By: Nadav Levine
My mother’s side of the family, and my cousins on my dad’s side, live in Israel. Growing up, I did not see Israel as part of who I was; it was just a place far away that I flew to visit family. Then, on October 7th, 2023, the terrorist group Hamas massacred more than 1200 Israelis and took 254 hostages. I remember waking up and hearing my mom and brother speaking to each other, “They should’ve never gone through with this.” I was puzzled: if you can remember, before October 7th, Israel and Saudi Arabia were undergoing negotiations for normalization. Waking up, I thought my mom was talking about normalization. But it was the complete opposite. On that day, the darkness overtook the light. We had always learned in school that Israel was in a dangerous situation, but I never really understood what that meant. Before October 7th, I had limited knowledge of modern Israeli history. Only a few weeks before the attack, at the Shabbat table, my family and I discussed how long it had been since Israel was in a major war. My father knocked on the table, saying, hopefully, they would never be again. Thinking back to this moment, so close to October 7th, is eerie. A few weeks later, I heard my mom talking about what I thought was normalization, and I checked my phone. I still remember the image that popped up when I searched for Israeli news. I could not yet comprehend the horror and significance of what was occurring, something genuinely unprecedented in Israeli history. It would be a day of global Jewish pain, seared into our memories for the rest of our lives.
The same day, I spoke to a girl whose dad was in Israel, and I felt totally helpless. I just didn’t know what to say. I had thought of Israel as a strong country, the most technologically advanced in the Middle East. I felt that we were indestructible, and I was proven desperately wrong. Since its inception in 1948, Israel has given Jews the option not to cower in the corner, hiding from pogroms, but to be strong people with berets and M-16s. I felt the same way many Israelis must have thought after the 6-Day War, when our military and technological prowess were on full display, and we thought we were invincible. And like those Jews, we learned our lesson in the worst way possible. I kept thinking, how could this happen? We are a strong country; how could the military let this happen? Our intelligence? The government?
Like I said, before the attack, Israel did not take up such a large part of my consciousness. I knew on some level my cousins were in the Israeli Army, but for some reason, this fact felt distant. On October 8th, my cousin departed for training camp, where he would eventually go into Gaza. Suddenly, it didn’t feel so distant. My brave cousin went tunnel to tunnel in Gaza, searching for hostages and taking down terrorists, and suddenly, it felt like I was there, even though I wasn’t. I remember his younger brother (and my cousin) sending me videos of rockets landing on buildings next to him, burning, and it flipped my worldview upside down, seeing those so close to me be affected.
When I returned to school on October 9th, I didn’t discuss what had happened with my friends before the all-school assembly. We could not talk about it because we didn’t know how. We were used to making jokes and talking about things that seemed trivial in comparison. We had never experienced something like this before. There was something heavy in the air, and I just couldn’t comprehend it. I didn’t know it then, but this heavy air would change who I was, and I know it changed many others, too. This change would lead me closer to a darker future. Until a few months ago, I was sure I would be a lawyer somewhere in New York. After October 7th, I can’t imagine a life in which I don’t contribute to Israel in a deeper way. What is the point of having the Jewish nation in the holy land if your brethren cannot feel safe there?
About a year after the attack, my friends and I were acting up in the Mechitza Minyan. Morah Menashe, our Israeli teacher, gave us a 20-minute speech that profoundly changed how I view the world. He told us that the most important thing in life is not the grades you get, nor is it getting into the best college, nor getting that great degree, nor making a lot of money. It is the values that you hold. When I am on my deathbed, it will not matter if I own a Porsche. But it will always matter what impact I had and what legacy I left. I realized that day, in Tefillah, that if I can contribute to the Jewish state while we have one, then I will have done my job. America is very materialistic. Americans care less about your morals and more about your stocks. I feel that the basic life path set out for us in America, as Moreh Menashe described, is something I don’t want to follow: good grades, college, a high-paying job, all so that you can buy nice cars and eat nice food. Many in Israel follow a similar path, but with a critical addition: military service, defending the Jewish nation. Feeling part of the Jewish nation in the holy land. And this feeling is crucial. In the 2024 World Happiness Index, Israel ranked 5th, even though it had just experienced the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. That is something I want to be a part of. In Israel, you are a part of something bigger than yourself, contributing to the progression of your people.
Now that the hostages have returned while still maintaining a secure military position in Gaza, it feels that we have turned a page in Jewish history, and those dark days are behind us. While soldiers are watching over the Hamas terrorists, we hold their safety in our hearts. We, as the Jewish people, hold out for peace, a true peace, one that does not threaten our security. In the post-war world, Jews around the globe still fear for their safety, heightened by the election of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Although with our hostages home and the war over, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We sigh, but still hold in mind that our world will never be the same as it was before October 7. We Zionists have gone through a significant transformation throughout the course of the war regarding our viewpoint on the holy land. On every flight we take to Ben Gurion, until the end of our lives, we will not be without the thought, in the back of our minds, of the horrific massacre that occurred on October 7. It will be difficult to see the land of milk and honey; as such, our generation will remember it as the land of war, destruction, and tragedy for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, our kids can reclaim the ideal of the land we were shown as kids.
