Happy 2025

I made aliyah with a heart that burned—half with pride, half with the stubborn belief that Israel would finally give me a place where history no longer pressed its boot on my chest. In Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, where exile hung like the mist of the Guaíba, Zionism felt less like an ideology and more like survival dressed in destiny’s clothes. And here I am, standing on this ground, building a life in a country where the air tastes like defiance—and yet, there are cracks in the foundation I can’t stop tripping over.

They tell us this is all for security. Those enemies ring us like wolves waiting for the scent of weakness. Maybe it’s true. But there’s a grotesque symmetry in how we justify ourselves, how we’ve perfected the art of wielding fear to crush anyone standing in our path. We build startups that promise to remake the future, yet we create misery as efficiently as we build tech. Between the festivals of innovation and the sirens that rip through the night, there’s a silence—the silence that descends over Gaza when the dust settles and nothing remains.

Families of hostages stand outside government offices, holding out their hands like beggars in the streets of Tel Aviv. Parents of fallen soldiers rage at a system that chewed up their children and spat them out as statistics. Arab citizens are treated like ghosts in a house they helped build, pack up their lives, and leave, quietly giving up on a country that’s already abandoned them. Addiction slinks through our neighborhoods, hollowing out the bodies of the young and the dreams of the old. And “unity”? That word cuts like broken glass now, a cruel joke we whisper to ourselves as if repetition might make it accurate.

I walk the streets of Beit Shean, feeling the sun on my skin, inhaling the peace of a quiet afternoon. But I can’t shake the knowledge that just over the hills, a child is trying to sleep beneath a roof held together by hope and rubble, dreaming of a future where the walls don’t crumble every time the ground shakes.

I won’t apologize for being a Zionist. I won’t apologize for claiming this land as my own, for choosing to live where my ancestors only dreamed of setting foot. But I also can’t close my eyes to what we’ve become. The dream of Israel wasn’t meant to turn into a nightmare for others, yet here we are, our “civilization” propped up by policies that strip humanity from anyone who doesn’t fit the script.

To call ourselves civilized is to wear a mask over the face of what we’ve done. It’s a polished lie we tell ourselves, hoping it might shine bright enough to hide the ugliness underneath. But I know better. You can’t block out the sun with a sieve. And you can’t stand beneath its light without remembering how it burns.

So here’s to 2025. May it bring us the courage to peel back the mask and the strength to face the reflection beneath. To those who read me this year and who walked with me through this tangled, brutal landscape, I thank you. And I wish you this: a year that is more just, merciful, and filled with peace that doesn’t need excuses. Happy 2025.