The Jewish community in Southern California is sharing their fears and hopes following the weekend’s strikes on Iran and retaliatory attacks on Israel, U.S. military bases and other targets in the Middle East.

The exchange of missiles in the Middle East is having a devasting effect on Iran’s defense capability, but retaliatory strikes in the region are taking a toll. 

“Weapons of enormous capacity that are targeting civilian areas,” said Elan Carr, CEO of Los Angeles-based Israeli American Council.

Carr says toppling the Iranian regime, taking out its nuclear capabilities and freeing the Iranian people from this oppressive rule should have been done decades ago.

“This is about seeing the most evil regime, the world chief state sponsored terrorism to no longer have the ability to do what it’s been doing,” Carr said.

Sara Brown, regional director of the American Jewish Committee, said the U.S. and Israel are concentrating strikes on Iran’s missile sites and military industrial complex. Iran’s retaliatory strikes are focused on many civilian targets.

“We are hearing from our partners from around the region, who are terrified,” Brown said. “Across the Middle East right now, I think there is a tremendous amount of fear, but also hope and also resolve.”

AJC is the advocacy arm for Jewish people globally. Many members and partner groups are in harm’s way. Brown says the risk is great, but the potential reward is world changing.

“That Iranian people will get to choose leadership for themselves, that we will finally see a pathway forward for peace across the Middle East,” Brown said.

If wars of the past hadn’t produced lasting peace, then why now? Carr says Iran’s nuclear capabilities are destroyed and Iran’s military and proxies are weakened after Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas ambush.

“No more terrorist network throughout the Middle East. Think of what that could mean. Think of the normalization we could see,” Carr said.

President Donald Trump expects fighting to last several weeks. Some critics are concerned about a drawn-out conflict that could spread.

Carr is not convinced.

“Who is going to enter a war against the U.S. and Israel? Russia is plenty busy. China has no interest in jeopardizing itself this way,” Carr said.

Besides the six Americans killed as of Monday night, government officials say 11 people were killed in retaliatory strikes in Israel.

San Diego — Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints.

The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.

“It starts,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park, “by telling the story that elephants are ecosystem engineers.”

Elephant Valley will open March 5 as the newest experience at the Escondido park, its aim to bring guests closer than ever to the zoo’s eight elephants, which range in age from 7 to 36, while more heavily focusing on conservation. The centerpiece of the 13-acre-plus parkland is a curved bridge overlooking a savanna, allowing elephants to walk under guests. But there are also nooks such as a cave that, while not previewed at a recent media event, will allow visitors to view elephants on their level.

In a shift from, say, the Safari Park’s popular tram tour, there are no fences and visible enclosures. Captive elephants remain a sometimes controversial topic, and the zoo’s herd is a mix of rescues and births, but the goal was to create a space where humans are at once removed and don’t impede on the relative free-roaming ability of the animals by keeping guests largely elevated. As an example of just how close people can get to the herd, there was a moment of levity at the event when one of the elephants began flinging what was believed to be a mixture of dirt and feces up onto the bridge.

“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” Burtis says. “They can see their eyes. They can see the eyelashes. They can see how muscular their trunks are. It’s really going to be a different experience.”

Elephant Valley, complete with a multistory lodge with open-air restaurants and bars, boasts a natural design that isn’t influenced by the elephant’s African home so much as it is in conversation with it. The goal isn’t to displace us, but to import communal artistry — Kenyan wood and beadwork can be found in the pathways, resting spaces and more — as a show of admiration rather than imitation.

“We’re not going to pretend that we’re taking people to Africa,” says Fri Forjindam, now a creative executive with Universal’s theme parks but previously a lead designer on Elephant Valley via her role as a chief development officer at Mycotoo, a Pasadena-based experiential design firm.

A man in the Mission Bay Park community of San Diego was fatally struck Sunday morning by a hit-and run vehicle, authorities said.

The victim was also struck by a second vehicle and that motorist stayed at the scene to cooperate with officers, the San Diego Police Department reported.

The initial crash occurred at about 2:20 a.m. Sunday in the area of West Mission Bay and Sea World drives.

The pedestrian was in the southbound lanes of the 2000 block of West Mission Bay Drive when he was struck by a silver vehicle also in the southbound lanes. That vehicle fled the scene, continuing southbound, police said.

A 28-year-old man driving his vehicle southbound ran over the downed pedestrian.

“That driver remained at the scene and is not DUI,” according to a police statement. “The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

Anyone with information regarding the initial crash was urged to call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.