<\/p>\n
A plume of smoke rises following a reported explosion in Tehran on Feb. 28, 2026. Israel’s defense ministry announced Feb. 28 it had launched a “preemptive strike” on Iran as sirens sounded in Jerusalem and people across the country received phone alerts about an “extremely serious” threat. <\/p>\n
-\/AFP<\/p>\n
TNS<\/p>\n
Fear for loved ones in bomb shelters, grief over children caught in airstrikes, anger at widening attacks \u2014 and cautious optimism after President Donald Trump announced that Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was dead \u2014 rippled through South Florida as U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran ignited a deeply personal and mixed response across Iranian and Jewish communities.<\/p>\n
The U.S. and Israeli assault on Saturday targeted Iran\u2019s top leadership and military infrastructure, with President Donald Trump calling the campaign \u201cmassive and ongoing\u201d and urging Iranians to \u201ctake over your government\u201d after the military strikes ended. Iran retaliated with waves of strikes against Israel and U.S. military bases across the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Mojdeh Khagan, 58, an Iranian-American Jewish attorney in Miami who left Iran at age 11 during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, said she has followed the unrest closely, though she has no contact with people inside the country due to communication shutdowns amid the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always known that Iranian people deserve better than the oppression and the terror that they\u2019ve survived,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Khagan called this moment \u201cnow or never\u201d for change, arguing that outside intervention may be the only path to dismantling the regime, now that Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in the strikes, which Trump announced Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
Khagan hopes one day to return to Iran and show her children the culture and heritage she left behind \u2014 a trip she never got to take with her father before he died last year.<\/p>\n
In South Florida\u2019s Jewish community, the reaction was cautious with concerns about the retaliatory strikes aimed at Israel.<\/p>\n
Jeff Levin, executive vice president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, said Iran has been \u201cthe greatest threat to peace in the Middle East since the Islamic Revolution of 1979,\u201d accusing its leadership of sponsoring terror and repressing its own citizens.<\/p>\n
Levin described the mood as \u201ca combination of cautious optimism that this will lead to better days, and deep concern for the civilian population of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Levin, the crisis is not abstract. His daughter is in a shelter in Jerusalem, helping steward a group of 18-year-olds on a gap year program.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe reports high spirits,\u201d he said, even as missiles threatened Israel\u2019s major cities.<\/p>\n
Running for cover in Israel<\/p>\n
Ofer Lichtig has been running in and out of a safe room as bombs roared overhead of his home in Mevaseret Zion, a suburb of Jerusalem. He was sheltering with his wife and two grown daughters, one of whom came from Tel Aviv because she did not have a safe place to hide.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we got used to [the bombings] over the last two-plus years,\u201d Lichtig told the Herald. \u201cOur spirits are high. Iran and its regime has been horrible to us in Israel, to Americans, and to its own people for so many years, orchestrating so many deadly terror attacks by Iran itself and its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lichtig works as the representative in Israel for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, partnering with Israeli Civil Society organizations to treat children and help evacuees.<\/p>\n
He believes the strike on Iran was necessary as the nation has \u201cbecome an existential threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael and the U.S. took the only step possible to neutralize this threat, and to free the Iranian people. We pray for the safety and success of the American troops and the Israel Defense Forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trauma for Iranians<\/p>\n
Dr. Bita Pishervar Haynes, a trauma psychologist who was born in Iran and came to the United States as a child during the Iranian Revolution, said Iranians are experiencing \u201ccollective trauma in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s nervous system doesn\u2019t distinguish between physical proximity and repeated exposure to distressing images,\u201d she said. \u201cMany people are experiencing secondary trauma and grief and survivors\u2019 guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haynes, who has lived in South Florida since 1993 and trained in child and adolescent trauma after Hurricane Andrew, said resilience is as much a part of the Iranian story as suffering. \u201cWe\u2019ve endured generations of political instability and displacement,\u201d she said. \u201cResilience is not the absence of pain…it\u2019s the capacity to remain value-driven under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
She believes the strikes could be a \u201cpivotal moment\u201d for democratic change, arguing that many in the Iranian diaspora see outside intervention as necessary to end decades of repression.<\/p>\n
Let Iranians change their country<\/p>\n
But Abdy Javadzadeh, an Iranian political sociologist and associate professor at St. Thomas University\u2019s Biscayne College for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said Trump has no intention of helping the Iranian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not happy by any means that the U.S. has attacked Iran. Nor am I ever happy when the U.S. attacks any place. But I think every country that has an issue, whether it\u2019s political, economic, socio-economic, even in international affairs, it\u2019s up to the population to take care of that problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He points to changes for Iranian women. In the years after the monarchy was overthrown, the government required women to wear dark, long, baggy cloaks with socks and sensible shoes. Not a strand of hair could show, and nail polish and lipstick were also forbidden.<\/p>\n
The last time Javadzadeh was in Iran, in December, he said the majority of women had their hair out. Women are getting higher positions in professional settings and the majority of university students are women.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an achievement. A lot of things Iranian people have achieved without the help of any other foreign nation,\u201d Javadzadeh said.<\/p>\n
Calls to end the attack<\/p>\n
For some, the attack on Iran was horrific and has to be stopped.<\/p>\n
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has a South Florida branch, called the military campaign in a statement \u201canother unnecessary, unjustified and unconstitutional regime-change war launched against Iran for Israel\u2019s benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
It accused the Trump administration of acting under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called Iran\u2019s Islamic republic a sworn enemy of Israel.<\/p>\n
CAIR urged Congress to back the Massie-Khanna War Powers Resolution, which seeks to prohibit the use of U.S. military force against Iran without congressional authorization. Congress has yet to vote on the resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop this war of choice,\u201d the advocacy group said.<\/p>\n
Donna Nevel, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, also denounced the U.S. and Israeli attacks.<\/p>\n