By Shloimy Lowy, Photographer and Staff Writer
I write to you from seat 18C on Arkia flight 993 from Tel Aviv to New York. Mine is an end seat, and my (somewhat long) legs are man-spread into the aisle, retreating in every time someone wants to pass. Next to me sits Itai, a young Israeli from Tel Aviv returning to school in the United States. He just finished three months in milluim (reserves), where he worked on search and rescue operations, assisting at the sites of fallen Iranian rockets from Israel’s recent war with Iran. During his regular mandatory service, Itai was a Krav Maga instructor, traveling from base to base and from unit to unit, training young soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.
I have just completed my second trip to Israel, this time with a group of lovely people on Birthright. The weather was unforgiving, consistently over 100 degrees throughout our stay, but the people were amazing. As with other Birthright trips, we had the pleasure of welcoming a group of six Israeli men and women to join our group, and they remained with us for the majority of the time.
Itai is one of the many brave soldiers I had the privilege of meeting during my 10 short days in Israel. Throughout my time there, I became friends with a tanker from the Chernobyl Chasidic dynasty who served in Gaza, a Dati Leumi (National Religious) woman who is a sergeant in the Israeli navy, an Iranian 22-year-old commanding a team in the intelligence division and several religious women performing Sheirut Leumi (National Service) by educating Jews around the world about Israel.
Despite some of them being secular and some religious, some believers in Eretz Yisrael HaShlema (Greater Israel) and some not, some anti-Netanyahu and some pro , these men and women have one thing in common: they all have a personal stake in the conflict.
Before this trip, I could be accused of having an impersonal opinion on the war in Gaza — and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more generally. I was raised Chasidish, and although they love Israel, my community does not share in certain Zionist ideals. After learning more about the history of the conflict, I developed opinions that were, and hopefully still are, quite nuanced and complex. I felt that I understood the arguments on both sides, and although the Israeli position generally resonated with me, it was not personal for me; their arguments just seemed to make more sense.
Over this trip, my perspective changed. Although most of the trip was upbeat and fun, it was the sad moments that struck me. On Friday night, I had a long discussion with Youval — the intelligence commander — about the conflict. We discussed the paradox the IDF finds itself in by focusing simultaneously on the hostages and obliterating Hamas, the possibility for reeducation of the Gazan population and the pain Israel is in as a nation. It was the quintessential model of a conversation, filled with compassion and respect, with a genuine curiosity on both ends to truly understand the position of the other.
During that conversation I asked him something along the lines of, “Would you, if possible, allow for the reeducation and integration of Palestinian civilians into Israeli society?”
The answer he gave me was intensely human. “I think this may eventually have to happen, but I could never do it. I cannot do it because as much as it must happen, those people killed my friends.”
I told him I understood — I thought I understood. Then we visited Mount Herzl, Israel’s Military cemetery.
In the cemetery, in the new section dedicated to deaths from the current war, our group stood around while Youval told us about his friend, Yuval Shoham. He spoke about how Yuval was the kindest soul he ever knew, always with a smile and a good word. How Yuval would always tell people to eat, and how that eventually got made into a bumper sticker. Between the sobs he told us about the sacrifice he had made, for his family, for his country, for his people.
Then another soldier, Assaf, said kaddish, his voice breaking at every word as the tears ran down his face. It was an intense moment, and we all cried.
That was when I understood. A good friend of his, someone he knew since elementary school, was lying six feet below us, never to smile again, never to cry again. This was not just in the abstract. This cut deep. For Youval, this was personal. He later told me he has four friends and his rabbi buried on Mt. Herzl. He is 22.
And these stories exist on the other side of the conflict too.
One of our last stops on the trip was the top of a mountain 700 meters from Gaza. While there, we watched and felt bombs being dropped, their smoke rising into the setting sun. I don’t know who those bombs hit, whether they were blowing up a tunnel or a mosque or how many terrorists or civilians were killed by them. But watching that made me think about the people on the other side of that fence. Those families torn apart by war who feel the same pain the families of fallen soldiers feel.
For obvious reasons, I didn’t get to talk to the Gazan families. I did not get to hear their stories intimately. But their stories exist. They must exist. And they, too, shatter the soul.
Putting faces to the conflict has helped me understand the personal aspect so much more clearly. It granted humanity to statistics, tears to numbers. Statistics and disconnection can sometimes be important, but if we lose our humanity in a sea of talking points, the talking points are not worth the breath of those who utter them.
Since taking this trip, I can no longer disconnect the arguments from the people: the people driving the tanks, the people losing their children or the people starving. The conflict became personal in the sense that I now understand that these are real people we are dealing with, people who are happy and sad and everything in between. People on both sides.
Decisions still need to be made, and some people will unfortunately (and some fortunately) still die, but just as we see the pain in our fellow Jew’s heart, so too should we try understand the pain of the Palestinian mother who loses her child, or the father who watches helplessly as his city is blown to pieces.
This is not an argument for either side of this bloody conflict. All I intend is to share a perspective that deeply affected me. To hopefully spread some compassion for humans and their stories, regardless of the groups they belong to or the gods that they pray to. This trip taught me the value of making things personal and the power of feeling the pain of other people. Empathy without borders is a powerful force; bring it into your life, welcome it, feel it.