By Abigail Goldberg
Guest Columnist
Merrin Fellows at the Western Wall on Sunday after visiting Jerusalem’s Old City (photo supplied)
I had the I am here in Tel Aviv at the end of a recent trip to Israel during an incredibly important yet difficult period in the nation’s history. I travelled here with a cohort of teen professionals in the JCC movement through the JCCA Merrin Teen Professional Fellowship. We spent the week learning, listening, and discussing the myriad complexities, but mostly the dream of Israeli society and how these elements have shaped the modern state of Israel.
Saturday night was a historic moment in Israel. A little before 2 a.m. Israel time, the booms coming from sites of the Iron Dome defense system could be seen in the sky over our hotel in Jerusalem. Then came the sirens and the alerts telling us that it was time to make our way to the nearby shelter.
That evening, Iran launched over 300 drones and missiles toward Israel, but there was no panic. There was a sense of fear knowing it was coming, accompanied by sense of security knowing Israel’s defense capabilities. Still, this was a scary event. Don’t listen to anyone who says it wasn’t a big deal. It was a big deal. Fortunately, the IDF and its allies did an incredible service to protect its people — all its people — intercepting 99% of the incoming drones and missiles — a miracle.
As a group we have coined the event, “The Night of the Drones.” We are Jewish people living in the diaspora who gained a a bit of insight into the perspective of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Israeli Christians — all Israeli citizens, and who are all incredibly resilient. Israel is a mosaic of many races, religions and ethnicities – a mosaic both beautiful and intricate.
October 7 forever changed Israelis. War is awful and every life lost is a tragedy. It changed Israelis but it doesn’t define them. No matter how severe their challenges, the strength and resilience of this Jewish nation is always palpable.
I am grateful to work in a Louisville Jewish community that supports professional development through Jewish experiences. The goal of this trip was to learn more about Israel, and for participants to carry the essence of Israel back to our respective communities. We learned so much and gained new insights. There is still a lot to unpack from this trip so ask me again in a few weeks and we will have a different perspective.
I wrote the above during the last days of Passover. Now, a month later after finishing the Merrin Teen Fellowship, our group recalled what we expected to get out of the trip, compared to what we actually came away with. The consensus was that we gained new perspectives, coupled with intensely resonant Jewish pride.
But alongside that pride was undeniable sorrow, often surfacing while visiting specific places in Israel. On the Thursday before Shabbat, we visited the site of the Nova Music Festival that now serves as a memorial to the more than 300 people who were dancing – celebrating life –before being massacred by Hamas on October 7. Just before Shabbat, we went to Masada, an enduring symbol of Jewish resilience and resistance to tyranny that helps define national identity for Israelis and diaspora Jews.
While in Tel Aviv after Shabbat, we walked through Neve Tzedek, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, absorbing the history of the first Jewish city outside of Jaffa. We walked through Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. We engaged with various teen-supporting organizations to learn how we can bring their programming, ideas, and values to our cities today.
Each of the places we visited — some which were there before the 7th of October and some after — is a point in Israel’s history. Thank you again to the Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC, and to JCCA for allowing me, alongside many Jewish teen professionals, the opportunity to gain these new perspectives and understandings of Israel.
Abigail Goldberg is director of teen engagement at the Jewish Federation of Louisville