It was in the first week of the war that Shaked Bitton, a content creator from Kibbutz Palmachim, stacked fluffy pancakes on a tray, scattered them with sliced strawberries and blueberries, drizzled them with maple syrup, and served them at his neighborhood bomb shelter, just as a siren had sounded warning of an incoming Iranian strike.

“You could actually see the shift — people stopped waiting anxiously for a missile strike and started waiting for pancakes,” said Bitton, who later posted a video of the shelter pancake snack on his Instagram feed.

As the US-Israel war with Iran grinds on, Israelis are marking four weeks of sirens and cellphone alerts blasting warnings of incoming missiles from Iran or Lebanon.

When those alerts sound, people head for shelter. For many, that can mean the neighborhood bomb shelter or communal basement of an apartment building, as well as parking garages and underground train stations.

With so much time being spent underground, some shelters have become sites of communal experiences, from Purim parties and megillah readings during the first week of the war, to a wedding that was very publicly celebrated four stories beneath Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center.

“It can be turned into moments of real connection, even in the most unexpected places, like bomb shelters,” said Bitton, who has now served desserts in more than a few shelters.

His most famous shelter dessert yet was a giant tiramisu, following the global trend of preparing the creamy Italian dessert to fill an entire refrigerator drawer.

Once the 10-kilogram (22-pound) tiramisu was ready, Bitton stuck it on the back of his bicycle, waited for an alert, and rode over to Gan Ha’Ir, a Tel Aviv mall with a massive underground shelter that fits several hundred people.

“My neighborhood shelter was too small,” said Bitton, “so I looked for a bigger one.”

Birthday and bachelorette parties, CrossFit, Zumba, and........

© The Times of Israel