October 6, 2023, and 2024

I am in a cab right now instead of sleeping. Tomorrow, I need to wake up bright and early, and there's so much I need to do. A friend was able to convince me because maybe focusing on the good is a way of turning all the bad things that are happening. I am excited to celebrate a friend on my board with people I have known for a couple of years. As I leave my home, there is still a question of what I am doing tomorrow. A feeling of nervousness enters my body. I breathe the High Holidays are just past us, Simchat Torah will be nice, and I am looking forward to being off from school. I know it's a difficult time we live in, but I know I have a support network to work through it.

October 7, 2023, and 2024

The horror I am seeing is indescribable. I don't understand if this is reality or when this will end. It's all my friends can talk about during lunch and what my family meal is centered around. At the same time, I check in on my friends from BBYO. How are they doing, and if they are going to march? From my place, I try to help in a little way so that this might be less terrible. I got to educate on the importance of Israel for 2 hours, and I feel that I had a little impact on somebody. I sing the Hatikvah, and it feels more emotional than ever. It's like a sense of Jewish pride woke up and is keeping me moving like I am on an automatic pilot. I didn't know this part of me was so strong, but I'm happy I have discovered it.

Sunday closest to October 7, 2023 and 2024

I am marching tomorrow. I will take the bus and get off near another JCC to ask for the return of the hostages. My phone is bursting with information. I don't even know if I want to read it, but something in me is pushing me to absorb all that my screen is showing me. I am not scared about going to the march. I trust all those protecting us, and something in me is telling me that it has an impact on my homeland, the one that is thousands of kilometers away. I am at odds with what I see on social media, with people doing a march on October 7 glorifying terrorists and with famous people who I used to follow declaring anti-Semitic slogans on social media. At the same time, if I hit refresh, my feed is filled with posts about Israel, counting how many hostages are alive and how many are dead, as if those numbers could represent the pain we are going through. As if they would in some way show the world what our wounds feel like for us, but they seem to turn a blind eye.

October 8th, 2024

366 days, one full year later. These days seem like carbon copies, but at the same time, they are so different from a year ago. I never imagined how much this would impact the world and me as a person. While the world turns and technologies rise and fall, my feelings seem to be frozen in the same palace. I don't know what else to do but keep moving. The only certainty that the 52 weeks have given me is that I do know while I’m on the bus coming home from the march that “Hiné ma tov uma naim shevet ajim gam iajad.” Look how good and lovely it is that brothers are united in harmony.