Six months of…

It’s exactly six months since the start of the war.

Six months since the worst massacre of Jews post WWII.

Six months since the worst tragedy in Israeli history, for Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and for non-citizens who happened to be here.

Six months of still not understanding how it could happen.

Six months of looking for a way to comprehend that the age of defenceless Jews being mass tortured, raped and murdered isn’t behind us.

Six months of watching people deny the murders, the rapes, the intentionality of these crimes, the identity of the perpetrators, the pain that we feel, the fact that on October 7 we were the victims, all of which denies our very humanity.

Six months of even more Israelis getting killed, soldiers and civilians, in Israel and in Gaza.

Six months of wanting my people back. All of them. Alive. The kidnapped and the massacred. Like having an adult’s brain, which understands the finality of death, and a child’s heart, which doesn’t.

Six months of trying to process images and realities I will never forget, and never understand.

Six months of watching with horror as my Jewish brothers and sisters abroad are being targeted as well, of searching for ways to stand with them even from afar.

Six months of hearing some non-Jews (and a minority of Jewish people) acting as if Israelis’ right to live is dependent on how many Gazans the antisemitic, genocidal terrorists of Hamas manage to get killed, in order to turn the world against us.

Six months of having to realize those terrorists, who never made it a secret that their intents for every Jew in the world are genocidal, might succeed.

Six months of wondering how the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated against the Jews for being Jewish, is being hijacked, distorted, and All Lives Matter’ed, by the same people who would have screamed against how wrong that is, if it were done to any other marginalized group.

Six months of finding comfort in the compassion, strength and solidarity of the Jewish People, of the Israelis, and of our true allies.

Six months of working to allow joy in again, even as the pain doesn’t let go for a second.

Six months of having to face the devastating fact, that the family scars, born out of millennia of antisemitism, are not going to stop with this generation, either.

Six months of experiencing the betrayal of people who were supposed to be friends, and to listen, and to know better.

Six months of discovering that there is no limit to the human heart’s ability to break.

Six months of grieving every day like it’s the first one, because October 7 never ended here.

Six months of knowing I will never be the same, right from the start, from the very first horror video I happened to come across online.

Six months of never being more Jewish in my life, or closer to what my Holocaust survivor grandparents had gone through, or more broken, or stronger, or prouder, or braver, or more full of love, for my people, for my friends, for my heritage as a Jew that teaches choosing to hold up even one little light, because in a world so full of darkness, so willing to embrace it, nothing matters more than the light we choose.

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This is not the introduction post I thought I would make for this blog. But today, it’s the only one I can make.