Sitting in the front row

Last week my wife and I went to see a production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Jerusalem Theater. I love musicals but I have never liked Fiddler. I find the songs maudlin and worse—the portrayal of Tevye and his family feels like a parody at best or a collection of anti-semitic tropes at worst. But I thought seeing and hearing shtetl-dwellers kvetching in modern Hebrew might redeem the show.

We weren’t quite in the front row but we were close enough—in the second row albeit almost on the aisle. The production was very well done, and Tevye (called Tuvia in this Hebrew production) was excellent. I didn’t love it. But I didn’t hate it.

At some point in the first act as I struggled to follow the Hebrew dialogue, I could have sworn I heard Tevye mention Tel Aviv and what surely sounded like Ramat Gan ( a town just next to Tel Aviv) while speaking with a Russian soldier. I thought I must have imagined it or misheard it—he still seemed to be in character and who knows, sometimes revivals of old shows throw in a modern joke as a wink to the audience.

Then Tevye turned to the crowd and spoke to us. And that in itself is not that unusual in this show—he’s a philosophical guy, Tevye. He talks to God like a buddy, so I figured he was confiding in us by speaking through the mythical fourth wall of the theater. But he clearly wasn’t acting.

There’s a new thing here in Israel in recent weeks—we no longer just get a siren when a missile is launched at us. We get a warning that a siren is coming. Our phones make a funny noise and we get a message saying a siren in imminent and we should prepare to find shelter. Evidently, during Fiddler, even though everyone was told to turn off their phones, some phones made the sound of a warning about a warning. And Tevye was telling or reassuring the Russian soldier (oh the irony) about the incoming alert—that it was probably Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan.

Then he turned to us, and even though my Hebrew is mediocre, I understood him. He was asking us whether he should continue. A bunch of us responded, yes. I heard no one say no. So he shrugged as Tevye shrugs, and continued. It was a pretty easy call. There have been no casualties in a long time here in Jerusalem from incoming rockets. We’re pretty jaded. And many of our friends just ignore the sirens these days. Plus staying in place seemed a lot safer than trying to get over a thousand people to head into whatever shelter the theater has.

So last night, at 3:30 am Israel time, when the sirens blared throughout Jerusalem waking me from sleep, I ignored them. Our windows were open but my wife slept through them and I decided not to wake her. An hour later, I woke again. Checked my phone as I sometimes compulsively do when I wake in the middle of the night and saw an email from a website I don’t really pay any attention to and saw the subject line “BREAKING: Israel launches preemp…” I assumed it was some kind of joke. I racked my very slow-moving brain for what could possible follow those six letters other than “tive” And what words might follow? And what could that possibly mean?

I checked my X feed and saw that not only had Israel struck Iran but had also assassinated a number of military leaders and nuclear scientists. My sleepy brain still struggled to understand. Ninety minutes of scrolling later, I was up to date and my wife was finally awake. The siren at 3:30 am was just to prepare the people of Israel that retaliation might be coming.

I had a crazy moment shortly after October 7 when I was interviewed for a Hoover podcast by H.R. McMaster and some other Hoover people about what was happening in Israel on the ground after the Hamas attack. And at some point, the conversation turned to strategic issues and McMaster asked me if I thought Israel needed to strike Iran, the so-called head of the snake. I remember thinking two things. The first was that there was something surreal about McMaster asking me that question rather than the other way around. The second was that my stomach hurt. I had a physical reaction to the thought of war with Iran. It was unimaginable to me.

But as the months passed and as we here in Israel dealt with Hezbollah and then the Houtis and the interminable tragedy of Gaza and the hostages, I found myself wondering why Netanyahu wasn’t taking out the nuclear sites of Iran. Iran, not the Houtis were the real enemy. Why were we wasting our time on striking the Houtis?

Maybe we didn’t have the ordinance to get to the underground facilities in Iran. Or maybe Netanyahu didn’t have the guts. Those who hate him around the world caricature him as a violent monster. But here in Israel, his reputation is for talking loudly but never carrying any kind of stick. Many of my Israeli friends said he would never attack Iran. He would simply talk tough.

And some part of the story was that Trump was too interested in the art of the deal, any deal, good or bad. He needed a win—he would accept some face-saving agreement that would kick the can down the road and leave Iran’s nuclear ambitions intact.

Months ago I had bet a friend that we would hit Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The wager was a bottle of scotch. Everything seemed to suggest that outcome. But then nothing happened. I couldn’t understand it. Maybe Russia had weighed in behind the scenes and threatened Trump with retribution if Israel attacked? And then the talk escalated about the need for a deal. A malaise seemed to settle over the country. Qatar and everyone who profits from the status quo seemed to have the upper hand.

The deadline for the bet was June 16th. As the date approached, there were rumors of an imminent Israeli attack. But I figured that was just the art of the deal in action—threats to get Iran back to the table. And sure enough—a new round was scheduled for Sunday. That round is off for now. We awoke this morning to a new world.

Many books will be written about last night. They are saying that this attack was 20 years in the making. They are saying Israel had a drone base inside of Iran that took out launchers this morning. (How do you have a secret drone base? I can’t imagine but maybe we will find out.) And we are already seeing images of the surgical strikes on individual rooms in apartment building where military leaders and nuclear scientists were taken out without any other damage.

So here I am, yes, off to the side as before, but with something like a front row seat, not to Tevye but to history. Somehow, Mr. Netanyahu found the courage to seize the moment. Who knows what comes next. But for now, as Shabbat approaches here in Jerusalem, the new status quo appears to be preferable to the old one.