by Howie Sniderman
(Edmonton) – The banana bread at the Sugar Beach Bakery on Maui is simply delicious. At 8:08 am on Saturday January 13, 2018 I was walking along the beach with my wife Debbie and our daughter Liz, en route to the bakery, when our phones started shrieking. It wasn’t just our phones, it was everyone’s. The message read:
Emergency Alert: Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaiian Islands. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.
Three things came to mind:
- I need to take a screenshot of the alert on my phone ‘cause if this turns out to be fake, I for sure want to be able to show it to everyone later on.
- I knew I should have gone to shul that morning instead of to the bakery. This sort of thing doesn’t happen if you go to shul.
- We need to get to the bakery. You should never go into a nuclear scenario without baked goods.
As it turns out, the alert was not real – a glitch in the Hawaiian Islands air raid missile warning system. Better safe than sorry, though, right? And, in the end, I got the banana bread from the bakery.
Last month, at 3:00 am the morning of Friday June 13, 2025, my wife Debbie & I were jolted awake from our sleep at the home of close friends in Tzoran, about 30 km. from Tel Aviv, when our phones started shrieking. Again, it wasn’t just our phones, it was everyone’s. The message from the Pikud Ha’oref (Israel’s Homefront Command) app installed on our phones read:
Due to the preparations for a significant threat, it is required to immediately comply with the Home Front Command guidelines that are currently being distributed throughout the media.
My guess was that the guidelines did not include a trip to the bakery. Together with our friends Shlomi & Osnat (Os), their children Eyal & Shira, and their two big dogs Brandy & Chili, we made our way into Shlomi’s home office which does double duty as the Mamad (the Protected Space) in their home.
Shlomi turned on the livestream broadcast news and we learned that earlier in the evening Israel had attacked Iran and a response was expected imminently. This was not a false alarm. This was war. Israel v. Iran.
A ballistic missile fired at Israel from Iran travels at Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and takes roughly 12 minutes to reach Israel after being launched.
A few minutes after entering the Mamad, the first barrage of ballistic missiles were launched by Iran. They were detected by Israel immediately upon launch. And, just as immediately, our phones shrieked and the text message read:
In the next few minutes, alerts are expected in your area. You will need to find a better location that will provide the best protection in your area. If an alert is received, enter the protected space and stay there until further notice.
As the missiles make their way toward Israel, their trajectory and anticipated impact site is calibrated and estimated. If it’s determined they are headed your way, the next alert is sounded. And indeed, about 5 minutes later our phones shrieked and the text message read:
Rocket & Missile Fire inbound to Tzoran. Time of arrival to the Protected Room – One and a half minutes. Enter the Protected Space now.
Simultaneously, the air raid sirens in the community were sounded. Over the next 10 days we made 22 trips to the Mamad in Shlomi’s home office. Each visit lasted about 30 minutes until we received a very different and much more muted alert on our phones. The text message – the one we longed for each and every time – simply read:
End of stay next to a Protected Space. You no longer need to stay next to a Protected Space.
During each visit to the Mamad, we watched livestream broadcasts of the dance of the missiles overhead. The incoming ballistic missiles from Iran. The Iron Dome interceptor missiles rising from the ground to meet, greet and (please God) obliterate the Iranian missiles.
We heard and felt the boom, boom, boom shudders of each salvo of interceptor missiles fired from the Iron Dome arrays in the area. And, in our small community, we thankfully never heard the very different sound of an Iranian missile impact. Many other communities in Israel were not as fortunate. People were injured. People were killed.
The livestream broadcasts often split the screen into quadrants, panning back and forth across the skylines of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Be’er Sheva. During any given attack, the dance of the missiles was replayed over and over and over in the event of an Iranian missile evading the Iron Dome and impacting on the ground.
The plumes of smoke rising from the impact site were awful. And then came the wait – usually only minutes – before the first reports of the extent of the devastation wrought. In the ensuing hours, we would hear about the casualties, the injured, the dead, their names.
I’ve just given you a pretty fair accounting of what occurred each time a barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran was launched. What I really want to tell you about, however, and what is far more important to know about, is what happens in Israel in between each alert. Namely, life. Life albeit delayed, amended, pivoted, and overlaid with a sense of numbness, dread, fear and foreboding. But, most of all, life. Let me give you a few examples of life in Israel between alerts:
Making new friends and cherishing old ones
Every day we walked two blocks from home to the Supersol (supermarket), the bakery and the fruit & veggie stand. Life in a neighbourhood is wonderful. Everything is fresh. Did I mention the bakery?
Shlomi & Os know everyone in the neighbourhood. On day 1, following the 3 separate early morning missile alerts, the sun rose and with it the entire neighbourhood headed to the market to stock up for who knows how long. The market was packed. There was no pushing, shoving or typical Israeli Sabra ‘tough on the outside’. Everyone wanted to know how everyone else was faring and, more to the point, was there anything they could do for one another.
By Day 7, Debbie & I were making the daily trip ourselves and greeting our new friends. For example, Nehiya, the Arab-Israeli woman who works at Supersol. Nehiya sets aside cottage cheese for Shlomi ‘cause she knows it’s his favourite. I won’t go into a nuclear scenario without baked goods. He won’t go into one without cottage cheese. To each his own.
Eddie is the owner of the fruit & veggie stand. My Hebrew is just good enough to get me into trouble. One morning, as we were leaving, I told him (in Hebrew), “I’ll see you yesterday.” I forgot the word for ‘tomorrow.’ He looked at me like I was the child that I am and said, “I speak English, you know.”
And Moran, the owner of the bakery. She delicately took the delicious loaf of olive bread from my hands and sliced it for me in the bread slicing machine, because everyone knows I’m not allowed to play with sharp objects.
The opportunity to spend ‘quality time during a war’ with Shlomi, Os, Eyal & Shira was not expected but it will never be forgotten. The chance to truly ‘live during a war’ in a small Israeli neighbourhood was not expected but it, and the new friends we made there, will never be forgotten.
Life goes on. Am Yisrael Chai.
- Rubble Rousers
In the immediate wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the reserves were called up to duty. Tens of thousands of young women were suddenly left to fend for themselves and their young children. A grass roots lifeline was almost as immediately established across the country, matching women who could assist with those in need. A peer-to-peer network of women. Our dear friend Os headed up the program in Tzoran.
The day after the start of the war with Iran, once again there was a significant call up of reserves to duty. Os spent hours at the kitchen table, with her daughter Shira at her side, once again setting up the peer-to-peer matches to help the women in need.
Meanwhile, a Homefront Command platoon took up position in the local elementary school a couple of blocks away. Their job is to help with search & rescue in the event of a missile impact in the neighbourhood. Each afternoon, Debbie helped Os and her neighbour Chaya buy fruit, veggies & bread and take them to the soldiers. One day, lovely 20 yr. old Shira and her equally lovely friend helped out. Debbie said that the soldiers were ‘extra appreciative’ that day. I told her I’d come the next day to help level the playing field for her.
The willingness to assist. To volunteer. And not to wait for a government to step in (you’ll wait forever) permeates the country.
Life goes on. Am Yisrael Chai.
- This would never happen in Edmonton
On Day 12 Os drove us to the Jordan River border crossing near Beit She’an. We walked across the border, took a taxi to Amman, and flew home. At 7:30 am, barely 15 minutes from reaching the border crossing, our phones shrieked. A missile alert for the 23rd and final time. Simultaneously, the Wave GPS navigation screen on Os’ car populated with dots showing the closest shelters. The closest was in Kibbutz Yehezkel, about 2 minutes away.
We left the highway, entered the kibbutz, and stopped in the driveway of the first home. We knocked on the door and rang the doorbell until Uri, in his boxer shorts and groggy (we’d clearly woken him) opened the door. We told him there was an alert. He hadn’t heard as he and his young family (wife and two little children) had been sleeping in their Mamad since the start of the war and left their cellphones outside so it wouldn’t wake the little ones.
He immediately ushered us into the house and into the Mamad…. where his wife and little ones were sleeping. We sat on the edge of the bed with them until the ‘all clear.’ At which point he asked us if he could make us a cup of coffee before we continued on our way to the border.
Life goes on. Am Yisrael Chai.
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