This summer, Pam and I will travel to Israel with our children—Naama, who is 14, and Leor, who is 11. We’ll visit family, walk the beaches, and inhale the sacred chaos of Jerusalem. But we’ll also go south. We will take them to the edge of Gaza—to Kfar Aza, where entire families were slaughtered in their homes; to the site of the Nova music festival, where young Jews came to dance and were gunned down en masse; and to the car graveyard outside of Rahat, where scorched and bullet-riddled vehicles—once filled with passengers just trying to escape—now sit as silent witnesses to the brutality of October 7.
I have no script for that moment. No speech prepared. But I keep asking: What will I say to my children when we stand in the places where other people’s children were murdered?
How do I guide them into that sacred wound without leaving them cynical, shattered, or numb?
How do I teach them to carry history not as a trauma, but as a task?
And how do I ensure that what they see in those places leads not to the theology of victimhood, but to a moral stance of resilience, responsibility, and rootedness?
This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen Here
Let me be clear: I always assumed this moment would come.
Not in Israel. But in Poland. In Germany. In the shadows of gas chambers, crematoria, and cattle cars. I imagined one day taking my children to Auschwitz or Majdanek, to stand where our ancestors were murdered stateless and abandoned, and to help them understand why Zionism was never merely a political ideology—it was a response to Jewish powerlessness. A declaration of never again that meant never again alone.
But this summer’s journey is not to the death camps of Europe. It is to the kibbutzim of the Negev. It is to the site of a music festival held in the Jewish homeland—under the Israeli flag—where 364 people were murdered in broad daylight. It is to the sovereign, militarized, hi-tech, startup nation of Israel.
And that is what makes this moment so devastating. It wasn’t supposed to happen here.
We believed that sovereignty would make us safe. That the tanks and fences and Iron Dome would protect us. That the very existence of the IDF meant that Jews would never again be dragged from their homes, burned alive, or taken hostage.
But on October 7, 2023, that fantasy collapsed. Not just in blood and fire, but in silence—in the hours when help didn’t come. In the hours when the state was absent.
The question my children will inherit is not just Why did this happen? It is also: How do we go on loving Israel, when it broke our heart?
77 Years: A Time for Reflection, Not Romance
This year, Israel turns 77. In Jewish numerology, seven is the number of creation, of covenant, of wholeness. Seven times seven is 49—the year before Jubilee. It’s the time of release, of return, of letting go of what was to make space for what might yet be.
What then is the spiritual task of 77?
It is the work of honest reckoning. Of maturity without cynicism. Of looking clearly at what the state has become—and daring to imagine what it still must be.
At 77, Israel is no longer young. She has outgrown the mythology of innocence, but not yet reached the vision of justice. She is a nation of impossible contradictions: military might and existential insecurity; spiritual longing and secular innovation; fierce tribalism and shared national trauma.
She is not what we once dreamed—but she is still, unmistakably, ours.
And that means we are still responsible.
The Crisis of Meaning, Not Just Security
The trauma of October 7 was not only military—it was existential. It cracked open the illusion that the Jewish state had solved the problem of Jewish vulnerability. It reminded us that even with power, borders, and intelligence, Jews can still be hunted. That hatred, when given shape and weaponry, still seeks us out.
But there was another trauma layered underneath: the moral confusion in the aftermath. The world’s callous response. The silence from friends, universities, and public intellectuals who were vocal about every other injustice—but seemed to look away when it came to Jewish victims.
Our children saw the global empathy machine break down when Jews were murdered. And that moral dissonance didn’t just provoke outrage—it triggered a crisis of meaning. Of identity. Of belonging.
So when I stand with my kids at the site of the Nova massacre, I will not only be showing them horror. I will be inviting them into the unbearable tension of being Jewish in this century: to be both empowered and vulnerable; celebrated and scapegoated; called to moral excellence and treated as morally expendable.
And then I will say: We do not run from this tension. We live in it. And we do not apologize for caring.
Resilience Is the Answer, Not Retraumatization
The risk of such visits—whether to Yad Vashem, death camps, or sites like Kfar Aza—is that we overemphasize Jewish pain and underdevelop Jewish pride. That we form identity through trauma rather than covenant. That we teach our children to be vigilant, but not visionary.
I want my children to cry. But I also want them to carry.
To carry the burden of memory, yes—but also the burden of purpose.
To understand that Jewish grief is never the end of the story.
That resilience is not merely surviving—it is choosing to love, build, sing, and show up again and again and again, even when the world gives you every reason to withdraw.
Resilience is writing poetry in Hebrew after your cousin is killed in uniform. It’s dancing on Yom HaAtzmaut even though the country is still burying its dead. It’s voting, protesting, serving, building, and raising children—even when the dream feels cracked.
Resilience means you do not walk away from the Jewish people. Not in Warsaw. Not in Gaza border towns. Not now.
Lessons I Want My Children to Learn
There are lessons I want Naama and Leor to carry—not just from this trip, but from their inheritance as Jews in a post-October 7 world:
- You are part of something ancient and unfinished.
Jewish history did not begin with you, and it does not end with you. You are a link in a chain of resilience stretching from Sinai to Tel Aviv. Your job is not to finish the work—but neither are you free to abandon it. - Zionism is not a shield. It’s a story.
You do not love Israel because it protects you. You love it because it binds you. Because it’s where Hebrew is reborn, and history breathes, and the idea that Jews should live with dignity on their own land is still a radical, holy act. - Complexity is not betrayal.
You can criticize policies without relinquishing your belonging. You can be brokenhearted and proud. You can hold contradiction—and still stand tall. - Do not let others define your moral center.
If the world has no tears for Jewish pain, that is its moral failure, not yours. Do not let their indifference harden you. Let it deepen your resolve to act with empathy and integrity. - Joy is your birthright.
Do not let trauma be your only Jewish inheritance. Sing Hatikvah. Dance on the streets of Tel Aviv. Make challah. Go to army ceremonies. Fall in love. Choose joy as resistance.
The Project Isn’t Over
If Zionism means anything at 77, it must mean this: the work is not finished.
The Jewish people still live between aspiration and reality. We are still building a state worthy of our prophets. We are still dreaming of a Jerusalem that belongs to all its inhabitants. We are still figuring out what it means to hold power without losing our soul.
And in the face of tragedy—especially tragedy on our own land—we must remember: this story is not over.
That is the message I hope to leave my children with at the edge of the massacre: not answers, but responsibility. Not despair, but duty.
To stand on scorched earth and still believe in the possibility of flowers.
To look at a broken country and say: I will help mend it.
To inherit a project not because it is perfect—but because it is ours.
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