In late March, a missile fired from Iran struck the University of Haifa campus on Mount Carmel. No one was hurt. By sheer luck, no one was there. But standing on that hill afterward, looking at what remained, I kept returning to the same thought: our students need us now more than ever.

That is the job. Not in spite of what is happening, but because of it.

I have spent my career at the University of Haifa. I studied here and at the Technion, I built my academic life here, and for the past four years I have served as Dean of Students, responsible for the wellbeing of more than 17,000 students. I have never taken that responsibility lightly. But I have also never felt its weight the way I feel it now.

Nearly 600 of our students are currently serving in the reserves. Some have been in uniform for hundreds of days, having left behind their studies, their jobs, their families. One came to register for the new semester still in his uniform, carrying the dust of Gaza on his boots. He sat down, opened his laptop, and asked what he........

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