A note before you yell at me in the comments: I believe in the right of Israel to exist, and it is because I love Israel so much that I criticize it. I love spending time here, but I don't claim to know everything, and I'm happy to have a discussion with anyone who would like to have a civil conversation. Also, I don't support BDS.
"Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael Chai"
As we walked down Yafo street, one of the main roads in Jerusalem at around 10:30 pm last Wednesday night, dodging crowds of drunk people covered in blue and white face paint, we heard this song, "the people of Israel live." As we stood next to City Hall, listening to live music coming from two different stages, I felt someone grab my hand and pull me into a circle dance to whatever song was playing. We were all strangers to one another, and considering the fact that my Hebrew is not excellent, I don't know if we would have been able to communicate through words, but we were dancing together, all on the same stone in the same city.
The unity of the Jewish people of Israel during Yom Hazikaron, the Israeli Memorial Day and Yom Haatzmaut, Israeli Independence Day is truly an incredible thing to witness and be a part of. Standing together, frozen in time during the sirens sounded to commemorate the fallen soldiers, singing Hatikvah with thousands of people, watching Jerusalem switch from mourning to celebrating in the span of an hour were all very powerful experiences. Hundreds of people barbecuing on a sunny Independence Day in the park is lovely. I felt proud to be here, proud of Israel's accomplishments and proud to be a Jew who supports Israel.
When one experiences these days from the perspective of a Jew, it truly feels like the country stands as one people, united. But then, you start to think more deeply about it, or at least I did. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there are currently about the same number of Jews and Palestinians. Palestinians are not included in the vision of a Jewish homeland, but they are people, living in this land. Last weekend, I spent Shabbat in the West Bank, and on our way home, we stopped at Shorashim, an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue center, where we heard from a Palestinian man about his experience living in the occupied West Bank. This opened my eyes to the fact that there really are two sides to the story of Yom Haatzmaut which Palestinians call the Nakhba, the disaster. Palestinians identify the creation of a Jewish state, partly on land that was formerly Palestinian, as a disaster. This brought up a lot of questions. What price is being paid for a Jewish state? Are our actions consistent with our Jewish values? And what about the refugees that are being deported or about to be deported from Israel? I don't have answers to these questions, but they need to be talked about. I hope that we look at these issues more complexly and question the media we consume.
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