Events, Resources, and Information about Israel at War

We met with Hersh’s parents, Rachel and Jonathan. Hersh was taken hostage on October 7th after attending the Nova music festival, where roughly 400 young people barely older than my
son and daughter were murdered. 40 young people, including Hersh, were taken hostage.
Hersh was my son’s counselor on his school trip to Israel last spring. He had been excited to learn that our son and several of his classmates were returning to Israel last September. Hersh offered to take our son to a soccer game before he left for Thailand. He has not yet made it on that trip.
I met with an alum of Seeds of Peace (a program for Israelis and Palestinians to develop relationships and tangible paths toward lasting peace) the day before he was to be deployed to the north as a reservist. He requested a deployment in the north to avoid combat with the Palestinians and their families whom he knew and with whom he was friends. He, too, continues to believe that peace is possible. He chose to share his precious time with me before his deployment to convey that message to at least one American.

I went to Israel to demonstrate empathy and solidarity [with those in Israel with whom I feel a familial connection and] who are facing an existential threat and suffering in a manner that was previously unimaginable and unprecedented in our lifetime. In the United States, we witness the hatred driving the defacement and erasure of the hostage posters. In Israel, nothing mars the beautiful faces of family in horrific captivity. They stare out at you everywhere you go so that you will not forget the barbaric kidnappings, humanitarian crisis of their prolonged captivity, and high priority of their release. The “Thank you for being here” we heard repeatedly throughout our short visit, underscored the vast meaning of our empathy and support by being present in those brief moments.

We come back with no answers, but with a better awareness of the complexity of Israel, within and beyond its borders. And a reminder that Israel is our Jewish homeland, to which we are connected, with all its faults, and beauty, and anachronistic complexity, including picking lemons for a grateful farmer on a beautiful day, tying us back to the land, the irony of which is not to be underestimated.

October 7 confronted me like nothing I’ve ever encountered. It took my breath away. I have not been ok. In Hostage Square we met with families of hostages. They have not had time to grieve. The hostages are only being kept 30 minutes away in Gaza but it’s like they are continents apart. The message from Israel is clear. We need to keep the plight of the hostages in the media. We need to make our voices heard. We need to be loud and demand their release. We need to cry, scream and shout their names. We cannot be silent. We need to keep international pressure up.
I want to make sure the world has not forgotten our hostages and what really happened on Oct 7.

We left Israel feeling very sobered, even sad. There is a war going on and everyone has lost a family member or a family member of a friend or neighbor. When we asked people what they thought would happen when the war ends, everyone said the same thing: “I don‘t know.” And yet, everyone is going about their daily business, plus extra effort to help the evacuees, and smiling and planning for the next day.

What we learned from visiting our brothers and sisters in Israel, and being in Israel, is that it is not just life and limb that October 7 has taken; it is above all else Israel’s sense of security and strength, and hope for the future. There is not an Israeli who does not know someone who was not killed, injured, or taken hostage in Hamas’s gruesome attack; who does not know someone who is serving; who has not attended a funeral or shiva in the months since Oct 7 th . Many Israelis we met, thanked us for our visit and asked implicitly that we find our own role in helping to return Israel to the security and strength, and the hope for the future.