My Confusion and I

As the clock struck 20.00 last night the whole world around me stopped. The thousands of people surrounding me went silent. A minute of silence so powerful that my body shivered. A whole country stopped to remember the fallen soldiers and civilians that we have lost to terror and war. A whole country being silent for the ones that cannot share their own story anymore but their absence speak louder than any noise anyone of us could make. I don't have my own story. I haven't lost a family member or a friend but I have lost 23,741 soldiers and 3,150 civilians to terror. Even though it wasn't my own brother each one of them left a family behind; a mother and father with an empty bed to say goodnight to, a little sister that will never have that protective older brother to defend her and an older brother that will never get a chance to give his brother advice on girl problems. Each one of the 26 891 victims has a story, a story that we have to pass on for those who cannot. A s...

It's been a while. It's been way too long but there honestly hasn't been enough time to process the last 6 months for me to be able to sit down and put my feelings into words. I've now lived in Israel for almost half a year and I am starting 2018 with a stomach bug but with so much happiness in my life. I am not going to lie, the last 6 months have been challenging and frustrating at times, but it is all worth it in the end or so I would hope at least. When you move to a new country there are a millions of things to adjust to. For me the hardest adjustment was probably accepting the fact that this is where I am settling down. No more moving around trying to find myself because let's face it, there's only so many places a person can live until it gets exhausting to feel like you have several different homes but yet none of those places feel permanent. Please G-D, Israel will be the place where home actually feels like home. So what inspired me to get back to my ...

As I'm writing this post I have less than 48 h left in England. Yes, that sounds extremely dramatic but after living here for 6 years it definitely feels like a big deal. There are many emotions passing through when I think back of the time I've had here. It's been a massive roller coaster and I've met so many different people and learnt more than I ever thought I would, I mean I only came for university and we all know you don't learn anything there. For a long time I have wanted to move to Israel and for some reason there has always been something stopping me but then one day I felt ready, it was time to break free from the familiarity of rain, pints, red skin in the summer and people walking without shirts on the second the sun comes out. To be completely honest, I don't know how to express myself about leaving because I don't know how I feel about it. A part of me is excited and extremely happy but then there's that part that makes me feel sad beca...

This week’s Parasha, Shelach, tells the story of the 12 spies being sent out to Israel to report to Moshe what kind of land there is. As you might know 10 of the spies come back with the update that there are inhabitants that will be dangerous for the Jews. However, two of the spies confirm this but say that with G-ds help they would be able to defeat the enemies if needed. The punishment for the people that believed the 10 spies was to wander in the desert for 40 years. When reading this there is one thought that comes to mind, if Hashem was going to punish the Jews for believing the 10 spies, why did Hashem even send the spies? Personally, I would say that this was probably a way for Hashem to test our trust in him. We had just received the Torah and we had already defied him once. Maybe we just weren’t ready to have enough faith in Hashem. We needed some more time to become a people that would put our trust in Hashem. Nachmanides explains that the spies were sent out to be ab...

Where were you when the siren went off? That's a question you get asked often at the moment if you've been in Israel recently. Where was I the first time I experienced the siren? I was talking to my parents on skype with my 1 and a half year old nephew playing beside me. I was babysitting him. My brother-in-law had prepared a bag for my nephew just in case the alarm went off. I was oblivious. The alarm wouldn't go off in the center of Israel right? I didn't realise how wrong I was. Around 16.30 I heard a noise from outside. I told my mum to hang on a second so I could open the window and listen out for the siren. I've been to Israel many times but I haven't actually experienced it before so I didn't know how loud it would be. I heard a distant siren and was relieved, I didn't have to disturb my little nephew but then it became louder. The siren wasn't avoidable anymore. It was like when your alarm clock goes off right in your ear, you want to preten...

I am a volunteer in Magen David Adom, the ambulance service in Israel. Usually this means helping old people that aren't really that ill to get to the hospital, sometimes taking care of drunk people lying in the street but mostly sitting waiting on the station to get call to something interesting. However, the situation has changed the last week. Israel has been under attack with rockets fired from Gaza. This has happened before when I have been in Israel but I have never really been affected until this time. The rockets are reaching further up North than before which means that the red alert alarm has gone off in Petach Tikva, where I live, and we've been sent down to the bomb shelter in Netanya. It has even got to the point where the dispatcher in Netanya has moved down to the bomb shelter. So how has this affected me? This meant me making a choice, do I stay in my flat to keep safe or do I continue the shifts as if nothing happened? To me the choice was obvious, as soon as ...

Let me tell you a story. It's not long but it's an important one. It starts with 3 innocent boys on their way home from school and it ends with 3 bodies being found a couple of weeks later. This isn't a nightmare, this isn't a made up story. It's the truth about Gilad, Naftali and Eyal. 3 innocent boys that got kidnapped and killed. What for you might ask? Because there are people in this world that don't behave like humans and feel the need to kidnap innocent people and kill them. No words can describe the grief we're feeling. I didn't know these boys but knowing they had done nothing means that it could have been me, my friend or even my brother. But it doesn't matter if I knew them or not. They were a part of our nation, our religion and a part of our hearts. Even if you don't believe in God they were a part of our prayers since the day they got kidnapped. The whole nation is mourning the loss of Gilad, Naftali and Eyal. We are asking for ...

A little bit over a week ago 3 innocent boys where kidnapped in Israel. Some might say they were on occupied territory, some might say they were in Israel. To me it doesn't matter. These boys had not harmed anyone. They were simply trying to get to somewhere by doing what they usually do, hitch-hike, when they got taken away without anyone knowing where they are. 3 mothers, 3 fathers are waiting for their sons to return. They are going everyday without knowing if their sons are alive. Personally, I can't imagine that feeling. I don't think anyone can but there is one feeling I can have about the situation and that feeling is frustration. As a Jew I very often have to defend Israel. People often ask me if I agree with Israel killing innocent people and if I think it's ok for Jews to live on the West Bank. I usually answer them with my opinion because I'm not afraid to say what I stand for but in this situation my opinion about what Israel does doesn't matter. T...