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.

It is a Shab­bat morn­ing in the Galilee in mid-Sep­tem­ber 2024, and I am walk­ing my dog in the for­est. I am think­ing about the war; it’s been almost a year since it start­ed, and there is no end in sight. As an Israeli peace activist, I am try­ing to remain hope­ful, to hold onto my vision of Arab-Jew­ish part­ner­ship on this land.

My hope was this cri­sis would at least make our lead­ers real­ize peace is the only solu­tion. Instead, the extrem­ists on both sides are seek­ing more and more war. It is hard not to fall into despair.

More hostages and civil­ians in Gaza are dying; more sol­diers, too. Six were killed in the past few days, includ­ing the first woman. After a year of relent­less mis­sile and drone fire (still ongo­ing) from Hezbol­lah in Lebanon into north­ern Israel, caus­ing fatal­i­ties and turn­ing parts of the north into ghost towns, Israel blew up thou­sands of pagers of Hezbol­lah officials.

Flights have been can­celed, and now Hezbol­lah is say­ing they will invade the Galilee. The IDF is talk­ing about invad­ing Lebanon with ground troops.

Until now, our area has been rel­a­tive­ly safe. There has been a steady flow of army planes fly­ing towards Lebanon all year long, some mis­siles and sirens in our area. And yes, there was Iran’s attack on the whole coun­try some months ago, when I spent the night with my fam­i­ly in our safe room see­ing reports of drones being inter­cept­ed right above us.

But we have still been liv­ing in our homes, work­ing, going to school. We are far from the bor­der with Gaza in the south, and so, our kib­butz was spared on Octo­ber 7. And we are far enough from the north­ern bor­der that Hezbollah’s mis­siles, which began on that same day, have only rarely reached us, so we have not had to evacuate.

But now, the full-on war in north­ern Israel I have been fear­ing is unfold­ing before my eyes, and I do not know what that will mean.

To make mat­ters worse, Jacob is out of the coun­try. Will he make it back any time soon? I won­der as I walk. I do not want to go through this alone.

Jacob and I came here togeth­er, eyes open to the country’s deficits but also its ben­e­fits, and com­mit­ted to being part of mak­ing it a bet­ter place. We felt it had much promise. Now it is start­ing to feel like we joined a fail­ing start-up; that is what I am think­ing as I walk deep­er into the for­est with my dog, Munchkin.

So why don’t I insist we pull out while we still can? I don’t feel attached to place. I can be hap­py any­where. And I cer­tain­ly val­ue life over land. I am a spir­i­tu­al per­son, I don’t feel bound by orga­nized reli­gion or doc­trine. I am not a nation­al­ist. I am a uni­ver­sal­ist. So why do I stay?

This sum­mer, I could have left for a vaca­tion from the Mid­dle East. My par­ents offered to pay for my flight to vis­it them in the US. But I couldn’t pull myself away. A strong force is keep­ing me here. What is it? 

Sud­den­ly, I see the rem­nants of a camp­fire on the path before me. They were not here yes­ter­day on our evening walk. I am dis­ori­ent­ed. This path is over­grown with dry bram­bles. I am lost. But how could that be? I have been here hun­dreds of times.

I look around, try­ing to reori­ent myself. The place is famil­iar, but dif­fer­ent. I know where I am, but I don’t know when. I am ful­ly present in this his­tor­i­cal moment, only it is a dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal moment. A war, but a dif­fer­ent one. I must stay and fight. I am here fight­ing for my peo­ple, and for human­i­ty. For the future. I feel that viscerally.

Some­thing is fly­ing over­head. Anoth­er army plane? No. It sounds like a heli­copter. I look around. There are wound­ed on the ground in the dis­tance. I must col­lect them, bring them to my ambu­lance, dri­ve them to the hos­pi­tal. I hur­ry through the dry bram­bles to reach a man lying in the thorns. Can I save him? Time is run­ning out.

Sud­den­ly I see the path again. Munchkin runs ahead of me. I have found my bear­ings. But what just happened? 

As I con­tin­ue walk­ing, I feel the pres­ence of my aunt, my father’s much old­er sis­ter who left home when he was a boy. She lived in this area, too, on a dif­fer­ent kib­butz in the Jezreel Val­ley. She served in the 1948 Arab-Jew­ish War, dri­ving an ambu­lance. She came from New York, as did I, only she came in the 1940s. I came in the 1990s.

My aunt grew up Ortho­dox Jew­ish, like me, and she went through a devout stage, but she want­ed equal­i­ty for women; she even wore tefill­in – like me. And we both named our old­est daugh­ters Michal (which I did not know when I chose my daughter’s name, because my cousin legal­ly switched her first and sec­ond names).

But my aunt was in and out of men­tal insti­tu­tions. She and her kib­butznik hus­band divorced – her sec­ond hus­band, and sec­ond divorce – while they were study­ing in the US. He went back to Israel, and she stayed in the US. with their two daugh­ters. She was dis­il­lu­sioned about Zion­ism, social­ism, and kib­butz life, and she felt aban­doned by God and religion.

When I was a kid, my aunt would call our house demand­ing to speak to my father, whom she loved as a boy but did not real­ly know as an adult. She had become vio­lent with my par­ents. They refused to speak to her when she called. I feared my aunt.

Only lat­er did I hear more of my aunt’s sto­ry and wish I had known her bet­ter. We had much in com­mon. Only her sto­ry end­ed trag­i­cal­ly, with her dying in her eight­ies while liv­ing in a group home, nev­er hav­ing ful­filled her life ambi­tions – except the lega­cy of her daugh­ters and grand­daugh­ters, who were her life and joy.

My sto­ry is still ongo­ing. I was born with FSHD, a degen­er­a­tive genet­ic mus­cu­lar dis­ease, which has been hard but not too debil­i­tat­ing so far. And it has been one of my best life teachers.

My aunt’s dis­ease took over much of her life, made her unable to ful­ly func­tion or cope, and unable to see any real hope for her­self or the world. At least accord­ing to what I understand.

Home now, after our walk, I con­sid­er where to protest tonight. I have been demon­strat­ing every Sat­ur­day night since this extrem­ist right-wing gov­ern­ment came into pow­er, for what will soon be the past two years. Except for the first weeks after Octo­ber 7, when all demon­stra­tions stopped. But when they start­ed again, so did I.

I decide on Haifa. It is one of my reg­u­lar protest spots, and I can talk to my friend David who is a Bud­dhist monk and a reg­u­lar at this protest. He can help me under­stand my expe­ri­ence in the for­est. It could not be about rein­car­na­tion, as my aunt was alive when I was born. But it could still be relat­ed to Kar­ma and mat­ters of the eter­nal soul.

On my way to Haifa, I speak with Ori, my spir­i­tu­al com­pan­ion. I am a dream work­er and a spir­i­tu­al com­pan­ion, in addi­tion to my writ­ing and my work at the mikveh. Ori and I meet online reg­u­lar­ly for co-companioning.

Ori feels strong­ly this was a vis­i­ta­tion by my aunt, whose soul is rest­less; it is hang­ing around this realm, seek­ing a tikkun, a cor­rec­tive to its embod­ied exis­tence here, so that it can be set free and rise. She feels that tikkun will be, at least par­tial­ly, through me.

Ori sug­gests my aunt has a mes­sage for me, too – espe­cial­ly now, as she went through a war her­self on this same soil. Our soul-con­nec­tion is symbiotic.

I stand beside David at the demon­stra­tion. When it is over, I tell him about my aunt’s vis­i­ta­tion. ​“You are your aunt’s tikkun,” he says. ​“On many lev­els. She wants you to stay, to not become dis­il­lu­sioned,” he says. ​“Don’t give up hope. At least not yet.”

On the dri­ve home, I put on the news: Hezbol­lah plans to start fir­ing a bar­rage of mis­siles at us that night, in retal­i­a­tion for Israel’s pager attack. We must stay near our safe rooms. Schools are can­celed indef­i­nite­ly, from Haifa north­ward. I am wor­ried, espe­cial­ly with Jacob away.

After the first siren and boom, both kids, who still live at home, decide to sleep with me in the safe room. My thir­teen-year-old daugh­ter climbs into the sin­gle bed with me, and my sev­en­teen-year-old son puts a mat­tress on the floor. That night, between sirens and booms, I have this dream:

A woman and her daugh­ter come to con­vert at the mikveh, the rit­u­al immer­sion pool I run on my kib­butz. Her name is Neta. There are mis­siles and sirens, so we use a small mikveh in a kind of crawl space, like those where Jews hid in the Holo­caust. There is not enough room in there for all of us, so I give them instruc­tions from out­side. It is less than ide­al, not how I want it to be. But it is bet­ter than noth­ing. When they fin­ish, they try to push the door open, but I hold it shut. I am not ready for them to emerge. When they come out I give Neta copies of my three most recent books. 

I wake up, write this dream in my jour­nal, and check my phone. There are mes­sages from my old­er kids who live in Jerusalem, telling me to bring their sib­lings who live in Haifa and the two who live at home, to stay with them in Jerusalem. There are no mis­siles there now. We will be safer there.

But I do not want to go. Again, I feel a pull to stay put. I tell them I will con­sid­er it, but in the mean­time will wait and see how the war develops. 

The next day, anoth­er day of sirens and no school, I meet with my dream group on Zoom and work­shop my dream. This is its message:

Although I would like the sit­u­a­tion to be dif­fer­ent than it is, I can­not change our real­i­ty. But I can con­tin­ue to do small­er acts of trans­for­ma­tion on the grass­roots lev­el and on a per­son­al lev­el, cre­at­ing the change I want to see in the world. I believe there will be a time for this change, even if I and oth­ers like me who are work­ing towards peace are in the minor­i­ty right now. We must stay root­ed (Neta means plant­ed and seedling), even if we are just the seeds of a revolution.

The dream also reminds me my three most recent books all fea­ture my aunt in some way. She has been with me all these years, work­ing her tikkun through me and sup­port­ing my jour­ney. And now she has appeared to me in my time of need, to show me she is with me, and to encour­age me to stay and con­tin­ue on my path. The war will esca­late, she is warn­ing me; nev­er­the­less, I must focus on the here and now, and not be afraid. Because I am not alone.

When we hang up, I remem­ber I have a tran­script of an inter­view my aunt’s daugh­ter, my cousin, con­duct­ed with her moth­er. I read it again, now, and it feels like the first time. 

My aunt speaks of her time dri­ving an ambu­lance in the war, of a sol­dier dying in her arms. I think of that sol­dier I saw on the ground in the for­est, my feel­ing of urgency try­ing to save him.

When I get to a sec­tion about the Arabs in Pales­tine before the state was estab­lished, I am stunned by her words. The ide­ol­o­gy of the move­ment, she says, was that the Jews should live with the Arabs in peace. But his­to­ry played out differently.

I read on. My aunt talks about what made her want to leave the U.S. The injus­tices to the African Amer­i­cans were hard for her to wit­ness and accept. She want­ed to live in a place with total equal­i­ty for all, and felt this was what she and her com­rades were build­ing in Israel. That was her hope for this place, her vision, her dream. Like mine.

My aunt was dis­il­lu­sioned by the treat­ment of the Sephar­di Jews and the Arabs but came to the con­clu­sion that Zion­ism at that stage in Jew­ish his­to­ry was the most impor­tant ide­al, for rea­sons of sur­vival of the Jew­ish peo­ple, even if it meant com­pro­mis­ing oth­er val­ues. The oth­er val­ues could be addressed lat­er, once there was a safe place for Jews to live. They were lit­er­al­ly fight­ing for their lives. But this real­i­ty, among oth­ers, broke her spirit.

My aunt was a com­plex human. A strong Zion­ist, she left home on her own to live in Israel and work as a farmer on a kib­butz, after hav­ing grown up in Brook­lyn in a book­ish fam­i­ly. She felt caught between two worlds, not total­ly fit­ting in either. She believed in a Jew­ish home­land less out of nation­al­ism and more out of a utopi­an social­ist ide­al where all could be free, safe, and secure.

My aunt believed in the ide­al of Jews build­ing this utopia out of the Jew­ish val­ue of pur­su­ing jus­tice and peace. But the real­i­ties of the moment pre­vent­ed that utopia from being actu­al­ized – a fact of life in gen­er­al, which I think was hard for her to accept.

My aunt had high stan­dards for the world. I do, too. But I have worked on accept­ing things as they are, while still try­ing to make them bet­ter – and not giv­ing up hope they can be, even if not in my lifetime.

I am part of my aunt’s tikkun — even if her ide­al utopia, our ide­al utopia, won’t man­i­fest right now, like my dream is telling me. Even if I have to wait to see it hap­pen, or maybe not see it hap­pen at all. Even if our lead­ers on both sides are mak­ing peace impos­si­ble, I must con­tin­ue my work on the grass­roots lev­el, build­ing part­ner­ship among Jew­ish and Pales­tin­ian Israelis to fight for a bet­ter life here for all of us; to be part of the trans­for­ma­tion I want to see hap­pen in the world.

Anoth­er mes­sage, how­ev­er, I hear from my aunt, is that if it becomes nec­es­sary, I can give myself per­mis­sion to leave. That is a les­son I can learn from her life. We can teach each other.

The next morn­ing, I am walk­ing with Munchkin again in the for­est. I vis­it that same spot where I saw the camp­fire rem­nants a few days before. They are nowhere to be found. I send a pho­to to Ori. Her answer: ​“This path­way looks old and well-trodden.”

“Indeed,” I write back.

A few siren-and-mis­sile-filled days lat­er, Jacob man­ages to get back. The next day, we are wok­en by a siren, and anoth­er goes off while we are in the safe room. When it is safe to come out, I decide to take Munchkin for a walk in the for­est. I fig­ure there won’t be more sirens that morn­ing. Jacob joins me, reluc­tant­ly, prefers I not be in the for­est alone if there is mis­sile fire.

When we reach the spot where I had my vis­i­ta­tion expe­ri­ence, I decide to share it with Jacob. Just as I am telling him the part where I am on a bat­tle­field, try­ing to save a fall­en sol­dier, a siren goes off.

This is my first time being away from the house when there is a siren. None of us know what to do. I sit down next to a tree, hop­ing the tree can shel­ter us from falling mis­sile debris. Jacob and Munchkin join me. I hear a loud boom, look up to the sky, and see a mis­sile above us. It is inter­cept­ed by the Iron Dome, breaks up into smokey pieces which begin to fall. But I feel sur­pris­ing­ly calm.

I am not alone. I am not afraid. I am here. Hineni.

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

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