On blistered heels, photographs, and artichoke soup

I visited Israel two weeks ago, having been invited by a Jewish think-tank to speak about the alarming rise of anti-Zionism and antisemitism on US Evangelical college campuses. Several things during my short stay deeply affected me.

When I arrived at Ben Gurion, I realized my phone needed charging. “I’ll charge it on the train up to Jerusalem,” I thought. After boarding, I could not find a charging connection so I asked a nearby passenger if he could give me directions to my hotel from the central train station, but he didn’t speak English. As I was debarking, a young woman who had overheard my request offered to help. She told me to follow her up the escalator, and she would point me in the right direction when we exited the station.

As we rode up the moving stairway, I was seven or eight steps below her, and that’s when I saw it—a rifle hanging over her shoulder. She wore a long civilian dress and sandals that revealed blistered and bloodied heels from—I gathered— wearing combat boots. When we reached the top of the stairs, I asked, “How long have you been in the IDF?” She answered, “I volunteered after 10/7 and plan on making a career in the military.” She then pointed me toward my hotel, an easy walk from the train station. As I walked, I thought about my three grown daughters and how different their lives are from this Israeli warrior with a rifle and calloused heels, volunteering to fight for the existence of her people—my people. I realize from that brief encounter that the Israeli spirit—so real in this young woman’s heart, is not flickering but burning brightly…. “As long as the heart within the Jewish soul yearns, and toward the eastern edges, onward, an eye gazes toward Zion, our hope is not yet lost…..”

As I walked through Ben Gurion and later down the sidewalks of Jerusalem, I was captivated by the endless stream of photographs of hostages held in captivity by bestial Hamas terrorists. The sight was compelling because it’s not something you will see in most parts of the world. Soon after 10/7 in cities like Sydney, San Francisco, and Paris, concerned Jews put up posters calling for the safe return of the hostages. Yet, mindless Hamas-loving antisemites violently tore down those posters. You would think that after the massacre in southern Israel, the world would have a heart for Jews, but the shredding of hostage photographs is a reminder that, for the most part, it does not.

I realized as I viewed the many displays of photographs and the accompanying pleas for the release of the hostages, that the value of one human life in the Jewish mind is of utmost importance. The pictures inspire collective memory, prayers, and protest against evil. This is one reason why the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, exists—lest we forget to remember and memorialize those who perished in the Shoah. In Israel, I always spend time at Yad Vashem as I did during this trip. I visit the Hall of Names, which has categorized the names of six million people who perished. I look up my family members on a database in the exhibit and find their photographs there. The pictures of their faces help me always to remember the pain of their loss and encourage me to do my part in making their memory a blessing.

My final impression is from my conversation with a restaurant owner, whose chef created the most delicious Jerusalem artichoke soup I’ve ever tasted. Every night, I ate at the same restaurant—the soup kept calling my name!

I suppose because there are very few tourists in Israel these days, I was somewhat of an enigma, and the owner made it a point to converse with me during each meal. On my last night before departing Israel, he told me he was in the IDF reserves and would be leaving the following day for duty. This culinary pro is a thinker, a philosopher, a lover of people, a lover of his homeland, and—selfishly, on my part—a lover of Jerusalem artichoke soup.

In our last conversation, this gentle and kind soul wanted me to know something: “I was brought up in Israeli schools and was never taught by any teacher to hate Palestinians. I was instructed to love my neighbor, not hold contempt toward them. If Palestinians continue to teach their children their greatest honor is murdering Jews, the conflict will never end.”

He’s right of course, and this is the dilemma of Israelis who desire peace with their Palestinian neighbors: “How do we live next to a people whose core ambition is our slaughter? How? We will choose to have blistered heels, protest the evil that desires our elimination, value every Jewish life, not be given over to the hatred of those who hate us, and, amid this suffering, find joy in making Jerusalem artichoke soup.”