Israel

I have been searching for the right words. I still haven’t found them. In 2017, for my birthday, my family and I went to Israel. One of our tours was a visit to a Kibbutz in Tel Aviv. “Kibbutz” comes from the Hebrew word for “gathering”. It’s a community where people voluntarily live and work together on a noncompetitive basis. It operates under the premise that all income generated by the Kibbutz and its members goes into a common pool. Everyone is responsible for its care and upkeep. Families live there - mothers, babies.

The people of the Kibbutz made lunch for us - see the picture - and it was a unique and memorable experience.

When news came that a Kibbutz in Tel Aviv had been attacked by Hamas with 100 of its members slaughtered, a chill went up my spine. I immediately wondered if it was the same one my mom, sister-in-law and I visited. I kept thinking…”What if the attack had happened on the day we were there?” It would not have mattered that we were American, that my mom was a senior citizen. We would not have been seen as “innocent”. I reached out to our tour guide - we follow each other on social media - and he told me that the Kibbutz we visited was in a different area of Tel Aviv than the one where the massacre happened. I did not feel relief. Only sadness. I mentioned at the top of this post that I don’t have the right words. I still don’t. All I can say is…There are countless families grieving tonight. My heart breaks for all of them. Every one of them. I ask God tonight…please restore our humanity.