Resilience and rebuilding on Israel’s borders
For the last 20 months, a cloud has hung over Jews of the diaspora. We’ve watched from afar the suffering of Israelis, starting on October 7th and intensifying with each day, as hostages remain in captivity, soldiers fall in battle and internal conflict tears society apart. And then, as if we were not already reeling from that black day, antisemitism began to rear its monstrous head in our own countries. I live in Sydney, on the same street where a community leader’s former home was firebombed last year; cars were vandalised with swastikas 50 metres from my office, a local daycare was set alight, “Fxxk the Jews” scrawled on its walls. New South Wales experienced a more than 300% increase in antisemitic incidents in the 12 months post October 7th, and the Jewish community here feels every act acutely. Many Jews in Australia have begun to have the “if we had to leave” conversation, half in jest, with that quiet voice at the back of our minds telling us that we, the Jewish people, have been here before.
Ever since October 7th, I, like many others in the diaspora, felt this burning need to go to Israel, to bear witness, to show solidarity. I recently spent a week in Israel with JNF Australia, meeting communities in the north, a stone’s throw from the Lebanon border, and the south, where the Gaza border lies mere metres from their fences.
It’s hard to fathom how people can choose to live so close to an enemy sworn to destroy them, to raise their children under a constant barrage of rockets. Where multiple times a day one startles at the sporadic booms of explosions, currently from IDF operations, until recently from rockets being fired across the border. I didn’t understand it, until I met the brave men and women who have returned to their homes, determined to rebuild. These are the new halutzim, pioneers who are reinforcing Israel’s borders by making these now deserted communities whole again.
Entering the kibbutzim of Manara and Misgav Am in the North, I was struck by the silence enveloping what were once vibrant communities. The pace of the evacuation is glaringly obvious in the coats left hanging by the door, children’s toys discarded in the yard, a Nespresso machine lying on a shelf covered in rat droppings. The clubhouse blown apart, broken bits of steel and splintered wood mirroring the mound of rubble that was once a town across the border. We stood there, visitors from Australia, trying to comprehend how this community can return, how they can move past the trauma of the last 18 months. Yet many are determined to return, to bring their children back, to raise future generations of Jews on the border. One member, who has returned to the kibbutz, told me, “If we move south, they win”. His family remains in temporary accommodation, and he plans to bring them back at the end of the school year, aware that the clock is ticking to resurrect the home they once knew.
At Kibbutz Manara we met a group of young men and women who have finished their army service but, instead of going travelling abroad, have chosen to live in this evacuated kibbutz, clearing debris, removing thousands of shards of broken glass that litter the streets, determined to erase the horror of the war and make this place habitable again. When asked why he had chosen to do this, Uriel, a recently released soldier, said, “I thought what I would say to my future children when they asked me what I did during this period. I didn’t want to say I was on a beach in India.”
Still reeling from the devastation of the north, we went to the Gaza Envelope. Nothing can prepare you for the visual assault of entering a kibbutz like Nir Oz. Pockets of beauty still lie within the kibbutz, juxtaposed by charred remains of what were once homes, turned to killing fields. A small white scooter sits discarded in the Bibas family’s front yard, next to a sagging hammock. 5 black flags hang outside the Siman Tov home, testimony to the brutal murder of this young family, the remains of their sukkah still standing, now overgrown with weeds.
We stood there, struggling to make sense of it, to justify our presence there. We’d come to bear witness, to raise awareness, to stand in solidarity – yet mixed in with this was immense guilt; who are we to intrude, to acts as voyeurs, tourists of the worst event for the Jewish people since the Shoah? Did they even want us there, were we intruding on their pain? That question was answered by every person we met, every survivor, evacuee, soldiers living in intense heat in tents on the Lebanese border, reservists who had done close to 300 days, kibbutznikim who had spent an eternity hiding in their safe rooms. They were united in their gratitude that we had come. Oren Zvada, a member of Kibbutz Holit, which is still uninhabitable, spoke to us from his temporary home in Revivim. He told us about his experience on October 7th, reliving the terror that still haunts him today. In the midst of this all, he thanked us for coming, for supporting his community (JNF Australia has donated 3 portable yurts to the kibbutz, spaces where children can play, members can gather, life can take on a small semblance of normalcy, which will later be moved to Holit).
Throughout the visit, from Rishpon Healing Space in the centre, which provides trauma treatment to October 7th survivors, to Kibbutz Misgav Am in the north, to Kibbutz Re’im in the south, from released hostage Gadi Moses, we were told “thank you. Thank you for supporting us, for coming to Israel.” I implore anyone thinking about visiting, weighing up whether now is the time, to go. Show support by showing up – fill the hotels, cafes and buses, let this be your act of defiance against the tirade of hate that swarms our streets. Israelis hear our protests from overseas, the “bring them home” marches in the streets of Sydney, London, New York. Despite the all-encompassing trauma they are learning to work through, they expressed concern for the antisemitism we are facing in the diaspora. A theme that emerged, echoed throughout this trip, was that we need Israel as much as she needs us.
I expected my trip to be overshadowed by tension and division, by anger and trauma. Instead, I left Israel filled with hope, buoyed by the determination of a new generation of halutzim – and some not so new, like Gadi Moses, who is back to tending his vines and believes that his home will once again be just that – a home. The hope that they could live in peace with their neighbours in the near future has been replaced by a determination to stand their ground, rebuild – not as it was, but better.