I would love to say that a switch flipped inside my mind the morning of October 7th, 2023. That I awoke with a passionate hunger to fight for my people, to prove to the world that we had a right to exist, one they couldn’t strip from us. But this was simply not the case. I watched the news in a dazed state and struggled to make sense of it all, because what sense was there to be made, really? It was an awful and tragically devastating fever dream.
No, I did not arise that morning with a thirst for justice. That moment came exactly 279 days later in a hotel lobby in Córdoba, Spain.
Our group sat in a circle: Americans, Israelis, Canadians, South Africans, Australians. We crowded the girl in the center, Yael, desperate to understand. I remember choking on my sobs as I listened. It was a warm day, bright and sunny; perhaps nature was cruel for letting us mourn in such beautiful weather. Yael broke the sorrowful silence that plagued the room, telling her story through whispers and tears and memories. Stories of a boy from Ashkelon, her surfing partner, her best friend. Dead.
It was almost suffocating, the reality of the situation. It was something I had heard of, something I knew to be true; I had seen the statistics. I had seen on paper how many had died, how many were suffering, yet hearing it described in detail was too much. Too much.
Sitting with Israelis—real, native born Israelis—made me feel awful about being sad. Who was I to cry at their stories, when they themselves had lived these tragedies? Who was I to mourn the losses they’d suffered? “I know people who have died.” The words feel foreign in my mouth. A strange sort of slippery. Unfair, given my audience. Technically untrue. But I know their stories and their friends and their siblings. I like to believe that their memories live on through anyone who will listen. That it is our connections that leave their souls to thrive. The persistence of our hope.
As her words flooded our space, Yael spoke of love. How her heart swelled with love for her country, her friends, her people. She was devastated, because she had so much of her heart left to give and not enough people to turn to.
When I tell people I’m Jewish, they offer a few simple words of recognition. They don’t ask, but I see questions written on their faces, searching for an answer in my eyes. Sometimes I stay silent. Sometimes, the look I give them is enough. I am not ashamed of my identity as an American Jew; I proudly assume my place in the line of many before me and many to follow. And yet I am not quick to shout it from the rooftops. My Jewish identity is something personal to me, something I can keep for myself and something that many don’t deserve to hear.
Things as beautiful as warmth and contentment can survive in the face of horror; Yael is proof of this. When they try to hurt and steal from us, we have spirit. When they destroy and terrorize us, we have love. We are all connected through these mantras. Perhaps this is the reason we as Jews have made it this far. Some things never change.
And I believe that to be true, now more than ever. Half my heart will always be tethered to a city in central Israel that I have never visited. To a kibbutz just outside of Kiryat Gat, to a moshav in Lachish. A part of me forever remains in the abandoned basement of a shelter in Ashkelon, the walls of which have seen far too many deaths. I will always feel the tug as my best friends sit silently in a bomb shelter. As they pull over to the side of the road, watching missiles fly just meters overhead.
My heart swells with love, too. For Yael, for my country, my people. For the flag of blue and white that has been flying strong for 76 years. For the fact that our spirits remain present, and for the faith we have kept alive even in times of distress. For strength and persistence.
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