This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

Salty sea breeze tick­les my nose as I

inhale air swirling with ancient atoms that once

filled the lungs of Rab­bi Aki­va. Here, down this

well under Herod’s palace. A prison. Tun­nel, dark &

humid. Sure­ly the impris­oned schol­ar could smell

the big blue sea, hear gen­tle waves lap­ping as sooty gulls

perched on white stone aque­ducts cry over his fate, sealed

by ene­mies intent on Israel’s era­sure. Per­haps his

stu­dents etched ​“bring him home now” on stone 

tablets; his wife donned a yel­low rib­bon, scratched a new 

num­ber on her tunic each morn­ing with ink made 

painstak­ing­ly from pome­gran­ate peels.

Tears sting my sun­burnt cheeks, tast­ing their salt as I

sur­ren­der to a sad­ness, so deep and fresh at this fes­ti­val site

dot­ted with faces of the fallen

mur­dered in their quest for joy & love & uni­ty in

music, with faces of hostages still trapped in tunnels

bereft of hope, I pray not. A famil­iar tune fills the air

fill­ing me with solace, remind­ing me that light

always fol­lows dark­ness. It is my faith in God, in the 

Jew­ish peo­ple, in this group of Amer­i­can teens stand­ing a few 

feet away singing what’s become our Jew­ish anthem 

over these past nine months, Acheinu, for our

sib­lings in cap­tiv­i­ty. The singers form a human chain, hands 

touch­ing shoul­ders, as if to stretch back gen­er­a­tions. They sway 

in rhythm to the feath­er leaves of the euca­lyp­tus trees, that

sur­vived the destruc­tion & still pro­vide beau­ty & shade & 

their mag­i­cal scent. 

My faith tells me that every moment we live is 

Jew­ish his­to­ry and that his­to­ry doesn’t end 

with us.

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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