Trembling Hands, Unshaken Heart

It begins with the sirens. That singular, slicing sound that splits the sky and seizes the body. Every time it goes off, I feel it before I hear it. My chest tightens. My hands tremble. My body, without permission, prepares for impact. The siren is not just an alert; it is a trigger. A reminder that the threat is real, that safety is momentary, that time has fractured. I have learned to run not just with my feet, but with my mind, bracing for whatever comes next.

I never imagined I would know this feeling so intimately. As someone who came to Israel out of love—for its people, for its promise, for its fragile, relentless pursuit of peace—I did not expect to find myself caught in the machinery of war. And yet, here I am, trying to breathe through the fear, trying to sleep through the noise, trying to live through the loss. There is a difference between studying conflict and surviving it. That line, once abstract, is now carved into my skin.

The violence is not always distant. I have seen it up close. I have watched faces crumble under the weight of fresh grief, heard the cries of those who just received the call no one ever wants to get. I have stood in the aftermath of bombings and protests, where smoke hangs heavy and the air tastes like metal. No textbook prepared me for the intimacy of trauma. For the way it settles in your muscles, in your dreams. For the way it lingers long after the news cameras leave.

Sleep has become fragmented. My nights are punctuated by sudden awakenings, jolts of panic, phantom sirens echoing in my head. I wake up gasping, heart racing, searching the room for threats. Even in stillness, my body does not believe it is safe. There is a cost to this kind of vigilance. It erodes you. And yet, there is no alternative but to endure. To find scraps of rest where you can. To trick the mind into believing that the bed is a refuge, that the night will pass.

When Tel Aviv Pride was canceled, the grief hit me like a wave. It wasn’t just the loss of a celebration. It was the loss of a lifeline. Pride, in this city, is not a luxury. It is an act of survival, of visibility, of joy forged through resistance. For many queer people here, it is the only time they can be fully seen, fully safe. The cancellation felt like an erasure. Like a promise revoked. And yet, even in that loss, I saw beauty in the couples who still held hands defiantly, in the murals that bloomed overnight, in the underground gatherings pulsing with light and music. We mourned, but we did not disappear.

There is a word that follows me now: “trauma tourist.” It is flung at people like me who come to Israel without lineage or citizenship, who bear witness without history. I have been accused of it. I understand the skepticism. In a place where pain is so deeply rooted, outsiders are rightly scrutinized. But I did not come to spectate. I came because I could not look away. Because love demands presence. Because solidarity means staying when it is easier to leave.

Still, I have had to reckon with my privilege. I can leave. Many cannot. That knowledge sits heavy. To witness ethically is to center the voices of those who live this every day, to listen more than you speak, to serve more than you share. It means asking, always: Am I helping? Or am I extracting?

In the midst of this, anxiety has become a language. It hums beneath everything—in the way people scan rooftops, in the way backpacks are checked, in the silence that follows a loud bang. It is not dramatic. It is mundane. And that is what makes it so powerful. You learn to function within it. To laugh between sirens. To dance under drones. To love even when you’re not sure there will be a tomorrow.

For me, coping has become a ritual. I walk long distances, letting the rhythm of my steps quiet the static in my head. I stretch, even when I don’t want to, because my body deserves gentleness. I light candles. I read my favorite poems aloud. I text friends who understand without explanation. These are not solutions. They are lifelines. Small acts that remind me I am still here.

But individual resilience is not enough. What sustains me most is community. The makeshift infrastructures of care that emerge in crises. Neighbors opening homes. Strangers offering rides. Friends calling at 3 a.m. just to say, “You are not alone.” This, more than anything, is what allows us to survive: the quiet, steadfast presence of others.

I think often about the rituals of grief, especially in a region where mourning is both personal and political. In Israel, the weight of loss is often public, collective, echoed through sirens on Memorial Days, in the solemn notes of a shofar, in the stark black clothes of mourners walking to synagogue. Yet, within those rituals lies a kind of fortitude; a culture that refuses to forget, that insists on remembrance even when it is painful. In sharing grief, there is a strange kind of solace. We carry it together.

I’ve learned to read the news differently now. Every headline is filtered through a new lens. Casualty numbers aren’t statistics; they’re reminders of families torn apart, of futures stolen. I linger over names. I try to imagine their stories. I light candles in their memory. The weight of bearing witness isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s visceral. It’s sleepless nights and a heavy chest and the aching desire to scream in a language that may not be my own but feels like home.

Social media, once a place of escape, has become both a battlefield and a balm. I’ve seen misinformation spread like wildfire, seen strangers weaponize grief, seen the dehumanization of people I know and love. But I’ve also seen courage. I’ve seen activists who haven’t slept in days, translators working tirelessly to bring clarity, artists sketching hope into war zones. In the fog of psychological warfare, truth becomes sacred. It is our most powerful form of resistance.

Hope is not what it used to be. It no longer arrives in grand speeches or sweeping visions. It arrives in fragments. A meal shared. A song played. A hand held. It is a mosaic of small, stubborn acts that defy despair. We have lost so much. But we have not lost everything. As long as we continue to care, to hold, to help, to heal; there is still something left to fight for.

I think about the children, especially. The ones growing up learning the difference between sirens and fireworks before they learn to read. The ones who instinctively know which stairwell leads to shelter. How do we teach them joy when fear is the backdrop of every memory? And yet, they smile. They laugh. They play. They are, in every sense, the embodiment of resistance. If they can keep going, so must we.

My hands still shake. My dreams are still haunted. But I have learned to live in the cracks. To build a life in the rubble. To honor grief without being consumed by it. This is not triumph. It is survival. And sometimes, that is enough.

What I carry from this chapter of my life is not just the pain but the people—the elderly woman who made me tea in a bomb shelter, the medic who gave me his number “just in case,” my friend Idan who placed a hand on my shoulder when I broke down in tears last summer during a protest. These quiet gestures form the spine of our collective resilience. They remind me that even when the world feels irreparably broken, human kindness stitches the pieces back together, one thread at a time.

And so I stay. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary. Because love, in its most radical form, means showing up even when it hurts. Because grief is a testament to what we value. Because in a world set on fracturing itself, choosing to remain whole, however shakily, however quietly, is itself an act of defiance.

To live in Israel, today, is to live with your heart constantly open and constantly breaking. But it also means living with your heart constantly growing. In empathy. In resolve. In purpose. And that, perhaps more than anything, is what gives me the strength to keep going.