A little girl in Modiin spent twenty minutes picking out her Queen Esther costume last week. Purple dress. Gold crown. She practiced her wave in the mirror. Her mom sent me the video.
Today, that same little girl wore her costume to the bomb shelter.
Her father got called up yesterday. He kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his bag, and was gone. Her mother carried the costume, the graggers, and a bag of snacks down the stairs when the sirens started. They read a short version of the megillah on someone’s phone, crammed between neighbors on a concrete bench, and the little girl waved her Queen Esther wave at no one in particular.
That is Purim in Israel right now.
This is the third time in six years that Purim has been taken from our families. COVID locked us in our homes. October 7th sent our fathers and mothers to war. And now Iran is firing ballistic missiles at us while we try to celebrate the holiday that is supposed to remind us we survived.
And we have survived. Every single time.
But survival and celebration are two different things. Our families are surviving. The question is whether we can help them celebrate, too.
Right now, across Israel, there are mothers trying to make Purim feel normal for their kids while their husbands are deployed to bases they cannot name. There are children assembling mishloach manot packages for friends, leaving one out for a father who will not be home to receive it. There are families in temporary housing, families who were evacuated months ago and still have not gone home, hanging decorations in hotel rooms and trying to bake hamantaschen with a single hot plate.
These families do not need our pity. They need someone to show up.
That is what we do. Since October 2023, we have organized close to 80 carnivals and community events for evacuated families and military communities. We deliver meals every week to over 300 families whose loved ones are serving. We send essential supplies to soldiers on the front lines so that their families at home know someone is taking care of them. Everything we raise goes directly to the people who need it. Zero overhead. One hundred percent.
Purim is about joy. Simcha. The commandment is not just to read the megillah and eat hamantaschen. It is to be joyful. To give gifts to friends. To give to those in need. To make the day feel like a celebration even when circumstances scream otherwise.
A hot meal delivered to a mother who has not cooked in days because she is too worried to think. A carnival where kids who have spent weeks hearing sirens can just be kids for an afternoon. A mishloach manot package that arrives at a home that feels empty and fills it, even for a moment, with the feeling that someone remembers them.
That is how we make families smile.
Not with grand gestures. With presence. With consistency. With the simple act of showing up when the rest of the world has moved on.
Today, a little girl in a Queen Esther costume sat in a bomb shelter and waved her royal wave. She deserves a Purim worth celebrating. Her mother, holding it all together alone, deserves to know that her family is not forgotten. Her father, standing guard somewhere we cannot know, deserves to know that someone is looking after the people he loves.
We cannot stop the missiles. We cannot bring the fathers home faster. But we can make sure that when this Purim is over, these families know they did not face it alone.
That is what Smiles for the Kids does. That is what we have always done. And that is what we will keep doing until every family in Israel can celebrate without fear.
Chag Purim Sameach.
Am Yisrael Chai.