Alan Elsner’s new play “Iron Dome” was written in the summer of 2024 in response to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. It explores the consequences of that atrocity and its aftermath on both Israelis and American Jews through the lives of four characters.

The play is set in the Israeli village of Meitar in the northern Negev – a frequent target of Hamas rockets and missiles. Jordan Kramer, 19, has just finished a gap year at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva and has a place waiting for her at Cornell. She shocks her parents by announcing she has decided not to return to attend a campus poisoned by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity. Her father Dan rushes to Israel to talk her out of “throwing all her prospects away” by staying.

Jordan has been befriended by Dan’s former girlfriend from decades past, Rivka Lavi, and her husband Tomer Lavi, a colonel in the IDF. Dan’s meeting with Rivka and Tomer stirs all sorts of ghosts and provokes an impassioned debate about life in Israel and the direction the country is taking. Meanwhile, Iran is preparing to launch a massive attack that will place the characters in the crosshairs of the conflict.