war

Writing from Jerusalem during the war years.

AI Is Not the Problem

by

I use AI all day every day.

The leverage it gives me is astounding. The path from ideation to creation to implementation is shorter than it’s ever been in my life – and the ability to have parallel chains of tasks running on my desk while I take care of my daughters, manage my household, or just expand my consciousness, has opened my eyes to what a future of automation could materially mean for your average person.

AI is not perfect. It is not infallible. When it comes to operating a business, the combination of autonomy, impetuousness, overconfidence, and speed can be frustrating but the blast radius is ultimately limited to money.

When it comes to operating in a war, that combination is not just dangerous but possibly catastrophic, with a blast radius including human lives.

A decade ago Boston Dynamics and other companies started developing military-grade killer robots.

A couple of years ago our military started using AI in targeting and establishing kill lists.

A couple of days ago the first human soldiers were killed by military drones operated by autonomous AI.

AI can be problematic but it’s not the problem.

The problem is the people giving it the power to kill.

-Bellum

by

“-Bellum: A Meditation on Thanotic Theater”

The roar of the modern age
Tears across my night sky
The mask has fallen
The reverberating backdrop of stitched sounds
The vibrations painted on stretched canvas
Against which we played our roles
Have become the unfolding drama,
Center stage
The scene speaks for itself
In tones no human voice can take
When I began my lines
I did not know danger
Now I wonder what the thunder brings

Hard Conversations With Soldiers

by

We need to talk about what too many soldiers in the IDF are doing.

But imho our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, cousins and childhood friends, who go through the hell of war and put their lives on the line to defend us, because they love us and trust us, deserve far more than a public statement or debate, whether on a talkshow or a social media post.

They deserve conversations of respect, appreciation, compassion, and safety – personal conversations, private conversations, even though they may be truly hard conversations.

It takes no small amount of courage, love, and trust to sit with someone you love, for someone who put their life on the line for you, to hold space for them and for their lived experiences, and to ask difficult questions that must be asked, from the very roots of our soul.

What did you see?
Why didn’t you say anything?
Did you participate?
What did you do?

These questions are too complicated, too charged, too personal, to ask or address in a public forum, imho.

But they are too important for us not to ask at all.

May the Lord bless and guard our soldiers.

May the Lord’s countenance shine upon them and grant them grace.

May the Lord grant them his loving attention and place upon them peace.

AI and the Target List

by

I use ChatGPT and Claude every day. Claude is better than ChatGPT – both are fascinating and powerful tools – but they both have serious, structural limitations.

In its current incarnation, AI is like a very fast but very dumb research assistant with a peculiar set of cognitive biases (of which it’s perfectly aware when pressed but to which it’s very blind in practice), highly questionable research habits, and an irrepressible inclination to make unsubstantiated (or hallucinated) claims without qualification.

I use AI every day and I’ve never had a conversation where I didn’t have to correct it, in some way, shape, or form.

I would never rely on AI for an irreversible decision. Certainly not before thoroughly interrogating its claims.

It’s therefore mind-boggling to me that our defense forces (not to mention the US armed forces) reportedly rely on AI – the same models available to the public, with augmented data and additional integrations – for creating target lists.

You don’t get more irreversible than that.

And they know AI is fallible – but as long as it speeds up the killing process and allows them to conduct rapid strikes at scale, they’re willing to accept the deaths of innocent people wrongly targeted by an algorithm.

Not to mention anyone caught in the crossfire.

In case you’re wondering, the number of wrongful deaths the strategists overseeing our defense forces were explicitly willing to accept was 3,700.

Out of a list of 37,000 targets (each reviewed for exactly 20 seconds by an actual human being) they knew that at least 3,700 of them were mistakenly identified as targets (the actual number was probably much higher) and were not actually connected to the enemy and they killed them anyway.

“Fog of war” doesn’t apply to that kind of cold calculus.

Imagine if 3,700 Israelis had died on October 7.

(Basically, take the pain and suffering left in the wake of that horrible day and double it.)

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this brutal and hypocritical approach to modern warfare. I’ll be honest, I’m not worried about actually super-intelligent AI – I’m worried about the politicians and generals who insist on blindly using the inherently limited and very fallible LLMs we have today in order to make organized mass killing more “efficient.”

If You Are Struggling, Get Help

by

I’m sharing the post below anonymously, not just out of respect for the author (though he posted it publicly) but because I believe that he speaks for countless others, from across the spectrum of Israeli life and opinion.

If you need help – be a hero for those who love you and need you, and get help.

“It’s no simple thing, living in our land.

Today is the first Memorial Day in 14 years that I am not enlisted in my country’s armed forces. It’s difficult to describe the overwhelming combination of feelings that comes with that. Pride, for what I accomplished. Pain, for what I and so many others have lost. Respect for the fallen and the living. And terrible shame for my failures.

But there is one thing I don’t regret, and that’s the reason I’m not serving today. It’s also the reason I’m still here.

In May 2025, in the midst of my 5th rotation during the war, I broke down. I was on a mission, trying to handle the weight of my new role as platoon sergeant, when it happened. I made it back to base and came very close to doing something I would not have lived to regret, but that would have left my family and those around me devastated. Instead, I pulled myself together, gave my rifle to my commander and drove to a psychiatric hospital.

Living with PTSD has been a challenge. Things that once came naturally to me feel close to impossible now. I’ve had to surrender many things that were dear to me, including my position in the army. It took a long time to get to where I am today, and though I’ve improved greatly, I know that there is more road ahead.

It’s hard not to feel ashamed of my weakness. But I need only look at my children to remember that for them, my weakness was strength. That the people I love most will have easier, better lives because I held on.

Since being recognized as a disabled veteran, I have spoken to many other combat soldiers who confide in me privately what they are going through. Broken families and failing relationships. Lost jobs. Crying in the shower. Physical disabilities and emotional trauma. Impatience with spouses and children. But when I talk to them about getting help, I hear the same excuses I made for myself so many times, until I couldn’t anymore: people won’t understand. I’ll lose everything I worked for. I won’t respect myself. My buddies need me.

If those words sound familiar to you, I have an important message for you:

Get help. It’s worth it.

It doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you a failure. It’s just one more mission – perhaps the toughest you’ve ever undertaken – to accomplish the objective, that reason above all others that we fight: to create a safe, secure world for our families to enjoy, and for us to enjoy.

It’s okay if you lose your gun license, your position in an elite unit. It’s ok if you lose your job. You can get all those things back, even if it takes time. It’s ok if you lose the respect of people who don’t know enough to understand what you’ve been through. You have the respect of the people who matter most, and that’s enough. You don’t need to carry this alone.

You can come back to fight another day, but today your battle is at home. Today you serve by holding on, by learning to live with the experiences you’ve had, and to be yourself again in spite of them.

There is a posuk in Yechezkel that we rarely read, but that is mentioned at the Seder table: “And I passed over you and saw you as you wallowed in your blood, drenched in your blood. And I said to you: By your blood shall you live.”

So we are commanded, through our pain, to endure. Because life has more planned for us. Because we are still needed. Because we matter.

If you are struggling, there are resources available to veterans and serving soldiers 24/7:

Nefesh Achat moked: *8944
Agaf Hashikum: *6500
Eran: 1201

In an emergency, you can also voluntarily check into any of the district psychiatric hospitals. You don’t need to wait until you are in crisis – you can go and get help at any time.

There is also a halfway house for soldiers experiencing emotional distress at Tel Hashomer, where you can stay temporarily to receive care. You can reach them at 052-6669512.

Today as we remember the fallen, honor their memory by sanctifying what they fought to preserve. Choose life.”

Yom Haatsmaut Amid Missiles

by

(long but LIFE AFFIRMING 👍)

This week we are supposed to celebrate Yom Haatsmaut.

A national day of independence.

A celebration of the achievement and the miracle that was the creation of this state, and what it means for the people of Israel who have marched down this road for millenia.

A recognition of what it means to go from being herded into the gas chambers to flying one of the world’s greatest air forces.

To be one step – one huge and meaningful step – closer to the ultimate freedom we’ve prayed and fought for throughout the longest exile.

A day to look forward to, every year.

And so we’re getting ready.

Meanwhile… the ceasefire with Lebanon didn’t include Hezbollah and the “ceasefire” with the IRGC wasn’t based on any points of agreement, didn’t translate into anything permanent, and expires on… Yom Haatsmaut.

Meanwhile POTUS said Hormuz will never be closed again hours before the IRGC closed it and fired on ships, and said Iran will transfer all its uranium to the USA only for the IRGC to flatly deny anything of the sort minutes later. Sounds like someone’s looking to sell renewed hostilities (“a civilization will die tonight”?) to his base as the necessary response to the IRGC breaking the aforementioned “ceasefire.”

Meanwhile the IRGC has been digging out launchers, manufacturing new launchers and missiles, and repositioning all the assets it conserved and recovered during the 40 days of missiles fired at just the right pace to keep us running to shelters and to deplete our interceptors, escalating at will in response to coalition strikes and political developments.

Meanwhile we are running lower than ever before on interceptors and we can’t cover all the missiles and launchers the IRGC currently has, let alone resupply the interceptors as quickly as the IRGC can make new missiles and launchers.

Meanwhile Hezbollah is repositioning, resupplying, and still under the complete control of the IRGC. Waiting for the signal to resume the rockets that keep half the country running for cover.

Meanwhile the Israeli government lifted all restrictions on Friday and so all of us are grabbing the opportunity to party and are busy planning barbecues with our friends on balconies and in parks and on the beaches and just want to feel fcking normal for a change after weeks/years of war, like we actually have something to celebrate and live for, just to be free of the shelters for just a little bit.

Just a little bit.

And the “ceasefire” expires on Yom Haatsmaut…

I have no idea what to expect this week.

A couple of weeks ago we were staring down the barrel of radically escalated hostilities with possibly devasting consequences for Israelis, and then like 45 minutes before it was bombs and missiles everywhere, the Pakistani government jumped in and we got some kind of pause in the bombs and missiles instead of a lot more of them.

I had stocked our shelter, stayed up reading the news, studying, and waiting for the sirens, and was never so happy to have my concerns prove fruitless if not unfounded.

This Yom Haatsmaut might be the day of normalcy and joy and fun we’ve been collectively craving for over a month.

It might be a day of missiles.

Landing.

Most of the signs I’m seeing as of today are pointing in a clear direction – but everything is in flux, perpetually and rapidly shifting, ever-changing détentes between multiple belligerent and corrupt parties.

Nothing is certain. Nothing is fixed. Nothing is guaranteed.

And always, throughout history and across the world but especially in this place at this time – Divine love, compassion, and grace have accompanied us, even in the darkest hour of night.

Anything can happen, especially the miraculous, especially here, in the land of providential love.

Whatever happens, though, we WILL celebrate our independence. Our freedom. Our autonomy. Our democracy.

The inalienable rights our ancestors fought to assert and defend and exercise in our ancestral land.

They are worth celebrating this year and every year, with thanks and gratitude to the Highest.

Maybe especially this year.

(Yes, the war and the history and everything was complicated and multifaceted – hard won independence for some came at a catastrophic price for others. I will share some thoughts on what independence means, and should mean, and can mean, in a few days. But for this moment I just want to say:)

Whether in the parks or in the shelters… we will celebrate.

We will find a way.

We will have our Yom Haatsmaut.

So, my friends…. I’m praying for normalcy.

I’m praying for barbecues and loud music and the joy of being alive together under the open sky.

I’m praying for another miracle.

But I’m keeping the shelter stocked.

With beer.

Hope on a Sunny Day

by

I’m hopeful.

Yeah I’m watching the clock waiting for the missiles to start coming again – waiting for the big barrage of remaining missiles, recovered missiles, manufactured missiles, while we sit here like ducks in our unfit shelters and an interceptor stockpile that is nearly all gone – but for the first time in over a month I’m feeling hopeful.

This war may get a lot tougher – the state in its current incarnation may face an existential challenge after years of failed wars and mounting casualties – but Israeli society will survive.

We will endure.

We will rebuild whatever is broken.

We’re not going anywhere.

And if our state crumbles because our politicians failed us and played endless political games for decades, failed us in our hour of dire need –

We will organize a new state.

Maybe some institutions will stay. Maybe some will go. Maybe some will be reworked.

Maybe we’ll create new institutions, that better serve our needs as a society.

Maybe we’ll internalize the lessons that righteous leadership isn’t optional and that the theoretical ends never justify the actual means.

Maybe we’ll write ourselves a constitution that balances rights and responsibilities and protects lawful order and civil society and human freedom all together.

These are a lot of maybes. And I can’t ignore the feeling that I’m staring down the barrel of a gun. But thinking of what this threat actually means, and what it doesn’t, and what can come out of it –

I’m left with a feeling of hope on a sunny day.

The missiles may come.

Our lives may change.

But our society is not so easily uprooted…

May we all be blessed with the gift of peace.

May we all be blessed with a revolution.

Prepare for the Worst

by

(Thoughts on the immediate situation… If you live in this country… Please read to the end. Stay safe my friends.)

POTUS is threatening to attack every power plant and bridge in Iran, starting at 8 PM Eastern Time tomorrow night.

I’m hoping for the best. Maybe this will all blow over, maybe he’ll move the deadline again, maybe TACO, idk.

But I’m preparing for the worst.

My friends – Israelis, Palestinians, internationals – please get ready for a wild ride tomorrow night, starting at 3 AM, through 7 AM, if not the entire day.

If you do not have access to a bomb shelter, PLEASE consider spending the festival somewhere you do. I’d even say it’s worth the risk traveling to a safer location, but that’s a tough call and I honestly don’t know what I would definitely do in that situation. I’ve got a baby and no car, I know what it’s like to not be so mobile and not want to expose them to danger.

Please buy extra water and food, and keep them in your bomb shelter along with blankets, batteries, and a first aid kit. Maybe a book or something. Tehillim. Quran. Brandon Sanderson. Whatever works for you.

Don’t forget games for the kids.

Please keep your phones close (as if I even have to say it 🤦) and get ready to go as soon as you get a warning. In our home that’s shoes ~> blankets for baby ~> bathroom ~> coats. Turn off the stove.

Don’t wait for the sirens to get ready. Don’t count on there being enough time.

And if and when the sirens come, please GO, calmly and quickly, to your shelter. Close the doors behind you. And stay there until you get a notification that it’s safe to leave.

I’m hoping for: nothing, like so much of what comes of POTUS’s rants. A day of prayer and study. A potluck lunch and an afternoon nap.

I’m preparing for: a morning (day?) of missile salvos, possibly as bad as the first day of the war, with barely anything left to intercept them.

Now, don’t get it twisted:

This is not doom and gloom.

I’m not trying to scare anyone.

But after a month of daily warnings, sirens, and missiles, I know how burned out we’re getting. Getting a little loose with safety and common sense. Hell, some people I know refuse to go to a shelter at all. 🤦

So in the hopes of nudging even just one person closer towards safety than they otherwise would have been, I’m willing to take the comparatively small risk of looking like a fool and/or Cassandra, and suggest that it’s a good idea to prepare for and stay safe tomorrow night and Wednesday.

Don’t rely on miracles – but always hope for them.

And last but not least, as a reminder, last night we counted 4 in the Omer. (5 if you’re reading this ereb hag.)

שייבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו
ותן חלקנו בתורתך

Unfit Bomb Shelters

by

(Some thoughts on bomb shelters and missiles, with a request at the end:)

For someone who’s been itching for a war with Iran for decades, our prime minister didn’t actually prepare this country for war with Iran.

Of the 11,775 public bomb shelters in this country, around 1 in 9 are officially unfit. In some areas of Israel, that number rises to 1 in 5. Untold more shared bomb shelters – like the one for our building – have also been officially declared unfit over the years, with no steps taken to fix or upgrade them.

These shelters are the primary defense for 20% of the population against ICBM’s targeting us.

An additional 33% of the population doesn’t even have access to a shared bomb shelter or a reinforced shelter space in their home.

That means we have missiles raining daily with half the population either unprotected or dependent on shelters that in many cases are unfit to protect us.

In situations like ours, it is possible to privately upgrade the bomb shelter, replacing the decrepit doors and enclosing the pre-Gulf War apertures in the walls – but the estimated cost, $12,000, is more than we and our neighbors can collectively afford on budgets already stretched thin by years of war and rising costs.

Needless to say, this problem will only become more urgent as the interceptors are depleted and ICBM’s start landing across Israel at much higher rates.

I’m thinking of maybe putting together a campaign to raise money from our friends in American Jewish communities. I’d like to help other Israelis in situations similar to ours, who are dependent on shelters that are officially unfit during a crapshoot of a prolonged war in which adequate protection is becoming increasingly important.

If you would like to contribute ideas, time, or money to help me organize and implement this project, please be in touch. 🙏

The Narrow Bridge

by

I don’t want to be an alarmist or pretend that I can predict the future. I hope that my concerns will be proven to be unfounded. But I want my family, friends, and neighbors to be prepared for what may be coming.

If you’re going to read this – and fair warning, you might not want to – please read until the end.

As far as I can tell, there is a hard math to this war: Missile launchers vs interceptor missiles.

The number of each is depleted in the following process, repeated over and over every day:

1) The IRGC (or Hezbollah or the Houthis) launches a missile.
2) The Iron Dome system gets triggered and sends an interceptor.
3) The US-Israeli coalition air forces hopefully locate the launcher and hopefully destroy it.

The first problem is obvious:

There is a finite, dwindling number of interceptor missiles. They will run out.

In three weeks or six weeks or twelve weeks or X weeks, depending on what you read, they will run out.

The second problem requires just a little bit of research to uncover:

The interceptor missiles can not be resupplied as quickly as the IRGC can manufacture new launchers.

That’s assuming that every launcher reported destroyed was indeed destroyed (history shows this to be unlikely) and that the IRGC isn’t holding many launchers in reserve.

Reserve for what, you ask?

I think they might be holding reserves in anticipation of either of two probable scenarios:

A) The US forces remain or even escalate the war, while Gulf states join the attacks on Iran and/or Iran attacks European states, leaving Israelis to deal in the near future with the current missile rate and the effects of a multifront aerial war, with no Iron Dome protection

Or

B) The US forces withdraw from the war (after all, less than a month in and it’s already contending for the most unpopular war in American history), leaving the Israeli air force to continue hunting the now continually increasing numbers of ICBM launchers alone, and Israelis to deal with a much higher missile rate, with no Iron Dome protection

The situation, as they say, looks rather grim.

Does this mean the state of Israel will be destroyed?

No.

This show is far from over.

This ain’t our first rodeo. We’re still here. We’ll still be here a year from now, a century from now, a millenium from now.

The more history I study, especially of the past 78 years, the more I see again and again the fortuitous alignment of events in highly improbable ways.

This is especially true when you read accounts from the past wars. (Which to be transparent and to add context to my point, I do not think were all legitimate or fought cleanly.)

The math just doesn’t add up. The improbable keeps happening again and again, delivering our people from the worst crises in the most unlikely ways.

I’m not going to jump ahead and use the M word – but I think a serious student of Israeli history would conclude that even when things seem hopeless, it is reasonable to hope for the unexpected.

Two lessons come to mind.

The Psalmist: “I raise my eyes to the mountains; from where will come my help? My help is from the Eternal, maker of heavens and earth.”

Rebbe Nahman: “The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge – and the main thing is not to fear at all.”

This is the narrow bridge – and deliverance will come.

But.

We have to stick together. All of us.

We have to have grace for each other. Ourselves too.

We have to submit to the will of God. Accept what is happening and whatever comes, and do teshuba every day.

We have to have gratitude for every improbable fortuitous alignment of events, for the simple and undeniable fact that God’s love has never abandoned us, despite all the chaos, war, and suffering.

We have to buy water, canned food, medical supplies, and anything else we might need to shelter with if and when things go sideways.

We have to do what we need to take care of our families.

Again – I don’t want to be an alarmist.

I can’t predict the future.

And I hope I’m very wrong in my read of the situation.

But if I have you thinking even just a little bit about how serious the situation might get, and what you need to do to prepare for that day when it comes, then I’m willing to take the risk of issuing such a strong warning – but also to insist that hoping for improbable deliverance is entirely reasonable.

May we merit to be strong and courageous – and to live in quieter times.