A year after October 7, a normal life in Israel

On a practical level, it wasn’t long after October 7, 2023, that my life returned to normal. 

My home wasn’t destroyed, and the one direct hit nearby only smoked for a few hours. My family and I weren’t evacuated; our home is in Be’er Sheva, far enough from the border with Gaza that we were relatively safe from Hamas and very far from the border with Lebanon, where constant rocket fire from Hezbollah turned our northern communities into a war zone. 

I wasn’t called in for reserve duty. I moved here too old to be drafted, and my request for an exception was ignored. I was studying for my master’s degree, but at a US university, where I attended class on Zoom, so it continued as normal, with a few exceptions when I had to grab my kids from their beds and take them to shelter from a rocket attack. Most of my work was also online, meaning that as long as we had electricity and internet, I could continue my academic and professional life uninterrupted. 

Besides taking cover from rockets (which is unfortunately normal here, even before the current war), the only physical difficulty I actually endured was having my children home without daycare. And while I certainly complained about the difficulty, I was always aware that I should be grateful — many parents in the country had suddenly and unexpectedly lost their children.

A few months after October 7, enough order was restored that daycare resumed, and then, for all practical purposes, my life returned to normal. 

But nothing feels normal. My world is not the same and will never be the same. On October 6, 2023, I was living my life; since October 7, 2023 I have been living through history. 

When studying for my conversion to Judaism I read “A Letter in the Scroll” by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, and I thought I understood the idea of being a part of the story of the Jewish people. 

The enormity of Jewish history, with its tragedy and triumphs, is something I understood intellectually, but now I feel the weight. It drags over every conversation, from having coffee with a friend a few hours after he left Gaza to a conversation with my wife about what is for dinner. 

The fact that we are living through a massive turning point in Jewish history is clear. And the discomfort of not knowing if this turn brings us more safety and security or horror and destruction is very real. 

But I believe in the eternity of the Jewish people, which means I believe that in a thousand years, there will be Jews reading about this challenging period and analyzing the decisions we made. 

Our enemy has a plan, and I am an important target. I am among those many Jews who live in Israel by choice. As a dual citizen, leaving our homeland is an easy option.  And enough Jews leaving our Holy Land will pave the way for the destruction of the modern state of Israel. 

So, as I continue to build my life in Israel, I remember that I am a very small letter in a very big story. My paragraph is stable, at least for now, but it is part of a violent epic. Yet, I am grateful to be part of the tribe and feel blessed that I am still alive to see what happens next. 

And even if I can take my family to a safer part of the theater, we would rather stay home in our front-row seats. 

Am Yisrael Chai