Tali Griksharts ’19

Posted on October 25, 2023

On Saturday morning, October 7th, I was with my family on a vacation in Lithuania. After nearly four months of traveling on my own in the United States after completing my army service, I was reunited with my family for a vacation. The deep relaxation during traveling helped me clarify my goals for this year. I was supposed to move into a new apartment in Tel Aviv that I had just signed a lease for and I was starting flight attendant training. Everything seemed very certain and promising after two years of military service.

On that Saturday morning, one of my friends wrote to me, “let me know when you realize there’s a war, and give me a call.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading, what I was seeing.

I read that they took over a unit in Gaza, conducted a massacre in all the kibbutzim, and the army was nowhere to be found. We knew we would return to Israel, and I knew I would return to the reserves. After returning to Israel, I sat and watched the news all day. I couldn’t function. Sometimes I went out in the city and sat with friends. We watched Joe Biden’s speech and we were moved. We hugged a friend who fell apart in our arms after burying her partner.

The feeling of destruction and helplessness burned within me. The anger. On the fifth day of the war, I was called to reserve duty, and I went to one of the bases in the south. I helped there for a few days, and then they told me that I had to go to the unit next to the Gaza border to assist them. My role was to instruct on a specific system, a very important one. I went, frightened.. I passed by the area where the massacre in R’eim happened. I looked at the body of a terrorist, blood in the bathroom. I never imagined in my worst nightmares that I would be in a place where 260 people were murdered and others were kidnapped to Gaza. I documented what I saw.

The emotional detachment accompanied me in the daily work. We met people who told us about what happened in the unit, how they hid when the terrorists arrived.

Now, I’m on a 24 hours “recharge” day in Tel Aviv. The return to normal life, the understanding that I have a choice, to continue my regular life, to live in my apartment, and try to work in a safe place instead of going to the most dangerous place in the country. Instead of walking cautiously to avoid mortar shells, instead of helping in the effort to recover the bodies, instead of hearing from soldiers that they are afraid to die in Gaza.

But now, when I am faced with whether to stay in Tel Aviv for another day or go, I can’t help but answer the call. You see, I’m helping the commanders. The commanders responsible for the lives of my friends who are currently in the field, some in the reserves, some in the regular army. The voice calling me says to protect them. There’s a saying that goes: “We need to ask ourselves what the world demands of us at this moment.” At this moment, the world demands that I leave everything and go to the front line.