Shock. Anger. Fear.
These emotions have become an unwelcome theme in my life since Oct. 7.
There are actually no words to describe how unbelievably challenging and heartbreaking the first weeks after the massacre were for the Jewish community. How can there be words to describe an unprecedented, bloody attack during which 1,200 people were brutally murdered and more than 250 were taken as hostages into the depths of Gaza?
When I learned about the attack, I couldn’t help thinking: What if my siblings had been there? What if my parents and I had gone to Israel in October? What if we had been visiting our family in Ashdod?
During those first weeks, I would go up the stairs to my classrooms each day and know that, no matter what, I was not alone. I had my friends who were going through the same challenges. I had caring teachers who were willing to have discussions and answer questions at any given time. And I had my school, which was already finding ways to support Israelis.
During those dark, fearful weeks, Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto served as an example and inspiration for other Jewish schools, donating medical supplies and food, sending words of encouragement to kids who had been displaced, and even sending a delegation of eighth graders to the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. But I didn’t realize how lucky I was to go to a school that was doing everything it possibly could to support its students until a few weeks ago, when on a seemingly normal day, I saw the front page of the New York Times with a photo of a Columbia University student holding up a poster with “The Final Solution” on it in large, red print.
This spring, I have sat in the safety of my home and listened to the birds chirp outside, while thousands of Jewish college students have been bombarded with the noise of anti-Israel protesters storming their campuses. While I was learning about Israeli history and dance during Yom HaAtzmaut, many college students were forced to attend online classes because they feared for their safety on campus.
Once again I can’t help thinking that if I had been born a few years earlier, I could have been stuck on a college campus. My brother, who graduated from Columbia University only a couple of years ago, could have been the target of an antisemitic attack. I am grateful that I haven’t been personally affected by these protests, but I worry that students will never again be able to attend university without being afraid to be openly Jewish.
I can’t stop worrying about if, and how, the next few years of my life will be impacted by antisemitism.
I yearn for what Israel used to be for me: a haven, a beacon of light, a home. I can’t stop worrying about if, and how, the next few years of my life will be impacted by antisemitism.
Through all the turmoil that these last months have been, one thing has been astoundingly clear: I should never have to hide my Jewish identity. Instead, I should be unapologetically Jewish and use these values to better our world.
Hausner has helped me to do just that. It has allowed students like me to find our voices by providing us with a caring, supportive community that will always be there to lift us up. I have been given the most important gift of all — knowledge — through the countless speakers that we have heard from. Learning from amazing individuals like Zack Bodner, CEO of the Oshman Family JCC, Amichai Magen, a visiting fellow in Israel studies at Stanford, and even Elyakim Rubinstein, a former Israeli Supreme Court justice, my classmates and I have learned how to debunk myths and face future challenges.
The support and community at Hausner during these last months has inspired me to apply to a Jewish leadership organization to continue speaking up against hatred. Because, as history has shown time and time again, Jewish voices cannot, and will not, be silenced.
Seeing all of the terror and hatred in the world right now is terrifying. Not knowing when this conflict will end is scary. It’s a hard time to have faith in the future. But then I think about the 22 kids in Hausner’s graduating eighth-grade class. We are all passionate about changing the world, so I can’t help but feel hopeful too.
I know that my classmates have the power and knowledge to speak up against hatred, and so do countless kids around the world who are inspired by values like community responsibility and tzedek, tzedek tirdof (“justice, justice you shall pursue”) to stand up to hate.
The Jewish education that I and so many others have received is the most powerful tool that we have to lift the curtain of anger and sadness that has enveloped us and to make the world accept us for who we are: a proud, defiant people who deserve to thrive.
I just hope that we will not let fear stop us, dictate us or silence us.