Hi, my name is Alon Jeager, and I live in Jerusalem. When the war started, and we began to hear stories about what happened, I was really in shock, and it was difficult to come to terms with this new reality. I felt like it was not right to continue living normally, and it was Continue Reading »
For the last few weeks, there has been a sense of routine, at least in a technical sense, although everything is still uncertain. I arrange driving lessons, placement tests for the army, and even regular private lessons, and just hope that they will happen, because it is impossible to know what restrictions there will be Continue Reading »
These days, I am doing my best to build a new routine for myself. It is new, because of the war that continues to rage in this land and all the changes the war brings, but it is still a routine, an attempt to get back to normal life and to do what I am Continue Reading »
In the last month and a half, since October 7th, I have had feelings and experiences that are new to me. I never thought I would hear about such horrors. I never imagined that these kinds of events would be etched in my heart at such a young age. I could not have imagined I Continue Reading »
My name is Or Dembitz. I am 18 years old, from Jerusalem. This year, I am learning in the Beit Midrash for women, Migdal Oz. Some of the women who learn here just finished high school, some are learning following national service or the army, and some are married. I will be enlisted to the Continue Reading »
My name is Shira Rosenak, a Bronfman Fellow from 2010. I appreciate the opportunity to write a little bit and share what is going on in these times. October 7th shook our very foundations. Banal terms received a new, frightening, threatening meaning: Home. Family. Holiday. Morning. A heavy shadow hovers over everything. Not just terms Continue Reading »
Hi! My name is Itai Ohel Gallili, and I’m a 17-year-old from Jerusalem. I feel distant from the present situation specifically here in Jerusalem, the city in which the “situation” is volatile even when we aren’t at war. Too distant. There are almost no sirens here, even though there are sirens on an almost daily Continue Reading »
Like many young Israelis, after my army service, I flew off to fulfill my dream of a big trip to the East: a period of searching for meaning, self-discovery, and simply vacation and adventure after a period of intense military service. The trip took an unexpected about-face when the war erupted. It was clear to Continue Reading »
Having been asked to write this, it’s the first time that I’m looking at the past month and a half as a series of separate incidents, and not as one, long, continuous account. It feels either like just one day or my entire life, but there are distinct moments within it. There is the moment Continue Reading »
I began on that emotional Friday at my pre-military preparatory program, the secular yeshiva Bina, which is located in south Tel Aviv. It was nothing less than an amazing Friday. We prepared for Shabbat and celebrated Simchat Torah that evening in a Reform synagogue in Tel Aviv. People say that for many Israelis, that Friday Continue Reading »