“As a Jew, I Find It Important to Live Here”: BU Grad Student on Living through War
On Sunday, October 8, 2023, in Sderot, Israel, Israeli police retrieve weapons used by militants outside a police station that was overrun by Hamas gunmen on Saturday. AP Photo by Ohad Zwigenberg
“As a Jew, I Find It Important to Live Here”: BU Grad Student on Living through War
Online post-professional student Shira Eisenman (Sargent’24) on what life is currently like in the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat
When Shira Eisenman heard rocket sirens early Saturday morning, she and her husband grabbed their year-old son and headed to a fortified bomb shelter inside their home. They live in the town of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel, close to Gaza, and the sirens are a somewhat common occurrence, says Eisenman (Sargent’24), a Boston University graduate student in the Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences online post-professional occupational therapy doctorate program.
By 7:30 am, the sirens had stopped. So the family left their apartment to head to their synagogue to celebrate Simchat Torah, the day when Jews mark another year of reading and studying the Torah. “It was a very eerie walk,” Eisenman said on Thursday over Zoom from her house in Israel. “No one was on the streets. And it was a holiday, so usually people are walking to synagogue.”
When they arrived at the synagogue, there was another siren, so they headed to the building’s bomb shelter. They did a shortened prayer before the rabbi told everyone to go home during a quiet period. They hurried home.
Unbeknownst to them, the sirens were signaling the start of war. The Palestinian militant group Hamas was launching a violent surprise attack all over Israel, killing civilians and soldiers and seizing hostages. Israel struck back with a deadly wave of airstrikes and missile attacks on targets in Gaza, and the fighting has escalated into a full-out war between Israel and Hamas. The death toll on both sides is quickly climbing and is currently estimated at more than 1,600. (At least 27 Americans are confirmed dead in the war.)
The US State Department estimates around 500,000 American citizens, like Eisenman, live in Israel. Originally from Philadelphia, she moved to Israel when she was 18 to attend college and graduate school in the Tel Aviv area. Her two brothers live nearby in Israel, but their parents and sister are still in the United States. Eisenman was an occupational therapy student when she met Karen Jacobs, a Sargent College clinical professor of occupational therapy, at a lecture. Jacobs (Sargent’79) encouraged Eisenman to enroll in BU’s online doctoral program.
As an Orthodox Jew, Eisenman explains, she refrains from using her phone or driving on the Sabbath unless there is an emergency. “My parents still have an answering machine set up, and we were debating whether to call them and have the answering machine pick up and tell them we’re okay,” she says. “Had they heard the news? Would it alleviate their stress?”
They decided against calling, hoping her family had not heard about the attacks. When they finally connected, Eisenman says, her mother told her she had been so scared and would have appreciated a message. Her brother’s pregnant wife is living with her and her family now, as he has just been called up to join his unit in defending Israel.
She says that from her house she can often hear loud booms resembling a thunderstorm. “The city of Ashkelon is being bombed pretty heavily,” she says. “And Gaza is also being bombed. So we hear a combination of the Iron Dome [blocking missiles] and bombings and just consistent helicopters and planes.” In the last seven days, a rocket destroyed a house in her small city, killing one person, and an additional eight people have been killed since.
Eisenman’s one-year-old son is doing OK, she says, considering the circumstances. He wants to go outside, so they are careful to visit playgrounds close to buildings with bomb shelters. She says these short visits out are also part of her ideological fight against terrorism. “They’re not going to keep me terrified,” she says. “I’m allowed to leave my house. I can live my life. But it’s hard.”
As for her schoolwork, Eisenman says it’s had to be put on pause. She had hoped to be able to complete her doctoral degree this semester, but the disruptions to her daily life have made that impossible. She emailed Jacobs on Monday to tell her she wasn’t sure when she could get to the next stage of her project. “She responded, ‘Don’t. Don’t get me the next stage of the project. We will work with you.’”
Eisenman plans to one day work with geriatric patients and also hopes to help individuals in her home country who will be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical injuries from this war.
She also says the support from her family and friends has meant the world this past week, and she is trying to reciprocate by donating supplies like toothbrushes and homemade challah bread to soldiers, as well as clothing to families whose homes have been destroyed. On Wednesday evening, Jacobs sent her a video from the October 11 candlelight vigil on Marsh Plaza, organized by BU Hillel and BU Students for Israel, showing the singing of “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.
“The song has very powerful words; it talks about our longing to be free in our state, which is poignant right now,” Eisenman says. “Because we’ve been here, we’re established. And we just want to be able to live here peacefully. Israel is the only safe haven for Jews.”
Eisenman shared some of her own family history—her great-grandparents and grandparents immigrated to Israel from countries like Turkey and Afghanistan after facing anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, she considers herself fortunate that she could choose to leave her comfortable life in America and move to Israel when it was safe. The war has reminded her and many others that anti-Semitism still prevails in many parts of the world.
Asked if she wanted to say anything else, she stresses that this war on terrorism is more than just physical fighting. It’s also about what people post on social media and how they treat others. “I want Catholics and Protestants and Muslims and Jews and Druze to just be able to coexist,” she says. “And I’ve seen that [happen] in Israel.”
She adds one more thought: “I’m not going to be frightened off. As a Jew, I find it important to live here.”
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