An American Jewish widow and mother of three small children describes what it is like to live under Houthi rocket fire. She calls upon President Trump not to abandon American Jews living in Israel when he negotiates with the Houthis.
By Rachel Avraham
It was 4:30pm on a Friday afternoon in Netanya, Israel. I was sitting in my friend’s restaurant on Weizman Street, trying to enjoy life, ahead of the Jewish Sabbath, like I usually love to do on Friday afternoons. It was an open-air restaurant, where one ordered food at the counter and then sat outside on the street in chairs. I love to go there on Friday afternoon’s because it is one of the few places in my city that are open passed 2pm. In Israel, most restaurants close at 2pm on Friday, but my friend’s restaurant stays open later till 6pm.
However, this Friday was not a usual Friday. Out of nowhere, at 4:30pm, the bomb sirens went off. I looked around and there was absolutely no bomb shelter or protected space in the vicinity. In the end, I ran into the kitchen of my friend’s restaurant, since she was the owner and permitted me to enter, and I thought that the kitchen was probably safer than being out there on the street in the open. However, she made it clear that other customers were not permitted inside her restaurant’s kitchen. So, one could witness people sipping tea and eating, without getting up, as bomb sirens went off in the background for they had nowhere to run to. This is the reality that the Israeli people are living through right now.
Immediately after the bomb siren was over, I called my children’s grandfather in order to check if my three children, age 10, age 8 and age 7, were ok. He told me: “They were fine. They are brave.” I must admit that as a worried mother, I am less brave than my children are. If the bomb siren had just gone off two hours earlier, it would have gone off while I was playing soccer in the park with my children and their grandfather, and this thought freaks me out as a parent.
If the bomb siren had gone off then, I would have had to struggle together with the grandfather to get three children into a bomb shelter that was far away from the soccer field in a few minutes. Thus, every Israeli child now plays in the park under the threat that at any second, the Houthis can fire a missile and that child can be left far away from a bomb shelter. This is not the childhood that I wanted for my children.
The attack on Friday was not the first time that the bomb sirens have gone off in Netanya. At other times, I have awoken in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning to bomb sirens in Netanya, a city that many claimed used to be safe for we are north of Herzliya and south of Haifa, implying that we were out of reach for both Hezbollah and Hamas. In the beginning of the war, indeed, we lived in a bubble, where we were relatively safe compared to other parts of the country. But now, the Houthis have shattered that bubble. Netanya is no longer the safe place that it used to be.
For me, it is a freaky experience every time the Houthis fire at us in the middle of the night or early morning, as I live on the fourth floor and literally have to run down four flights of stairs in order to get to the bomb shelter. Every time the Houthis fire at Netanya late night or early morning, it is always a struggle to awaken from my slumber and to run down four flights of stairs in time. For families with small children, it is mission impossible. And if you do not make it to the bomb shelter in time, it can be dangerous, as the recent attack upon Ben-Gurion International Airport demonstrated, which injured at least eight people.
The fact that the Houthis keep targeting Ben-Gurion International Airport also adversely affects me as an American Jewish citizen living in Israel. In 2009, I made Aliyah, alone, without family. While I did have an Israeli husband, he passed away suddenly at age 38 in August 2022. This means that other than my children, I have no family in Israel. All of my family is in the United States. And if the Houthis cause all of the flights to be canceled between the United States and Israel, then I cannot go to America to visit my parents, my brother and the rest of my family. While I believe that El Al and IsraAir will continue to fly, even under Houthi rocket fire, they will jump up the price of tickets due to the Houthi threat and even their tickets can be canceled if there is a bomb siren, and telling when the Houthis will fire is like a game of Russian roulette. One can buy a ticket with El Al or IsraAir, and not know if the flight will be canceled in the end due to heavy rocket fire.
This leaves me as a widow and single mom with three small children cut off completely from her family thanks to the Houthis destroying the possibility for reliable plane travel between the United States and Israel. And for me, it is a great personal tragedy, as I rely upon my annual trips to the United States in the summer, where I see my parents, my brother, my aunt and my uncle, to get the emotional strength to carry on with my bleak reality here in Israel for the rest of the year. This is the psychological cost that me and so many others are paying right now due to the Houthi missile threat.
For this reason, I ask President Donald Trump to consider the plight of American Jews living in Israel when he makes any deal with the Houthis. If the cease-fire does not include Israel, it is a non-starter, as halting the Houthi missile attacks on Israel is just as important as stopping the attacks upon American ships in the Red Sea. It is important to recall that the Houthis chant “death to America” just as much as they chant “death to Israel” and “curse the Jews.” For this reason, as allies, we should remain united against the Houthi threat, and not abandon US allies, who are presently under fire. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee recalled that 700,000 US citizens live in Israel and an attack on any one of us is also an attack upon the United States. President Trump should remember that when he deals with the Houthis.
