October 103rd

 1/17/24 5:52pm

It has now been just over a week since I landed back in Israel. And I still do not know how to process everything going on around me. It’s deep, it’s heavy, it’s intense. Writing this now is one of the ways I am trying to process. It would be easier for me to go through each day, watch Netflix, watch TikTok, go to sleep, and do it all again the next day. And there are definitely days when I have needed to do that, just shut everything out and off. But I also know how essential it is for my own neshama to really face what I am seeing, hearing and experiencing. So here is my attempt at that. And I’m hoping that some of you might appreciate a glimpse into what it’s like here too. 

On Monday after school I walked to the Knesset building to join a rally on behalf of the residents of the Gaza envelope who are currently internal refugees. They felt and continue to feel that the government has abandoned them. Being there with many who had personally witnessed the attacks of October 7th was heartbreaking. And at the same time, I found relief seeing those most impacted by the attacks actively rallying against this government. For so much of my time in the states since the war began, I assumed that I had to put my criticism of the Israeli government aside. This was not the time for criticism. This was the time to mourn and to show pride in my Zionism. If I hadn’t left all my pro-democracy shirts in my closet in Jerusalem, I would have put them in a bin in a back closet anyways. But being back in Israel, I have learned that I can hold my Zionism, grief, upset, pride, and faith all at the same time. Especially while yelling “elections now” and “BB to jail.” 

The rally outside the Knesset

A sticker that says "dismissal now"

This car says "in the name of the envelope, we will not forget and we will not forgive"

Today we had our first day of Israel seminar, a class that usually takes Year in Israel students through Israel’s history through field trips and presentations from people from all aspects of society. But when you’re living through history, the class has to pivot. Today was a reorientation to Israel where we talked broadly about the war, its different and complicated aspects, and how it will live on as a historic moment. First we listened to a number of songs which have come out since October 7th. If you would like war song recommendations, I have many. And then we split off into groups to discuss for half an hour. My group’s discussion almost immediately turned to “the day after.” We wondered how there could possibly be a solution after so much trust has been lost between both sides. My classmates explained their ideas for peace in the Middle East. I mentioned an organization called A Land for All and would recommend you all check them out (the idea is a two state confederacy). After thirty minutes we confidently declared to the assistant director of our program that we had solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

We took a teaching about war songs filled with grief and pain and turned it into a conversation about finding a solution to the conflict. It is our instinct as humans to look for an answer, to look for a way that all of this tragedy can have some sort of positive outcome. It was our way of coping with all the pain we had heard and were feeling. Later in the day, we talked about how reform Jews (and progressive Jews more broadly) think they can just tikkun olam everything. If there is a problem in the world, we can sprinkle some tikkun olam fairy dust and suddenly the world will be fixed. Today I learned that we should not always jump to fixing our broken world. Right now, it’s time to sit with the pain. 

Speaking of sitting with pain: after our discussion we boarded a bus and traveled as a class to Har Hertzel to visit the graves of fallen soldiers. When we first arrived, our teachers shared stories of people they knew who died in Gaza. One of my classmates told us about her cousin’s husband who was killed and what it was like to attend his funeral. As we tried to walk towards the newest plot of graves, we were stopped by a group of soldiers setting up for a funeral that would happen just two hours later. They let us through to stand by the all too fresh graves and say al male rachamim. When we finished our ceremony, we each had time on our own to wander and reflect. I went to each new grave and felt enormous guilt. Every time I check the news and see that the IDF has released names of fallen soldiers, I click on the article to see faces of people I do not know and a wave of relief passes over me. Thank god it’s not my friend from camp, thank god it’s not my dad’s friend’s son, thank god it’s not my Hebrew teacher’s nephew. So today I stood beside the graves of each soldier and I asked them for forgiveness.

The ceremony my classmates and I took part in to honor those who have fallen

             I was struck by the dumpsters outside Har Hertzel, filled with wreaths from recent funerals

And just to show you that there are happy moments too, I have included some photos of me and my friends doing normal things. 

Until next time,

Shayna