It was a few months after the invasion when a visiting American politician asked me how much October 7th affected the people of Israel.
I tried to explain what it’s like to live in a country with one degree of separation. For anyone coming from a large country like America, it is hard to comprehend just how small Israel is and how connected we all are.
My friend’s daughter was murdered at the Nova.
I’ve since become friends with families of people who were taken hostage and gotten a glimpse of what it is like to walk in their shoes.
On October 7th my younger son’s army unit was called to Nir Oz. He described the kibbutz as being a place of fire and brimstone. Every house was broken into and the cars were on fire. They had to step over bodies to get into the kibbutz to pull survivors out of their homes and take them to a safe place. He guarded them while others searched the kibbutz to see if any terrorists remained in the homes. There wasn’t a lot to do but watch, wait, and listen to the most horrific conversations imaginable: “Where is my mother/sister/neighbor?” “Taken to Gaza”. “Have you seen my husband/brother/friend?” “Yeah, they murdered him”
My son’s friend, a boy he did a year of voluntary service with before enlisting, a boy he lived with in a commune (so they got to know each other very well) – that boy’s brothers, twins, were both killed on October 7th. They had seen that our people were being slaughtered so they took their personal guns and drove to the south to save whoever they could. BOTH of them were killed.
At this point in my description, the American who asked the question stopped me. He couldn’t take in more.
I didn’t tell him about my friend’s family in Be’eri who were slaughtered. Her husband, his sister, and her twin grandchildren. I didn’t describe what it was like to walk in the places where they were murdered. Or tell of their family members who I met after and the trauma they carry.
I didn’t tell him about my friend in Alumim who survived but carried the burden of those she knows who did not. Of her descriptions of being evacuated from her home. Or about her husband who died not long afterwards. It seems he died of heartache but who can say?
I didn’t speak of my friend Adele who survived the slaughter in Nirim and has spent much of her time since advocating for the hostages, managing her online platform and speaking for Israel abroad. Or of her neighbor Motti Bluestein who showed me some of the damage in their kibbutz and told me the stories of what happened that day.
I didn’t speak of the soldiers whose funerals and shivas I’ve been to – our neighbors, sons of our friends, soldiers who served with our friends’ sons, families we’ve known for years, and families we met for the first time in the worst moments of their lives.
It was before our other son’s very good friend Dor was killed by a Hezbollah drone.
It was before I sat down and talked to my friend’s son, Eitan Halley about what it was like to be in the shelter from which Hersh Goldberg Polin was taken hostage, where Hersh’s best friend Aner stood in between the invaders and the innocents cowering behind him and threw back grenade after grenade until he couldn’t anymore. Eitan, who watched Aner and told himself: “I have to learn how to do what he is doing because, if something happens to him I have to step into his shoes” – and when Aner died, he saw. And he stepped up and fought back. Miraculously he survived when so many others did not. What is it like to be in his head now?
And I didn’t describe our friend who lives on the northern border who refused to be evacuated and how every time the red alert notifies us of missiles being shot at her community, we brace ourselves until we learn that something else blew up and not her house, not her.
Can a stranger to this country understand the experience of talking to someone you don’t know and, in a few minutes, them telling you their trauma from October 7? Of friends who messaged them as they were being killed. Of not knowing if their son or daughter was alive or hostage. How are you? isn’t supposed to be a terrifying question to ask…
My friend’s children who are fighting in Gaza and friends of our boys are an extended circle to worry about. That tension is always in the background, so much so that it’s not even something we mention. It’s just there. All the time.
As is the horror of there still being hostages in Gaza. People we know, or people who people we know, know. People whose stories we connected to through the tv so much that it feels like we know them – because we do. They are us. Children and grandparents, young people at a party, sons and daughters serving in the army. They are all of us.
There are not enough words to explain how much has October 7th affected the people of Israel. It is everywhere. With every breath we take.
And even those who ask how we are, don’t really want to hear the answer. It’s too much. Perhaps the real problem is that if you understand the depth of the horror you cannot look away. You learn what evil looks like and you have to act. You cannot stop until it’s destroyed.
