A Taste of Threat, a Deepening of Bond: My Time in Israel

So much time has passed since I last had space and clarity to be able to capture my experience in words. Israel’s war with Iran and our trauma mission occurred simultaneously, and each reinforced the meaning and need for the other. 

Had I not been in Israel at this exact time, I would never have viscerally understood the nation’s actual experience of living amidst existential threat of annihilation. To have that knowledge in my bones is a tremendous gift that bonds me forever to Israel and its people––my people.

As someone who works with trauma, it’s been interesting to observe the spectrum of my responses to the intensity of this time. At different moments I’ve felt terrified, grateful, enraged, awestruck, rooted, and heartbroken––often in overlapping waves, co-arising and tangled together.

I’m still at the hotel in Jerusalem where our mission took place until I return to the US on July 6. The atmosphere is completely back to normal—as if just days ago, hundreds of people had not stuffed themselves into elevators, clamored down the stairs, bleary in their bathrobes, sleeping children in their arms, and filed into the safe room multiple times each day and night for nearly two weeks. There, conversations were instantly struck up with strangers as we faced our common plight. Some read from siddurim. Others scrolled for news updates. A man with dark curly hair walked around with a huge smile and a gigantic bag of candied fruit from the souk, nudging people to take some. Most complied.

It now feels so ordinary here that I actually miss the aliveness of those days. It’s quite common for people who have experienced war or other intense crises to miss the intensity, intimacy, and strong bonds that form during extreme situations—even though those circumstances are also dangerous and frightening.

Facing danger together can lead to heightened trust, solidarity, and emotional closeness—including with strangers. Terror, hope, and survival needs make interactions feel very meaningful and immediate. After the adrenaline and focus of a crisis, everyday life can seem bland or disconnected. 

Even as I’m decompressing, I’m experiencing some of that. It will take my system some time to recalibrate. My heart was beating very fast for several days; I rarely notice it now because it has, thankfully, almost returned to normal. I frequently practice the grounding and orienting skills I learned in my trauma training; they help me come into the present, down from hypervigilance.

This tiny taste of confronting the mortal threat that Israelis have lived with since the nation’s founding in 1948 leaves me with immense empathy for their plight—and profoundly deepens my conviction as a Zionist. My experience here stands in stark contrast to the distorted narratives advanced by distant commentators and ideological activists who lack firsthand experience and portray Israel as a settler-colonialist, genocidal, apartheid state. Many of these claims have their origins in Soviet-era antisemitism, and reflect longstanding efforts to delegitimize Israel and Jewish identity. They are currently promoted by various regional actors—including Qatar, which hosts Hamas and does not recognize Israel as a legitimate state—and then uncritically absorbed by sincere, well-meaning people (Jews among them) in the West, who regurgitate the poison and unwittingly contribute to the harm they intend to oppose.

For me, the most searing and unforgettable moment of our mission—one that shattered the false claims we so often hear—occurred during our June 24 visit to Herzog Hospital, founded 130 years ago in Jerusalem as Israel’s first mental health facility. Today, Herzog treats patients across mental health, geriatrics, rehabilitation, and ventilation.

We saw its underground wards, built during COVID and designed to protect against missile and chemical attacks—now safeguarding the hospital’s most vulnerable patients, including babies and children on ventilators.

Just days before our visit, these patients—along with others too fragile to be moved quickly to safe rooms—had been relocated underground. Over 200 ventilated patients were sheltered there; about 50% of them were Arab or Palestinian.

Even in this basement bunker, music therapy brings light to these children, regardless of their identity. [Watch this Facebook reel, with the volume on.] The scene wasn’t staged, rehearsed, or designed to impress us; it simply reflects a core Jewish value: that life matters.