Everything looked different after Oct. 7, 2023
I grew up in a family that went to synagogue often, celebrated every holiday and participated in every Jewish youth group. But Israel never felt like a major part of my Jewish identity. When I learned about it in religious school, I mostly took in the maps and history lessons. I received information but didn’t feel a connection.
On Oct. 7, 2023, I was sitting on the couch in my living room watching a TV show and scrolling aimlessly on my phone when news alerts came across my feed.
I stopped scrolling. I spent the rest of the day and weekend trying to understand what happened. I was shocked and overwhelmed.
The following Monday I walked into school and felt like I was being stared down, as one of the two openly Jewish students in my senior class at my public high school. One person asked me how my weekend was and what my thoughts on the news were. Another person asked me my thoughts about Netanyahu.
No one had ever come up to me asking any sorts of questions like these in the past. Before Oct. 7, sometimes people asked me about being Jewish or my favorite holiday, but no one had ever asked me about Israel. I felt like I was expected to have all of the answers.
As protests and debates continued, I realized that I didn’t want my understanding of Israel to come from headlines or other people. I wanted to learn on my own and for myself.
I started reading, listening and asking questions. I was able to develop my own thoughts, and I realized that I wanted a relationship with Israel that wasn’t only about war, antisemitism or constant crisis.
By January of my freshman year of college, I knew what I wanted to do next. The first day that Birthright Israel trips for the coming summer opened for registration, I signed up for a May trip. I wasn’t just excited to go out of the country for the first time, but I was also ready to explore something in my life that I hadn’t yet, something that was suddenly so important to me.
When the flight to Tel Aviv began to prepare for landing, I woke up from a nap and stared out the window. Once I was able to faintly see the Ben Gurion airport, tears formed in my eyes.
For the last year and a half, my connection to Israel was built on books, news reports and conversations. Now, I was actually there.
When I stepped off the plane, it still didn’t feel real.
This place that I spent so much time trying to understand wasn’t just something that I read about; it was right in front of me.
Israel no longer felt like a chapter from a textbook or a printed-out map, but something personal.
Now, if someone asks me a question about the Jewish homeland, I have something to say.
