January 2009 Archives

Three months ago, Capt. Yoni Netanel had a baby daughter named Maayan. On Monday, January 5 Yoni was killed in Gaza. The next day I got a call at around 6:30 PM from my friend Avital Greenfest. I was in the cafeteria having dinner and she was just upstairs. Why was she calling when she could just come talk, I thought to myself. I answered the phone regardless.

"The funeral for one of the soldiers who died yesterday is in a half hour on Har Herzl. It's open to the public and we can make it there if we leave right now."

She didn't have to say any more. In two minutes we were walking out the front entrance of the Judean Youth Hostel along with another friend of ours, Adin Pearl. In five minutes we were at our bus stop and it was another two minutes before we boarded the number 13. Fifteen minutes passed and we were stepping off it. We found large groups of people walking from different directions toward one entrance to the burial grounds. They were all heading towards an even larger group.

Once we converged with the tremendous crowd, we saw that they were gathering around a military jeep. We had arrived just in time to find six soldiers standing at the rear entrance to the vehicle. Another minute passed and two of them entered to retrieve something.

Yoni's coffin came out draped in an Israeli flag. I had only seen one other coffin in my life-- my grandfather's when I was eleven. Needless to say I felt a huge lump in my throat which I had difficulty swallowing. Goosebumps formed on my arms. I watched with hesitation as the six soldiers somberly carried the casket. The now gigantic group of civilians followed them.

We arrived at the burial site after another minute or two. The whole ceremony was in Hebrew and I had difficulty understanding it entirely. I understood the basics, though. Yoni was an Israeli soldier who was fighting against Hamas in Gaza. He was from a religious family. He had a wife and had just had his first child. Numerous friends and family members spoke, all praising his kindness, integrity, and morality.

The funeral was an important, although very heavy, experience for me. Afterwards, I went back to my everyday life here. Right now I am taking classes with other Americans in Jerusalem, far away from the war. This distance is both physical and mental. I am forced to accept the reality that there are kids my age risking their lives in this country. Every day when they get out of bed, they do not know if they will return to it that night. That is their reality.

Mine is that I went out for dinner with my friends a few nights ago. We had Chinese.

I go on living my life but Yoni's wife cannot. And his daughter, Maayan, will never have a normal life. That is Israel's reality, and Yoni's funeral made me realize that it is true every minute of every day here.

When the war between Israel and Gaza broke out, I was enjoying a Shabbat bike tour with my family through the mostly deserted Saturday morning streets of Jerusalem. Though our tour guide got a phone call informing him that something was up in Gaza and we needed to be careful, it wouldn't be until later that night that we learned anything about the air strikes. Of course, the conflict didn't really impact our ride, except for a barricade between East and West Jerusalem on the top of Mount Scopus that forced us and a tour bus to turn around (you should have seen the U-Turn).

Anyway, the bike ride stands as one of the only moments in the past couple of weeks in which the invasion of Gaza hasn't had a direct impact on my life. Between heated conversations, activities with our madrichim, lectures and talks from guest speakers, and discussions in the classroom, the conflict has had a large presence.

On top of all of that, today I had the pleasure of working with Sar-El, the volunteer program in Israel that is currently spearheading the war effort and using hundreds of volunteers on army bases around the country. Many chanichim from other sections are currently living on these bases and have been for the past few weeks. But, because my section has classes that we can't miss, we haven't been able to volunteer with Sar-El. However, on a one-day basis, about 30 of us were allowed to miss school, travel to the food-packaging army base about an hour north of Jerusalem, and help out.

When we arrived at the packaging warehouse we were thrown into positions on an assembly line and quickly shown what to do. Such jobs are never very hard, but that didn't stop the first few minutes from being very chaotic indeed. I was kept busy folding down the flaps of the boxed lunches and swiping them through the automatic inker that stamped on the date. Eventually we found our groove, just in time for lunch.

After lunch we traded in our boxed lunches for snack bags, spending the last three hours packing chips and chocolate bars.

The experience was really important to me. I've been struggling with the invasion of Gaza, especially after facing heavy criticism of Israel from friends back home, and have been searching for some sort of answer to what I think about all of this and how I believe it should turn out. Of course, I didn't necessarily find that answer by spending hours packing food in boxes. But I did see a cohesive group of American teenagers united at least by their support for the Israelis their age who are currently on the front lines. Supporting your troops is something you can always and should always do, no matter how you feel about the war they are fighting.

Never did I think folding cardboard could be so powerful. Yesterday, myself and 39 other Shalem participants volunteered at the Israeli Defense Force's central food storage warehouse, as a part of Sar El. We spent the day packaging food for soldiers, as part of an assembly line. While this may seem a little tedious, what we were doing came with such a sense of importance. We were volunteering along with a group of French adults, who barely spoke any English or Hebrew, but were there for the same reason we were: to help out their homeland during this important time.

 

Israel is currently fighting a war, where thousands of soldiers are risking their lives daily to defend our homeland. Living in Israel during a time of war is an incredibly unique experience, and displays nationalism like I have never seen before. The entire country bands together to support soldiers and victims of terror--hotels and hostels, including our very own Judaean Youth Hostel, offer free night stays to those who have had to leave their homes for security reasons, rallies and signs supporting the troops can be seen in almost every city, and the list goes on.

In America, hearing about a war 10,000 miles away in the Jewish homeland always seems so much scarier. You see the news and they're trying to scare you and shock you as much as possible, that's how they sell newspapers and get higher television ratings. Here, we are getting to see the war from an Israeli perspective, and feel like there are actually things we can do to help the war effort, and stand in solidarity with Israel during this trying time. While war does unfortunately cause a lot of stress and tragedy, the soldiers and the residents of the South have support nationwide.

Having attended a Jewish Zionist day school for my entire life, Israel has always been something I have learned about and supported in and out of the country. I have taken Israel History classes and gone to rallies to support Israel in Los Angeles, my hometown, but nothing compares to being here, learning about and witnessing Israeli politics and history. I am taking both Zionism and Israeli Political Culture classes, as well as hearing many guest lecturers speak about the current situation, which have all taught me so much about everything that is going on, and have helped keep me informed and knowledgeable.

John F. Kennedy's famous words "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" are incredibly applicable to Israel's attitude during difficult times such as these. I am so proud to be able to help Israel by living here and supporting the country and its soldiers and residents in numerous ways.