2 years

October 7, 2023.

2 years since I have felt a little more nervous (but not any less proud) to wear my hamsa necklace every single day.

2 years since I have taken my water bottle with an Israeli flag on it to every single work out class and occasionally hid it in the corner of the room so people wouldn’t see it.

2 years since my younger brother lived on a college campus in his Jewish fraternity house that had to implement 24 hour security guards to assure his safety.

2 years since the Israeli flag hanging outside my parent’s home that I grew up up in has been hung up in the backyard instead.

2 years since I’ve been more hesitant to publicly discuss my strong Jewish faith and my support of Israel.

2 years since the hostages held in captivity have no freedom, no say, and are starving to death while the world ignores them as if that’s not the reason of all of the real suffering to begin with.

2 years (quite frankly, much longer) since everyone constantly chooses to support everyone and everything, unless it has to do with Jews and Israel.

Yet also, 2 years since I’ve never been more proud to be Jewish and to love our homeland.

It’s ironic that in a world where most people disagree with their governments, where most people constantly preach “people are not their governments”, that the ONLY place in the world that somehow is the exception to that is Israel. The most moral and just country in the Middle East.

We are all fighting for the same thing. For peace. For understanding. For humanity. But one should never come at the cost of the other. War is war, but it’s getting all too easy for people to be on the wrong side of history. And sadly not even understanding the side they’re on either.

I welcome you to have a conversation with me. To ask me what it felt like living on the border of Jerusalem and the West Bank in my young 20s – but first please look up where and what that is before you talk to me, because odds are you likely haven’t done research to be able to point it out on a map. To listen. To learn. To love.

I feel for every human being that has been affected by the horrific and immoral actions of Hamas, who have caused suffering for many, MANY more people than just Israelis and Jews. 2 years later, it still becomes unclear to me every single day why it is so difficult for people to condemn a terrorist organization. But at the same time, it all makes sense. The world will never care for Jews and Israel as much as we have cared for every other human being, cause, place. My plea is to simply BRING THEM HOME, NOW. To stop the suffering. All of it. Everywhere.

My family, my relationship, my best friendships, my Judaism, and my love for Israel are the most important things in my life – the pillars I stand by, the values I live by. May my future children never have to experience the sadness, the hurt, the pain, the struggle that I have experienced these past 2 years.

I feel too deeply. I care too much. I love too hard. And I promise, as I do every time,  to love being Jewish thousands of times more than anyone hates me for it.