Becoming Israeli again

 Email this story

Print

1 Comment

Before October 7, living in Israel could leave you battered, bruised, and needing a stiff drink.

Gidon Ben-Zvi

Sky-high housing prices, exorbitant childcare costs, heavy regulations, relatively low median wages that translate into a lack of purchasing power, and an overdependence on imports for food and other essentials are the bare-bone basics of life here.

When you combine all that with rising interest rates and inflation, you get a giant pressure cooker: from the river to the sea.

Israel is now at war, and life’s daily challenges have been magnified by the terrible realization that all the talk about shrinking the conflict with the Palestinians until peace becomes viable turned out to be a dangerous delusion.

Since Hamas’s pogrom, during which 1,200 men, women and children were slaughtered, the news coming out of Israel has naturally been focused on the war: the IDF’s fight to topple Gaza’s rulers, the plight of the 200,000 internally displaced Israelis who lost everything, hostage negotiations to secure the release of some of the over 200 people who the terrorists kidnapped, the diplomatic kabuki dance between Jerusalem and other world capitals, the inevitable countdown to a ceasefire.

What is flying under the international media’s radar, however, is the massive number of ordinary Israeli citizens who are mobilizing in support of their country.

Close to half the Israeli population has volunteered in some way during the conflict, an unprecedented response catalyzed by the call-up of over 300,000 army reservists and the evacuating of citizens living around Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon.

Since the outbreak of war, over 200,000 Israelis who had been overseas returned home. People from Athens to Los Angeles dropped whatever they were doing on a moment’s notice. While some of thes

e people were called up by the IDF, many others volunteered.

In Israel, university students whose academic year was put on hold rushed to the aid of southern farmers whose agricultural workforce vanished overnight, leaving crops to rot in the fields and livestock to fend for themselves.

The war with Hamas may go on for months and could well affect every part of the country. With that in mind, parents are carving out time after work and tending to their kids to develop new skills that are suddenly in demand. They are enrolling in hastily organized firefighter training and rescue courses, First Aid, CPR, and lectures on mental resilience to assist people directly impacted by Hamas’ atrocities and those who may need help soon.

And this spirit of solidarity with the victims of Hamas’s attack has spread like a brushfire. Two minority groups that have traditionally isolated themselves from wider Israeli society, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) and Arab Israelis, are stepping out of the shadows.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox men are expected to sign up for IDF service. On the home front, the Haredi have been cooking, transporting people and supplies, and providing various social services.

And while thousands of Arab Israelis showed their support for Palestinian Arabs during 2021’s Operation Guardians of the Wall by rioting and looting, the same demographic cohort today opposes Hamas, supports Israel’s right to defend itself, and has shown a willingness to volunteer to help civilians who were harmed on October 7.

Then there are the new Israelis. Despite the language and cultural barriers, this group is throwing its lot in with Israel during the country’s darkest hour.

Immigrants from France have set up their own Facebook groups, where they organize army base visits to feed Israel’s fighting men and women. A professional colleague of mine who recently moved to Israel from the Czech Republic launched a website where he and other designers are selling shirts and coffee mugs – with all the proceeds going to aid Israel’s internal refugees.

Here in Haifa, English and Russian social media groups are multiplying. New childcare and tutoring initiatives for young evacuees forced to flee their homes, neighbourhood drives for clearing out bomb shelters, and much more, are popping up every day.

The common thread running through these different communities is the belief that October 7, 2023 was a watershed moment in Israel’s history. For a few horrifying hours on that day, as Hamas rampaged across the country’s south, while simultaneously launching thousands of rockets toward Israel from Gaza, people here got a glimpse of what their lives would be like without a sovereign Jewish state: hell on earth.

Newcomers and native Israelis, Jews and Arabs, the religious and non-religious now share a common destiny: they have nowhere else to go.

In the days following the sheer evil that Hamas unleashed on people – regardless of their religion or ethnicity – Israelis have begun to look at their country with fresh eyes: a profound appreciation for what this tiny country has given them.

They have become Israeli again.