As you can probably tell by looking at the calendar, it's October 7. The anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. One year of our friends and family in captivity. One year of bloody, awful war. One year of a massive spike of antisemitism. One year since I was pacing around my grandpa's house, thinking about our upcoming trip to Israel, content in my belief that antisemitism was a thing of the past.
Yeah, that didn't last long.
I'll never forget my dad walking into the room, looking like someone had just murdered his dog (we don't have one). I'll never forget him telling me, "[My name], something's happened. Israel was attacked."
I guess I should be lucky. I didn't know any of the victims. I didn't know anyone who was kidnapped or raped or murdered. All I knew was that I wasn't going to Israel over break.
(Actually, I didn't even know that. I was still holding out hope that it would be over soon. Not this drawn-out nightmare.)
One year later, I barely got through the day.
What I remember when I woke up was how wrong everything felt. The air felt heavier. I felt like I was thinking through mud. Somehow I got dressed, brushed my teeth, did all the usual morning routine stuff. I popped online for a second to check out how things were and send some of my Israeli friends some Jewish positivity. (People were celebrating. I wish I could say I was surprised.)
(Also Wattpad, I have checked so many times. I spelled "positivity" right. Stop underlining it.)
One thing I noticed: One of the morning prayers has a line that Wattpad isn't letting me paste, so here's a photo.
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Blessed art thou, LORD our God, King of the Universe, who releases the captives.
Kinda hits differently today.
One of my goy friends and I carpool to school together, since we live right next to each other. We made some jokes and he showed me some Youtube Shorts on his phone. One of them was a Bin Laden joke. I was like "Seriously, just for today, can we not make terrorist jokes?" He was confused before checking the date and apologized. Maybe I was too snappy. I don't know.
Before school started, I ditched school breakfast (which sucks anyway) to stop by the counselor's office. I cried a bit. A lot, actually. School just felt...out of proportion, I guess? What right do I have to worry about things like test grades when people have been kidnapped for an entire year? Why should I be annoyed by bullies calling me names when people have been tortured by the worst bullies of all? Why should I go to school, acting like everything's normal, while people are talking about their boyfriends and having fun and taking tests and complaining about homework when it's possible that Kfir Bibas will never get to experience this? Why should I complain about having to run a lap in PE class when my friends have to run to the bomb shelter?
Oh God. They kidnapped a baby, a four-year-old, mothers and children, a friggin Holocaust survivor. They're monsters. And people celebrate them.
The moment I walked into English class, the teacher asked if I was ok. There were two periods and a break between my breakdown in the counselor's office and English class. He'd asked me about Judaism before, and the date was written on the board.
I love my English teacher.
(My classmates are another matter. But they were annoying in the way teenagers are annoying and not in the way of protesters blocking a girl I sort of know from entering her school, not annoying in the way of one of my friends's teacher telling her class that Hamas never took hostages.)
There are four people I sit with for lunch. Let's call them Bob (the goy I carpool with), Jeff, Mason, and George. Yeah, ever since George came out as trans, I've been stuck as the only girl in our group. Sucks to be me.
It's like 90 degrees where I am, and we sit in the sun, so George was constantly asking if we could move to the shade. Bob, Jeff, and Mason were talking about stuff I honestly don't remember. At some point they started making terrorist jokes, as teenage boys are wont to do, and I just flipped out at them. I told them, "Hey, today of all days, no terrorist jokes. Sababa?" Well, it was a little more aggressive than that, but you get the gist.
Then Jeff asked me why I said today of all days. Right. Not everyone's thoughts are constantly consumed by the WarTM. Then I passive-aggressively told him it was the deathaversary of [name redacted for privacy reasons] and I saw the realization dawn on his face. George and I moved into the shade, and Jeff came by later to apologize. I remember he said, "I know how you...no, I don't know how you feel."
Don't worry, Jeff. I don't know how I feel. Other than sad. And angry. And tired. So tired. Of this violence. Of the hate. Of the bloodshed.
The rest of school passed by quickly. My history teacher, who everyone's afraid of, was out, so that was lovely. Bob and I stopped for McDonalds on the way back.
So yeah, that was my day. I mean, so far.
I don't really know what I want to do. Draw? Study for school? See if I can muster up the strength to get the next chapter of Legend of Kuvira published? (I'M WORKING ON IT I SWEAR!!!) Write some more of that Out of the Abyss (my favorite Dungeons and Dragons module) novelization that's probably never going to see the light of day? Yell at the cats for knocking over my stuff?
I want Israelis and Palestinians to find peace. I want people to stop killing each other for pointless reasons. I want Sinwar and Nasrallah Replacement what number are we on now and Bibi and Ben Gvir to be thrown into a pit to duke it out with each other while the rest of us rebuild the world. I want Barib Yariel, Eli Copter, and Amit Nakesh to form an Avengers team. I want to get through today without breaking down crying at random times. I want to know for sure that all my friends are ok and haven't gotten bombed. I want to go back to how the world was on October 6. I want goys who have no stake in this conflict and yet are still running around screaming about how evil Zionism is to shut the fuck up and let Israelis and Palestinians and Jews and Muslims to put aside our biases and work towards peace.
(PSA in case people get as confused as the guy who's been repeatedly harassing me online: Zionism is not bad. Zionism is wanting self determination for the Jewish people in our homeland of Israel, which I firmly believe will involve making peace with our Arab neighbors. Zionism is not wanting all Palestinians to die or wanting Israel to be a Jewish theocracy. That's Kahanism. Kahanism is bad. Don't be a Kahanist. Be a Zionist.)
