What I celebrate when I celebrate the ceasefire

When I was little, I thought that wars end with celebration. I looked at pictures of people dancing and celebrating at Trafalgar Square after World War II, listened to triumphant songs about the ending of the Six Days War here in Israel, and cobbled together an image that was as shiny as it was incomplete.

I dismissed whatever didn’t quite fit into this image. I cast aside my grandmother’s hushed stories about her brother, who was forced to be a judge in the field trials Stalin imposed on his soldiers after victory, and ended up taking his own life. I ignored the tale about my mother’s father, exiled to serve the USSR in Siberia once his utility to the Red Army diminished. I filed the stories about rapes and abuse that took place after World War II ended into a separate box inside my brain than the end-of-war celebrations of that end. I conversed with Israelis who suffer from severe PTSD without ever connecting their pain to the wars they fought in, as if the victorious ending and the other consequences of battle exist on wholly separate planes.

VE-Day celebrations, Trafalgar Square, London, England, May 8, 1945. Credit: Lieut. Arthur L. Cole. Canada. Department of National Defense. Library and Archives Canada, PA-177086

Today, I know better. Because what we are living through today isn’t triumphalist, or clear cut, or easy. The ceasefire with Iran titters on shaky legs even as I write. Nor is it the same as a peace agreement. The war with Hamas is ongoing. 50 of our hostages are still in captivity in Gaza. The losses we sustained since the October 7th massacre still haunt us, with more precious lives lost to Iranian rockets only this morning. The future is uncertain.

For one shiny moment on June 22nd, as I checked the news between the “be ready to run to the bomb shelter in 10 minutes, because rockets are on their way” alert that woke us up and the “okay now really run for shelter” siren that followed it, I felt as if a shiny, beautiful future was possible and imminent. President Trump had destroyed Fordo overnight, and a whole new array of possible paths unfurled before us. The regime that placed a clock at a public square to count down the days to our annihilation no longer had the ability to deliver on its grim and ever-ticking promise. The people who poisoned the region with terror and hatred were defanged, and new collaborations and alliances suddenly seemed to lie within our grasp.

But now that we are past that moment, and the surprise of it faded, I can’t help but recall that the road to this shiny, better future won’t be easy. In order to actualize the possibilities that were opened to us many different parties will have to expend good will and diplomatic effort over many years. Do we have it in us? And if we do, can we trust our would-be new allies to do their part as well?

Will the murderous regime in Iran collapse or regroup, give way or double down ?

Will our cooperation with US continue or falter?

I don’t know, and so as I stumble from one hour into the next today (we all spent hours waiting for incoming rockets this morning, after all), I find myself reassessing those jubilant Englishmen at Trafalgar Square and the tearfully joyous people who celebrated the Six Days War in my parents’ generation. Were they really as carefree and happy as I had imagined them? What fatigue did they push aside to make room for celebration? What losses, what fears, tempered their joy and intermingled with their gratitude?

Israeli soldiers and rescue teams search for survivors amid the rubble of residential buildings destroyed by an Iranian missile strike that killed several people, in Beersheba, Israel, on June 24, 2025, right before the ceasefire went into effect (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

But instead of disappointment at this shattering of my childish fantasy, what I feel is deep appreciation. Those previous generations didn’t celebrate victory because they had no cause for sorrow or concern. They celebrated victory despite these causes. They faced their own painful past, uncertain present, and challenging future and chose to rejoice anyway, chose to express relief and gratitude.

And suddenly, in the light of what we are experiencing in this moment in history, as the war with Iran comes to its closing moments and we gaze at a different tomorrow, I recognize that this choice was a heroic one.

Because it would be easy to sink into despair, or give in to fatigue and sorrow. It would be easy to feel so depleted by the mountains we have scaled that we would preemptively accept defeat without trying to climb even higher.

By choosing joy, even in such complicated times, I choose to focus on what we have achieved, on all that we’ve accomplished. I choose to pay these accomplishments the homage that they’re due. And in acknowledging them, in celebrating them, I gear myself to go on working. I commit myself to go on striving, go on climbing past this victorious and complicated day.

I thank God for watching over us, and giving us the strength to make it to this moment. I thank every man and woman who made our achievement possible. And I sink my hands into the rejuvenating pools of gratitude and jubilation, to restore my strength and grit for the journey still ahead.