If I forget thee. . .

O Jerusalem.

I can not forget the holy city, the city of David, the city of gold.
Nor can I forget Kibbutz Nir Oz, nor Kibbutz Be’eri, nor the site of the Nova music festival, where revelers danced deep in the Negev desert before terror descended.

And so, we go.

Despite trepidation at being in an Israel at war, despite the apprehension of seeing a country devastated by the horror of heinous attack, a country suffering, in pain.

We go to Israel because it feels right.
And, for us, my husband and me, it is.

We leave in late June as participants in a weeklong study program at the Shalom Hartman Institute to help process the trauma of October 7 and the country’s work to move forward.

Our flight is uneventful, packed with old, young, singles, families with little children, religious, not religious. Arriving in Ben Gurion, the airport is strangely subdued, less busy, but still, as we scurry with the crowd toward passport control, more or less normal. Until we pass through the wide esplanade flooded with morning light, with the photos of the hostages displayed along the walkway.

I gulp.

Outside, the usual scrum is jostling for taxis, and then we are in a cab and speeding towards Jerusalem. The land spreads out before us, a stand of stately cedars of Lebanon, the gently undulating hills, dotted with settlements, road signs in Hebrew and Arabic.

It is so familiar, and, yet, even as the landscape conjures treasured memories of Israel past, it now forebodes of how evil can lurk in the stark beauty of the land.

Our first day we arise early. I sip coffee from our terrace as the pale morning light gradually illumines the sky.

We head to breakfast, a little discomfited by the lavish buffet, guests filling their plates to overflowing, still returning for more.

And, yet, the dining room is a little less crowded than usual, the array of dishes not quite as bountiful, the crowd a little less noisy, the mood a little more restrained, somber, even.

Or at least it seemed to me, especially as I glimpsed a tall, thin fellow in jeans and golf shirt waiting in line for an espresso, a machine gun slung over his shoulder.

Post breakfast, we walk to the old city, past the landmark windmill, the King David Hotel, then down towards the bridge over the street leading to Jaffa Gate.

As we venture along the cobblestones, the disquiet returns, and I seek to suppress it, concentrating on the familiarity of the route through the narrow, winding streets.

Our path takes us to the kotel. It is quiet, even peaceful, with just a smattering of others nearby.

From a distance, I gaze up at the soaring wall reaching toward the sky, its stones glistening in the morning light.

And I think of all those who come here seeking solace, seeking help, seeking hope.

And I think of those who only dreamed of being here, of those who were sustained for generations by the mere possibility of return to this holy place, to the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the land that GD promised.

And those who lived to experience that return, who lived to see the land become a state, who proudly see it as an essential part of their identity as Jews.

And so, as I look up at the age old stones smoothed by the touch of countless hands, I remember the past and the eternal hope for the future.

And I bask in its glow.

I will not forget.