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Finding Strength In Faith During Iran’s Missile Barrages Against Israel
Israel’s military displays an Iranian ballistic missile which they retrieved from the Dead Sea after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, at Julis military base, in southern Israel, April 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
As sirens wailed across Israel for what felt like the hundredth time in two weeks, I found myself once again in a painful situation.
Still recovering from lower abdominal surgery, I could barely move without wincing, yet here I was, standing in the protected room in our apartment, our “bomb shelter,” unable to sit or lie down. I was surrounded by my wife, two children, and our three restless dogs.
“Abba, how long do we need to stay here this time?” my youngest asked, eyes wide with a mixture of frustration that no child should have to experience. Outside, somewhere in the skies above Jerusalem, Iran’s ballistic missiles aimed at causing as much harm as possible to Israel’s population centers were being intercepted. Some weren’t.
The physical pain from my surgery was palpable, but it paled in comparison to watching my family endure this trauma. My wife, who has struggled with anxiety ever since her recovery from breast cancer, which she contracted right after the coronavirus pandemic died down in 2022, was trying her best to remain calm. My children alternated between nervous questions, silence, and their own stoic resilience, which has grown and become ingrained since the rocket and missile barrages started in our area on October 7th, 2023. Yet amid this chaos, I found myself filled with a type of serenity, it is the same serenity that I often feel in times of distress, which not only baffles my wife but often frustrates her as well. It is a serenity of faith.
When a Canadian news reporter from CTV contacted me about sharing my experience as an expat living in a war zone, I spoke to him from my recovery bed between shelter runs. “How are you coping with the fear?” he asked, seemingly surprised by my composure.
“There is fear,” I admitted, “but there is also faith.”
I don’t have blind optimism or live in denial of danger. I’m a medical first responder, and I’ve seen firsthand what can happen when disaster strikes. I know the danger posed by the rockets that Hamas fired at Israel for years, and how much more danger there is from the barrage of ballistic missiles fired at Israel by the Houthis in Yemen and from Iran. Rather, I possess a deep understanding, anchored in my faith in God’s providence. This same faith has anchored Jewish families through millennia of persecution and uncertainty: our lives rest in God’s hands, not our own. The missiles falling around us weren’t random events but part of a larger plan that has sustained our people since Abraham.
My work as a first responder has only ever strengthened this faith. At any given medical emergency that I respond to, whether it be traumatic in origin or strictly medical, there is only so much that human intervention can accomplish; we can work miracles, but we recognize that those miracles will only come if God wills it. We can only do so much; the rest lies in the hands of the almighty.
“Hashem protects us, and our soldiers protect us,” I told my children each time we huddled in that cramped shelter. Not as a hollow promise that no harm would come, but as a reminder that whatever happened, safety or struggle, pain or a return to routine, we were never truly alone or helpless.
In Jewish tradition, we’re taught that even in our darkest moments, we have agency through prayer and the fulfillment of God’s commandments (Mitzvot). While I couldn’t physically defend my family or stop the missiles, I could recite prayers with my children, out loud or even silently. We could pray for the soldiers defending us and for peace to prevail. We could support each other.
My son once asked why I wasn’t afraid. I explained that fear comes from feeling powerless and isolated. “But we are never powerless because we can always pray,” I told him. “And we are never alone because (God) Hashem is always with us, and we have each other.”
These weren’t just comforting words; they were essential truths that psychiatrists recognize as crucial for preventing trauma. As part of my work as a first responder, I am a member of the Psychotrauma and Crisis Response team which is trained to provide psychological first aid at the scenes of acute medical emergencies. One of the first lessons that we are taught is that acute stress reactions, which can develop into post-traumatic stress disorder, occur largely when people feel utterly helpless and completely alone. Faith directly counteracts both feelings.
During one particularly long shelter stay, my son noticed I was struggling to remain standing through the pain. “Abba, (Father), how are you feeling?” he asked innocently.
I thought carefully before answering. “There are people facing much harder challenges right now. Our soldiers, families who’ve lost loved ones. I know that I am in pain, but I know that others are in more pain. Sorrow will not help my spirit, but gratitude might.”
The message to my son wasn’t about suppressing feelings, but rather contextualizing our suffering and being thankful for what we have. We have each other. We have our pets, who also provide solace and comfort. We have a great community that helped us through the ordeal, as many of our neighbors brought us meals during my recovery period, even amid the war, and neighbors offered their homes with backyards and trampolines for our children to play on between air raid alerts. There was a lot to be thankful for, and focusing on that helps get one through traumatic moments. In the past, I’ve helped others; now it was my turn to be on the receiving end for a bit, and people came through to help.
Jews have always found meaning in hardship by way of the community supporting one another. Each Passover, we gather in families and groups to recount our ancestors’ slavery not just to remember suffering, but to celebrate redemption. Each Tisha B’Av, we mourn the destruction of our Temples while affirming our enduring covenant.
In those moments in the shelter, I saw my children absorbing these lessons. We played games, read books, played with the dogs, and yes, they watched some videos as well. We weren’t focused on just surviving; we were together and finding purpose through being with others.
Now that a ceasefire has gone into effect, I believe my children will be stronger, I believe my family, and many other families, have emerged from this conflict stronger. My children, who are both younger than 10, have lived through the COVID pandemic, a parent having and surviving cancer, and now an elongated war that has gone on for almost two years. This is not the childhood I had, nor one that I would ever dream of for my children. But I count my blessings, of which there are many. God has protected us throughout, we are safe, and I am very excited to see just how strong and resilient my children grow up to be. If this is what the world has thrown at us, before they are 10 years old, I can only imagine the strength that they are gleaning from this. I believe that we are developing a resilience that transcends this war, a spiritual fortitude rooted in millennia of Jewish wisdom, and I hope to help entrench that resilience in my children. I believe that this is why, in spite of the war, Israel is one of the happiest countries on earth.
As we navigate these uncertain days, I’m reminded of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s timeless words: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to fear at all.”
Faith doesn’t eliminate the narrow bridge of danger and uncertainty. It gives us the courage to cross it together, one step at a time, even when those steps are painful. And in teaching our children to walk this bridge with faith rather than fear, we give them a gift more valuable than physical safety alone; we give them the spiritual resilience that has sustained our people through every trial and tribulation.
Raphael Poch is the Director of PR and Communications for Aish, a Jewish Educational Institute that works to share Jewish Wisdom to help people live more fulfilled lives. He is also a volunteer EMT with United Hatzalah of Israel and serves as a member of the organization’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit and has been dispatched to several disaster zones around the world. He lives in Efrat with his family.
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Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic
Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”
The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.
Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.
Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.
In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”
Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”
The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.
“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.
Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.
In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.
Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.
All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe
A man waves a Palestinian flag as pro-Hamas demonstrators protest next to the Greek parliament, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Athens, Greece, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
An Israeli restaurant in Athens, Greece, was vandalized on Saturday night in one of the latest incidents amid a surge of antisemitic attacks across Europe, prompting a police investigation into the suspected hate crime.
In a video shared on social media, a group of six individuals can be seen entering King David Burger — a local kosher restaurant that opened just a month ago — scattering pamphlets and spraying black paint across walls, tables, and other surfaces throughout the establishment.
Restaurante israelí en Atenas atacado po pro-palestinos
Otro caso de acoso a una empresa israelí, esta vez en Atenas. El restaurante King David Burger de la capital griega, propiedad de un israelí, fue atacado anoche.
Un grupo de activistas propalestinos llegó al restaurante y,… pic.twitter.com/YGiqLBRNAF
— ITON GADOL es Israel y las comunidades judias (@Itongadol) July 13, 2025
The group of pro-Palestinian activists shouted antisemitic slurs and vandalized the establishment with graffiti, including slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”
The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
According to local reports, many Israelis in Athens gathered outside the restaurant after the attack, with some singing “Am Israel Chai” (“The People of Israel Live”) as a show of solidarity.
The restaurant owner urged local authorities in Athens to take swift action and hold the perpetrators accountable.
“It would be a shame for the Israelis to leave Athens,” Zvika Levinson, the restaurant’s owner, told Israel Hayom. “But if authorities don’t act, the situation will not be good.”
Police reportedly told the owner that without clear identification of the individuals in the video, they are unable to make any arrests.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged to alarming levels across Europe. This recent attack is just one of the latest in a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes that Greece and other countries have witnessed in recent months.
Last month, an Israeli tourist was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists after they overheard him using Google Maps in Hebrew while navigating through Athens.
When the attackers realized the victim was speaking Hebrew, they began physically assaulting him while shouting antisemitic slurs.
Although local police arrived promptly, a large crowd had already gathered outside the restaurant where the victim had sought shelter.
At first, authorities mistakenly arrested the victim, accusing him of the attack. However, after video footage clarified the situation, they apologized and took him to the nearest hospital.
The post Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC Mayor’s Office Accuses Comptroller of Aiding BDS With ‘Withdrawal’ of Millions From Israel Bonds
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends an “October 7: One Year Later” commemoration to mark the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack in Israel at the Summer Stage in Central Park on October 7, 2024, in New York City. Photo: Ron Adar/ SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
The office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has accused Comptroller Brad Lander of pushing a political agenda and advancing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement by withdrawing tens of millions of dollars in city pension funds from bonds issued by the Jewish state.
In a letter to Lander dated July 10 and first shared with the media on Sunday, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro demanded a full accounting of the comptroller’s decision-making regarding the investments in Israel Bonds.
New York City’s holdings in Israel-issued bonds have plunged from “tens of millions of dollars” to just $1.2 million in the Police Pension Fund during Lander’s tenure, reversing a longstanding pattern of reinvestment stretching back to 1974, according to the letter.
Lander subsequently confirmed to The Forward that city pension funds currently hold no investments in Israel Bonds, noting the purchase by the Police Pension Fund was made by a fund manager but has since been sold.
Mastro wrote that Lander’s decisions “appears to be in furtherance of [the] BDS campaign, regardless of the adverse financial consequences for city pensioner.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
City records show that Israel Bonds, historically yielding approximately 5 percent annually, outperformed many alternatives, and critics such as Mastro have argued the abrupt exit is financially irresponsible.
Meanwhile, Adams has promoted his own pro-Israel push, noting last month’s formation of the inaugural New York City–Israel Economic Council aimed at boosting trade and innovation with the Jewish state. In a press event, Adams repudiated Lander, saying that the comptroller “was elected to safeguard New York City’s financial future, yet he continues to pander to the antisemitic BDS movement at the expense of taxpayer dollars and our city’s best interests. New Yorkers deserve to know why.”
Lander’s office swiftly defended the move, describing it as consistent with a longstanding policy to avoid foreign sovereign debt, rather than a targeted divestment linked to Israel.
“Lander has never divested,” a spokesperson for Lander said in March, noting at the time that the city continued to hold over $400 million in investments in Israeli companies.
As of May, Lander said city pension funds still held more than $315 million in Israel-based assets, mostly in common stock and some in Israeli real estate investment trusts.
Lander, who is Jewish, claimed that his predecessors made “politically motivated choices” to treat Israel in a more “favorable way” than other countries.
“As a Jew, I am proud that we have these investments in Israel,” Lander told The Forward. “But I’m not allowed to make investments for that reason. They have to make financial sense to be consistent with our policies and my fiduciary duty.”
A representative for the comptroller told the New York Post that Mastro’s accusations are a “cynical effort by the Adams administration to weaponize antisemitism against the highest ranking Jewish elected official in New York City government.”
The battle has reverberated across New York City’s political landscape, tapping into deep divisions over foreign policy, fiscal stewardship, and community allegiance. Adams, running as an independent for reelection this fall, is courting Jewish constituents and warning Lander’s withdrawal of bonds signals “pandering” to anti-Israel sentiment.
Lander stoked outrage among the Big Apple’s Jewish community when he recently aligned with Zohran Mamdani, a progressive firebrand who backs the BDS movement and is running for mayor. Lander’s support for the anti-Israel politician has raised scrutiny regarding his motives in ending investments into Israeli bonds. Zionist advocacy groups and pension experts are demanding transparency, questioning whether the city actually missed out on returns typically delivered by Israel Bonds.
Although Lander has repeatedly affirmed his belief in Israel’s “right to exist,” he has suggested that controversial slogans such as “globalize the intifada” might not be inherently supportive of violence. He has also refused to defend Israel from accusations of committing “genocide” in Gaza, saying that he believes the word is offensive to the Jewish community because it evokes memories of the Holocaust.
Mastro’s letter sets a July 17 deadline for full documentation of Lander’s policy concerning Israel Bonds.
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