JERUSALEM. (WSVN) – A Jewish family from South Florida recalled the scary moments they lived through while they hid from rockets in Israel. That family now has a different perspective as they visited the country for its 75 anniversary.
Ninety seconds is how long the family said it took for them to get to a bomb shelter when rockets started flying over Israel.
They have traveled to the country often and it has happened more than once, and although there visit was very different, they know it’s always in the back of their minds.
“We were out to dinner with some family in Tel Aviv,” Denise Tamir said.
The sirens mean one thing: rockets are coming, and you have 90 seconds.
“Somewhere between appetizer and main course, we found ourselves running to a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv,” Tamir said.
Tamir shot video in 2021 when rockets from Gaza rained down on Tel Aviv.
Her daughter shot another video inside Ben Gurien International Airport, not long afterward, when another warning of incoming rockets went off.
“And me at the hotel, watching the missiles flying in that direction, knowing they’re hitting the airport, knowing my daughter’s in the airport, on a plane, racing for a bomb shelter, it was a tremendous amount of stress,” Tamir said.
Days earlier, the Tamir family of Miami gathered in Israel to celebrate Mother’s Day. Tamir’s mother Ruth, now 87, was with them.
Once the sirens went off, Ruth could be heard saying that she wants her purse.
“Where is my pocketbook?” Ruth said.
“We knew she was OK in dealing with this, she was actually better than all of us. She’s got a steely nerve,” Tamir said.
A nerve perhaps born of a childhood on the run from the Nazi regime.
She was 2 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. She ended up in a camp for displaced persons, but two older brothers were killed while on the run, another and his children, simply vanished.
And there she was, 80-plus years later, calmly responding to an air raid siren, as she had several times before.
“She said, ‘Listen, with everything I’ve been through, Hamas can’t scare me,'” Tamir said.
Now, two years later, there are no air raid sirens. At least not here, not now.
The Tamirs joined the Greater Miami Jewish Federation for a tour of the Israeli countryside Saturday, a visit that will also mark the nation’s 75th anniversary.
Despite the peace, despite the beauty, the existential threat is there, they said, so they’re leading an effort to encourage more Israelis in the U.S to become active in the American Jewish community.
“Because they’re not too many Jews around the world, so number wise, it’s important that we speak to each other, and I think the other side of it, is that Israelis bring a different thinking and a different color,” said Ofer Tamir.
The colors Saturday could not be more bright, more vibrant.
Still, Denise visits frequently and still has an app on her phone to notify her of incoming rockets, surviving the darkness of the past, and living with a constant threat of war, while at the same time soaking all of this in.
“The history of Jewish people is history of such contrasts,” she said. “On the one hand, there is so many sad stories and tales of mourning, and on the other hand, such glory and joy. We know when to do both.”
7News wanted to speak to Denise’s mother Ruth, but she was a little shy and wasn’t open to it.
Regardless, Ruth is doing fine.
She lives in the U.S., she’s 87 years old, doing well and is not afraid.
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.