world doesn’t care about. Jewish children — Jewish people — are expendable to the world. They don’t count nor do they matter. It’s unforgivable.

We can never forget the price of this war and defending Israel. It is a very high cost. The only thing worse would have been doing nothing. It’s not easy, especially when you see this price. It’s worth the high cost and we hope to never pay it again. It’s worth the many people who were impacted because of the many people who will be kept safe as a result.

When you look at the faces of these beautiful children and these beautiful babies, how can you not stand up and speak out on their behalf? How can you not do everything possible to protect them? We know Hamas does everything they can do damage and harm the children in Gaza as well as the children in Israel. We have to fight back even harder to protect ours.

Israel acts strongly while the world remains off base

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

I got back from Israel on Friday September 20th. On Saturday night, September 21st, the bombs and rockets started en masse from Lebanon and Iraq into the north of Israel. On Sunday night/Monday morning of September 23rd, the village across the street from Kibbutz Lavi, were we stayed less than a week ago, had a direct hit from Hezbollah. Luckily the family was in the safe room, so nobody was injured. It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me. During the 2nd intifada, the night before we flew home, we were out a club having a good time. The music was good, the people were great, and we enjoyed ourselves. A day later we flew home. A few days later, a suicide bomber blew themselves up in the club we had just been. I’ve been in Israel when masses of people were on the Syrian border, threatening to breach it and enter Israel. We could hear the chants and the gunfire from our hotel rooms. Once again, our flight was the next day.

While in both situations I left just before a major attack on a place I had just been occurred, things are very different this time. Before, these were isolated terrorist attacks. That sounds horrifying but it also means that it was one person or group of people, at one place, focused on doing damage and murdering people at that location. It was very local. Now it is different. The entire country is being targeted. While in Israel last week, rockets were fired close to where we were. In both cases, the alerts didn’t go off where we were but did go off a few kilometers away. The train station in Modi’in, where I had been in May, had damage. My friends in Modi’in, who I had spent Shabbat with, had to go into their safe room on Sunday night.

My friends at Kibbutz Ravid sent me this video of the rockets over their heads and Iron Dome shooting them down. Less than a week ago, I was there.

Rockets over Kibbutz Ravid

This was over Tzfat, one of my favorite cities in Israel. I haven’t been there since prior to October 7th and couldn’t go on this trip because it wasn’t safe. I wasn’t far from Tzfat and could see it in the distance, but just being a few kilometers away makes a huge difference in terms of safety when Hezbollah is bombing indiscriminately.

Rockets over Tzfat

I speak to friends in Israel every day now. When I wake up my WhatsApp is filled with updates about the war. What Israel is doing to Hezbollah and what Hezbollah is firing at Israel. The alarms are now going off across almost the entire country. Iraq is now firing on Israel as well. It all stems from Iran, an existential threat to the US as well as Israel, and yet we stay silent.

Actually we don’t stay silent. We get continued lies from people like Representative Rashida Tlaib, who still hasn’t removed her lies about the hospital bombing on social media from 10 months ago. This is her speaking out yesterday.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President, is both Jewish and hater of Israel. She also continues to spew her hatred and lies on daily basis. This is one of her most recent posts, again accusing Israel of genocide.

Representative Ilhan Omar, a noted antisemite and Jew hater was silent as Hezbollah fired rockets on Israel for 11 months, as more than 60,000 Israelis have become evacuees and refugees in their own country. It’s only when Israel fights back that she opens her mouth.

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur, is another avid antisemite and Jew hater. She has continued to attack Israel since October 7th. She continues to spread lies. This post was from yesterday.

The UN does nothing while she spews her hatred and lies. They don’t tell her to stop. They don’t fire her. They don’t attempt to distance themselves from her. The media is silent on all these Jew haters and liars since it doesn’t move then

There is no price to be paid by these two members of Congress who are not only antisemetic but also lying. There is no criticism by the Republicans or the Democrats of Jill Stein and her lies, likely because they don’t deem her a threat to them. Despite her vile and hateful rhetoric, it doesn’t benefit them so they stay silent. The media remains silent on those who are clearly Jew haters and liars. They continue to support and advocate for the terrorists.

This is the Washington Post article as the people of Lebanon celebrate Nasrallahs death and their freedom from his tyranny.

Israel will fight and win. She has no other choice. I talk to friends in the IDF and they are committed. A friend of mine just sent his 18 year old son off to the IDF and to join the war this week. Other friends have been recalled to serve. The elimination of Nasrallah means the leadership Hezbollah is all gone, sending a clear message to Iran and anybody else who wanted to murder and eliminate the Jews that they are not safe. They will pay for their efforts.

Both President Biden and VP Harris issued statements after the elimination of Nasrallah. In both, they continue to hold to the fallacy that a cease fire is the desired outcome. A ceasefire only benefits Hamas and Hezbollah. It benefits the terrorists. It doesn’t benefit the people of Gaza nor those of Lebanon who yearn to be free from the yoke of terrorists. It doesn’t benefit Israel who wants safety and security. For decades the US policy has been to pressure Israel in the belief that land for peace would work. We have seen time after time that it doesn’t. As my friend Fleur Hassan Nahoum so eloquently says about the two-state solution, “It was our dream, not theirs.”

The world is tired of war. I get it. We all are. Those who are evil and live in hate are taking advantage of this exhaustion. Russia and Putin against Ukraine. China is waiting so they can take Taiwan. Iran directing Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq and the Houthis against Israel. The way to peace is through strength and deterrance, not through diplomacy. Strength and deterrance create the situation where diplomacy can work. Without the fear of strength, our enemies have nothing to fear and no reason to negotiate in good faith or give up anything of value. They know we will always cave. Israel’s elimination of Hamas leadership and their military in Gaza shows that strength. The elimination of the leadership of Hezbollah, including their newly appointed leader after only a few hours, shows strength.

In today’s world, sometimes I think Israel is the only one with common sense. There are plenty of problems with the Israeli government and I have been as critical as anybody of the power and influence that Ben Gvir and Smoltrich have, the issues with judicial reform, some of the policies in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, and many other things. When it comes to evil, Israel understands you can only eliminate it, you can’t negotiate. Israel understands that in that region, the only thing that is respected is strength. They don’t try to negotiate with Iran and the Supreme Leader, they show him what will happen if he continues his efforts at genocide.

The Abraham Accords happened when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain realized that the strength of Israel, both militarily and economically, was beneficial to them. Sudan and Morroco joined when they also realized it was to their benefit. Saudia Arabia and Indonesia were ready to join before October 7th for the same reason. The strength of Israel in removing Hamas and Hezbollah, even taking much longer than anybody expected, will only increase the likelihood that they will end up normalizing relations with Israel.

I worry about my friends in the IDF, my friends who have children in the IDF, my friends who live in the north and the Galilee, my friends in the south, my friends who have moved their bedrooms or their children’s bedrooms to their safe room because it’s easier than waking them up and trying to move them when the alerts go off. I hope that by destroying Hamas, eliminating the leadership of Hezbollah, we can get to place where they don’t have to do this any more. Where the people of Shlomi, who lived in my hotel for almost a full year now, can return home. Where the hostages will be released and this nightmare can end.

One thing that has become clear in the past few weeks with Israel’s attack on the leadership of Hezbollah. Israel will not accept the status quo. Israel will not return to the way things were on October 6, 2023. Containing the terrorists is no longer acceptable. Israel will protect her citizens. Israel will not abandon the north. The country is different now than before October 7th and will never be the same. But in the words of released hostage Mia Schem, “We will dance again.” The Jewish people and Israel will rise and be strong.

Am Yisrael Chai