I am a different person than I was on October 6 — and I am certainly not alone.

I was not in the army during this war. My days of service ended decades ago. I was not even in Israel on October 7. I was in Florida on a weeklong trip when, at 1:30 a.m. Eastern time, nonstop Red Alerts began screaming from my phone. it was two hours into the war and I called home to understand what was happening. From that moment on, I was glued to Hebrew news and trying desperately to get back.

I was two weeks away from my 40th Aliyah anniversary. Like most Israelis, I had lived through too many wars and “operations.” As always, we assumed this would be short and that life would soon return to normal. That illusion collapsed once we understood the scale of the massacre, the hostage-taking, the total failure of the army, and the abandonment by the government.

I was in constant contact with my family. I was endlessly grateful that my younger daughter had been home that weekend. She lives in Sderot and would not return for nearly a year. It took me ten days to get back to Israel. Only then did my wife sit me down and describe her terror.

We live just outside Jerusalem, near the Green Line. Our home is close to a main road and a primary entrance to our community. If there were an attack, our house would be among the first hit. My wife, Israeli-born, carries childhood memories of the Yom Kippur War and her father leaving immediately for reserve duty. On October 7, she was convinced that she and our daughters would be killed and that Israel would cease to exist. While I was in constant contact with them, I could not fully........

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