In 2023, I found an adorable apartment right next to the Carmel Shuk (market) on a pedestrian mall that hosts the Nachalat Binyamin juried craft fair twice a week. Before I left for Israel, people asked me, “Why are you going? What will you do?” And it’s then that I began blogging about Israelis I knew, how I met them and how their families came to Israel.

After Oct. 7, I wasn’t sure whether I would come back to Tel Aviv in 2024. As the National Hadassah co-chair of Evolve Engagement, Hadassah’s program to attract and engage a new generation of leaders, I had two different trips scheduled with over 50 Hadassah leaders and members signed up to travel to Israel in October. I waited and watched to see what was happening in the world.

I cried with my Israeli friends, checking in on them daily and worrying about their children in the army. I wrote letters of support, attended local rallies and vigils and watched the news.

Even before Oct. 7, I called myself an “armchair” advocate because I always write letters, send emails and sign petitions. In the winter of 1987, I stood on the Washington Mall and rallied for Soviet Jewry. I remember toward the end of the day that my friends had left and I was surrounded by strangers, yet we all put our arms around each other and sang Hatikva and I felt that I was part of something much bigger. I think it was my first understanding of “Klal Yisrael” (Jewish peoplehood). I had no idea I’d be back in Washington, D.C, in 2023,  joining over 300,000 people protesting the atrocities of Oct. 7 and pleading for the return of the hostages.

Unfortunately, we had to postpone our October Evolve trips. When our Hadassah Evolve team decided to plan a Solidarity Mission to Israel for February 2024 (right when I planned to start my “snowbird” time), I decided that I would not only co-lead the trip, but I would also stay on for five more weeks and volunteer my time. It felt important to bear witness to the atrocities of Oct. 7. The world was denying the true horror of what happened and blaming Israel. I would stand with my Hadassah sisters in solidarity with the people of Israel.

Our Evolve team planned a trip that was hands-on, with volunteer opportunities and meetings with people who had been directly impacted by the Oct. 7 attacks. I assigned everyone an emotional support buddy, someone to tap at any time for a hug and a shoulder to cry on as we listened to the unbelievable. Each day over breakfast, we processed what we had seen and felt the day before.

We started and ended our Solidarity Mission at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, where hostage families come together to tell their stories, art exhibits are on display and there’s a rally every Saturday night. I can’t convey the degree of sadness and heaviness I sensed among all the people there. I can only tell you that one of the hostages’ grandchildren got on stage and begged for him to come home. I was translating the Hebrew for a friend and burst into tears at the end.

We volunteered at a food pantry packing vegetables and moving boxes from place to place. We worked alongside Israeli soldiers who were usually on Gaza border control. They were ages 18-20 and were Black, brown, blonde and Asian.

Shlomi, head of the pantry, told us about many heartbreaking experiences from the Oct. 7 massacre. He wept as he shared the responses of his kindergarten students from Sderot and the horrors they witnessed. He lost 22 friends and family members during that unthinkable day. (Some are calling it “Black Shabbat” and others are saying you can’t mention Shabbat in the same breath as it takes away the peace of our holy day.)

At the site of the Nova music festival massacre, on Tu’ B’Shevat, the holiday of the trees, a tree was planted for every victim. To be honest, each one looked like a freshly dug grave. I circled the sign posts of each victim, pausing to take in the photos, their ages and messages from loved ones. The sign posts also indicated if they had been killed or kidnapped. It’s still hard to process what we saw.

At Kibbutz Be’eri, a member of the security team shared his nightmare from Oct. 7. Here’s an excerpt from my reflections as I wrote them:

Yarden, an avocado farmer, spoke about his experience from the day of the unthinkable with tears in his eyes

Flowers and lemon trees in front of scorched buildings that looked like a movie set with items strewn about the yard

We learned that each item was scoured for DNA to identify if
someone was dead or kidnapped

There were four young soldiers digging through the earth, looking for body parts

Cats wandered about and bathed in the sun; I wonder what they witnessed

Scorch marks from burnt cars

I saw ghosts of children running and playing on the lawn while listening to a voicemail of a woman begging for help from Magen David Adom (Israel’s national emergency medical service)

At the military cemetery on Har Herzl, there are countless new graves of young soldiers who were killed in action during this current war. The graves were purposely situated in different sections so there would be room for all the mourners that come daily. I couldn’t breathe when I saw the grave of a soldier with my daughter’s birthdate; he was only 24.

After that emotional experience, we spent some time visiting shops in Jerusalem’s ancient Cardo. In chatting with one shopkeeper, a father of three young girls, I learned that he’d been away for three months. Not thinking, I asked where he was. “Aza” (Hebrew for Gaza), he replied. I touched his arm and asked, “How are you doing?” With tears in his eyes, he said, “If I can put it in a ‘box’ and not think about it, I’m OK.” I cried right alongside him and asked if I could give him a hug. He thanked us for coming to Israel during this difficult time.

At a bar in Machane Yehuda, the outdoor market in Jerusalem, we joked with the handsome young bartender. He gave us tastes of different beers and asked, “What are you doing in Israel right now? No one is coming.” We told him about our mission and mentioned where we had been. He said, “I also was in Kibbutz Be’eri, on Oct. 8.” He pulled out his phone to show us pictures. We cried with him, too.

In Israel today, when you ask someone how they are, a common response is “B’seder hachadash” (the new OK)—meaning that while many of us are going about our lives shopping in the shuk, playing ball on the beach and sitting in cafes, there is an undercurrent of intense, indescribable grief.

At the last “processing time” of our mission, I shared that I hoped by listening to the people we met—Yarden, Shlomi, the shopkeeper; the families of the hostages; the displaced women living in a hotel; and the bartender—maybe, just maybe, we took a small part of their grief from them as they shared their experiences with us.

Rabbi Abba, son of Rabbi Hanina, taught: “The one who visits a sick person, takes away 1/60 of that person’s pain” (Babylonia Talmud, Nedarim 39b). While I was so scared to come and bear witness, I felt that I had taken a small role in rebuilding my beloved country.

After the Solidarity Mission group left, I stayed on in my apartment and volunteered for the next five weeks, continuing to rebuild my beloved Israel.

Jody Comins is a member of the Hadassah Writers’ Circle, a dynamic and diverse writing group for leaders and members to express their thoughts and feelings about all the things Hadassah does to make the world a better place, to celebrate their personal Hadassah journeys and to share their Jewish values, family traditions and interpretations of Jewish texts. Since 2019, the Hadassah Writers’ Circle has published nearly 450 columns in the Times of Israel Blog and other Jewish media outlets. Interested? Please contact hwc@hadassah.org.

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