Author: Young Judaea

30,000 students lead historic march for Israel in Washington D.C.

Dear Students,

Thank you for showing up. 30,000 proud leading the historic march on Washington for Israel with a total of 300,000 strong. On October 7th everything changed for us as a people, for your generation and for mine too. But seeing you standing there in Washington on November 14th, standing with pride, in unity and resolved to act, brought a ray of light to this ever so dark time in humanity’s history. You shared your thoughts and worries about the present and dreams and hopes for the future. The words you used that day gave us all permission to be afraid, while feeling strong; be confused, while having clarity; feel helpless while feeling empowered; feel shame while feeling pride. In your words, “a plurality of opinion and debate is important, it’s also very Jewish.” And I would add, it is quintessentially Young Judaean.

We are sorry.

What a world, what a world that you’ve inherited

Who ever thought that in our lifetime, “never again” would have been forgotten?

Who ever thought that in our beloved country, the one that welcomed your grandparents with open arms and the American dream,

There would be shouting of death to the Jews, from the river to the sea, an actual living nightmare.

This generation is the woke generation, and yet, for all our wokeness, we will never be one of them.

We will always remain other, but somehow, we are still seen as the oppressor and never as the oppressed.

Now, I am not saying we don’t have to check our immense privilege, and we do, it is on us to take responsibility for what we do.

But history is showing us that not even that privilege will protect us when they come for you.

So, you might ask, what is one to do?

Don’t be ashamed.

Stand proud, Shma Israel, for five thousand years our people have proclaimed their faith

Don’t lose your way.

Stand on principles, Am kadosh, we must earn our blessedness with every spoken word and action taken

Don’t be cynical.

Stand with idealism, B’emunah shlemah, and tap into that inner optimist

Don’t despair.

Stand with hope, Hatikvah, it is our secret Jew power

Don’t stand on the sidelines.

Stand ready to act, Na’ase v’nishma, we are a people of action and not just words

Don’t let them divide us.

Stand with open hearts, Am echad im lev echad, one heartbeat, one people

Don’t do this alone.

Stand together , Ani v’ata, Together, You and I will change the world.

As you return to your schools and campuses, we know we have a lot of work to do. But as it has been Jewish tradition for millennia, we refuse to stop celebrating when we’re together, we refuse to pause any practice of Judaism, and despite all the good and the bad, we will never stop choosing life.

Am Israel Chai.

With deepest admiration,

Adina Hocsman Frydman, CEO of Young Judaea Global

 

 

We Will Be Heard

Written by Young Judaean Talia Bodner, spoken at the March for Israel in Washington DC on November 14, 2023

It’s been 38 days, thats 1 month plus a week
Since our lives turned upside down and the world turned their cheek
I wake up each morning wracked with worry, the world feels bleak
As we fall victim everyday to baseless hatred and constant critique

But we are not defenseless and we are not weak
We have an army that will make this a winning streak
We are modern day Maccabees, strong and unique
And we have each other and the power to speak
To speak up about justice and to fight for what’s right
To give voice to the victims swallowed up in the night

Like you – I am a Jew
And I am a proud one too!
there is so much that we have all been through
And now I am here standing in front of all you
So what are we here to do?
What brought you to this place on today of all days?
What is it that you all have to say?
We’re here because we are tired of being quiet.
We have a voice, and now it’s time that we try it.

You see
This is not only about our tiny home across the sea
And the soldiers who fight each day to keep Israel free
This is about all those who feel hurt, sad, and angry
We have lost too many innocent lives it’s hurting everybody
Both Palestinian and Israeli
We all deserve dignity

This is about Jews around the world, in every community
This is about those who make up the rest of our family tree
This is about my friends at Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary
This is about students on campuses where they don’t like what they see
This is about day schools, youth groups, gap years, camps, and our chosen family
This is about you and this is about me
This is about all of us who came from around the country
To cry out in the face of insanity

We are Jews proudly
And we will defend Israel loudly
Let us stand up against inhumanity
Let us fight for a land and home we will never have to flee
We are a nation who does not go down so easily
You and me, we stand in unity
We have agency
We write our own history
Let’s make our own destiny.

Thank you for your work, it means more than you know
Though the work that we do feels ever so slow
Steady we work towards a better tomorrow

Here we stand, proudly at the capitol of our nation
We bring the new generation
We are ready to lead
We stand here today to sow the seeds
For a more perfect future that we know this world needs
Today we raise our voices as loud as our deeds

Today we do not need to be quiet with heads bowed
Today we are allowed
We can raise our voices out loud
We stand in a crowd to express our Jewish pride
We say to the world, we will no longer hide
Let our voices ring out, echoing far and traveling wide
We will not be denied
As we stand alongside
Together our voices amplified
And we will be heard

We sing for Israel, our voices sweet like song birds
And we will be heard

Our love for our homeland transcends more than words
And we will be heard

Hear us now, hear our message word for word
Today we raise our voices loud to the world

And we will be heard
We will be heard

 

Our National Mazkir on Israel

By Jonny Jentis, National Mazkir 2023-2024
Spoken at the YJ Community-Wide Havdalah on October 14, 2023

Shalom everyone,

My name is Jonathan Jentis and I am the national Mazkir this year. I am a senior in high school living in New Jersey. Having been in Young Judaea, Zionism and Israel have been major parts of my life. Even this summer I was able to journey to Israel on Gesher where I saw a perfectly peaceful Gazan border and experienced the joys and wonders of Israel. With that in mind, I would like to speak, not about the shocking and disturbing events that we have all heard and seen over the past few days, but about my experience and the whirlwind of contradictions I have faced.

Saturday morning started like any other; I woke up about 2 hours after my alarm, rolled out of bed, and meandered downstairs to my kitchen. There I was greeted by a snapchat message from one of my friends in Israel from the Gesher trip; The message read “I am in a bomb shelter right now. My parents are in the south where Hamas attacked. I haven’t heard from them in 3 hours.” This is how I found out about the attack; not a news article, not an Instagram post, not some random Tiktok. A desperate cry of fear and anxiety from someone I had lived with for almost an entire month over the summer. A cry for help from someone I had no way of helping. I sent thoughts and prayers and tried to help them stay positive, but from what I knew, I was almost certain their parents were dead. That’s how I spent Saturday with contradiction #1; trying to convince her that her parents might still be alive while being almost certain they weren’t.

By some miracle, the IDF did manage to save her parents. This gave me time to process my other emotions and see other reactions. Expecting unilateral Israel support, I found a friend from school posting a Palestinian flag with the caption “Takeover is near”. This led me to another contradiction: What’s the difference between Pro-palestine and Pro-hamas? At the end of the day I advocate for peace, and as I tried to explain how problematic the post was, my classmate seemed to indirectly justify the actions Hamas took. “War is war” and “Israel does it too” were her responses to me. The line between wanting peace in the Middle East and terrorism should not be close; the ideas should not even be considered as alternatives to each other yet Hamas’s heinous actions have pushed the limits so that supporting one has become synonymous with the other. We as Young Judaeans have to be able to call people out when they cross the line; for the safety of ourselves, the Jewish people, and the state of Israel.

It seems that everyday, a new email comes in marking the passing of yet another alum from our Young Judaea community. Friends, counselors, family; everybody knows somebody. It is more important than ever that we stay connected even while separated across the country. We have lived together, we have laughed together, and now we mourn together as a YJ community. But there will come a day when we will celebrate together again.

That brings me to one of my final contradictions: supporting Israel’s right to defend itself from this horrendous act but also a cry for peace in the Middle East. Israel needs to defend itself from this attack but more death will not bring back what we all lost. In support of peace, my Maz (teen board) and I are looking for ways to contribute. Keep on the lookout for more Israel initiatives by following the @yjteens Instagram. Hopefully any teens on this call will join us tomorrow for a community Israel event to learn and digest what is going on right now. Please look out for a link to donate to help fund many of the actions YJ is taking in Israel. Our Year Course teens are already working to do what they can in Israel, and we hope to raise money so YJ can support refugees, package supplies, and give relief and aid to all who need it.

Lastly, we must address Israel. I know in the past I have been critical of Israel’s government and its decisions; just like America, or the UK, or any other country in the world, Israel makes good and bad decisions. But being critical does not mean we have to denounce Israel. Everyone here I’m sure has a variety of opinions on how Israel should handle the coming days and weeks; but the important thing is that the people of Israel need our support. Something one of my Rabbis said to me this past Thursday at a vigil has stuck with me: “In the first 12 hours of Hamas’s attack, we saw what it would be like if Israel didn’t exist”.  Israel is a safe haven for us and needs the support so as to not be destroyed by the many enemies it has. I know for certain, I and many others may still criticize the decisions of the Israeli government, but, no matter what you or I believe, my support (and hopefully yours) will never waver. Israel doesn’t just deserve to exist; its existence is a necessity for the Jewish people and the generations to come.

Shavua tov and good night.

Currently in My Tower

By Gabriella Stein, Year Course 2023-2024

I was sitting on the floor in my basement. I had just spent thirty minutes picking out the perfect outfit for my Barbie doll. I had the most perfect story planned out, she was gonna go to the prom and dance with the Ken doll, and by the end they would fall in love and get married. I don’t know when I blinked. But I did. And suddenly, the world is excruciatingly more complicated.

I don’t know why they don’t prepare you for it. For feeling like the world is playing against you in a really intense thumb wrestle. You go in pretty confident, you’ve got a pretty strong thumb and a killer strategy, but after you count down, you realize your thumb may not be as prepared as you may have thought. As the thumbs dance around each other a few times, you’ve faked out your opponent. Maybe they’re thinking you’re stronger than you look? Nope. The other thumb grabs you quickly. Your thumb is being pushed into your index finger. It hurts a little, but you’ve only been playing for a few seconds so you scramble back to the starting position. Now you’re nervous, you can’t get too cocky. Now you know what you’re dealing with, and you know there’s a chance you come out a failure but you’re not willing to go down without a fight. That is high school.

I had assumed since I won the thumb war (and let me tell you I’ve earned bragging rights) I wouldn’t have to keep playing such a childish game after graduation. Good thing I didn’t have enough time to give that thought too much attention. Because here I am, three months out of high school faced with a thumb that resembles a Palestinian terrorist. (No, seriously.) I write this strange metaphor for you from my room on my Gap Year program in Israel, three days after Hamas initiated the war against Israel.

Now as I mentioned, I am fresh out of high school. I was blessed with a late birthday, so I’m not even eighteen yet. To be totally honest with you, dear reader, I was not terribly good at paying attention during social studies class. It is not my fault that at the time I needed to put my mind towards the attention of my notebook where there were doodles that simply had to be drawn. My dad told me on the phone today he wished I had paid more attention, since I am sitting smack in the middle of a war zone. While I do agree, maybe it would’ve been benefical to understand truly what was happening around me, I think maybe it’s a good thing I had been doodling. Because, at age seventeen I shouldn’t really have to understand war. I should not have to expirence it firsthand. My teachers taught me to take a stand in my writing, not to waiver between different opinions. But, my opinion in this case is one with a few different perspectives. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention, maybe I should’ve plugged my ears with earbuds and blasted Copacobana and danced around the room, maybe I should’ve been advocating they teach my public school peers the truth about the debacle in the Middle East. But honestly, I’m not sure which reality I choose. Choose to understand and comprehend the magnitude of my situation? Or choose to live in ignorance? I’d continue to type, but my answer to my own question is becoming clear. Maybe my doodles could’ve been saved for later.

It’s hard. As I’ve begun to educate myself and my leaders on this program have been teaching us, it’s still hard to truly wrap my head around what is happening. I read the stories and watch the videos, but my simple mind is unable to truly comprehend the massacre I’ve been lucky enough to dodge. I’m a total outsider, living within a guarded community in the country. I am a total foreigner, living in a bubble. In a bubble I don’t know how I landed a spot in. How is it that mere miles away from me are people that are living in terror, and I am sitting wrapped in a blanket with a pillow behind my back as I type? How do you comprehend that? How could it possibly be true the things I read? There is simply no way. We live in a world where people play with dolls and dress them up, how are innocent people being kidnapped? How is it that the world I once lived in, where nothing bad ever really happened, was really an illusion? What can I do to help? But does helping mean putting myself in a dangerous position? I want to hide. But hide from what? Hide from the monsters I cannot hear or see, but I just know are there?

Imagine sitting in a protected tower. Your magical golden hair locked away, because if the wrong people were to get their hands on it, there would be nothing left of you. You have a visitor come through the secret passage into the tower. The visitor tells you there is war surrounding the tower. You believe them, because you see the terror and sorrow behind their eyes. But you cannot see it. You just know you are surrounded, but the war doesn’t really have anything directly to do with you, but if you were to get involved your magical hair would be too valuable to the soldiers and they would take you away. So all you can do is sit in your tower and pray. Pray that those who aren’t as fortunate as you are to be protected, have a way to stay alive.

Luckily, you sit in the tower with your friends. Some new friends, some you would consider to be family. You all sit together in the tower. Keeping each other busy, but still discussing the condition of the world around you. Some of your friends understand better than others. And they want out. They want out of the tower. Out of the kingdom. They want to go home to their families, living safe and sound in a far away land. (Oh, did I mention that your friends also have magical hair??? You’re all distant relatives of Rapunzel. It’s complicated, just go with it.) You know you’re safe in the tower. The fire breathing dragons that surround the place keep it pretty safe. There are even magical owls that come every once in a while to teach you and keep you company. But still, your friends want out. All you want is normalcy. You’ve only just moved into the tower. You’ve only just gotten used to the idea that you could get to enjoy a whole year of magic with your favorite people. That’s when the Palestinian thumbs started the war. They took away that feeling of relief once you were out of high school and no longer had to play anymore. You’re heartbroken the inside of your bubble is falling apart, but how could you possibly feel that way about your situation when all around the tower there is war. I could be wrong, but even if I had paid closer attention, that wouldn’t have taught me that in social studies.

I hope you’ll excuse all the metaphors and made up scenarios. They are helping me to explain. Because the reality is, there is no easy and straightforward way to explain this reality. Hence the thumbs, magical hair, and dragons. Hopefully it was easy enough to follow. If so, do you want to explain to me what you gathered? Because I’m still trying to make sense of it all.