An Israeli bomb shelter Tuesday helped save the lives of two children threatened by an impending missile attack, Jewish leaders said — and the money to build the wartime safe haven came straight from Pittsburgh.
The alarms sounded in Karmiel, Israel, at 3:45 p.m. local time on the 25th day of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, the Times of Israel reported. That was around 9:45 a.m. here in Pennsylvania.
Roughly 50,000 people living in Karmiel — Pittsburgh’s sister city in northern Israel, which sits a dozen miles south of the border with Lebanon — had less than 15 seconds to find shelter.
Two children playing soccer in a nearby field scrambled, Kim Salzman, a former Pittsburgh resident and Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh employee, later wrote on social media.
“When the sirens sounded, they immediately ran to the nearby bomb shelter,” Salzman wrote.
Rockets, which Israeli media reported were part of a Hezbollah attack on the Galilee, landed nearby.
But the two children were not injured.
The shelter — boxy, beige and nondescript — was built thanks to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. It is part of $6.2 million that area donors collected for the nonprofit’s Israeli-relief efforts after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that left 1,200 dead.
“This reminds of us why we do what we do,” Jewish federation spokesman David Heyman told TribLive Tuesday. “We don’t give money to Israel. But we do give money for people in its communities.”
“Donated with love,” a plaque mounted on the side of the shelter reads. “For the safety of the people in Karmiel.”
This is not the first time Steel City dollars have resonated overseas.
On Feb. 6, 2023, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the Middle East; Gaziantep, Turkey, a Pittsburgh sister city, was just 23 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. The earthquake killed 1,400 residents in that city, injured roughly 10,000 and destroyed nearly 950 buildings.
The Pittsburgh Turkish American Association joined related student groups from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University to drum up donations. The Turkey Earthquake Fund, which the groups backed, went on to collect more than $8.4 million.
Rabbi Danny Schiff knows the importance of the public shelters.
The Jewish Federation scholar, who splits his year between Pittsburgh and Jerusalem, said Israelis know it’s essential to map out shelters when leaving their homes during wartime.
Schiff returned to Israel from the U.S. last week. In his first 24 hours back, he hustled into a shelter six different times.
“At times like this,” Schiff said in a Tuesday phone call from Jerusalem, “you really feel you’re part of an extended family more than you are a country.”
Nonprofit administrator Julie Paris also knows the importance of shelters.
She and her family donated money to decorate a bomb shelter in Sderot, a city less than a mile from the Gaza Strip, in memory of Paris’ mother. Diane “DeDe” Fink, a family matriarch and Pittsburgh educator, died in October 2020 at age 72.
“Those public shelters have saved countless lives and continue to do so,” Paris said.
Paris, a Pittsburgh-based regional director for an international group combating antisemitism, saw Salzman’s post Tuesday on Facebook. She feels it illustrates how children there continue to be “devastated by war.”
“This is a real consequence of the Pittsburgh-Karmiel connection,” she said, “and the investment our communities have made in them.”