In the middle of a war, friends from the United States—hoping to spend Passover with their daughter in Israel—scramble through the gauntlet of flight cancellations and schedule changes to find a seat. Israelis abroad navigate the same obstacles. Airlines, of course, do not relish flying into war zones. After October 7th, Israelis abroad clamored to return to their homeland; stories abound of El Al flights packed beyond normal capacity, as few other airlines were willing to take the risk.

Why the passion to come into a war zone? What is the draw of spending the day listening for the squawk of the Homefront Command app warning of incoming missiles—often followed by a 90-second (or less) sprint to safe rooms, basements, or stairwells as rockets, drones, and missiles fill the skies, amid the unrelenting wail of sirens?

The counterintuitive........

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