Ever since October 7, it’s probably fair to say that Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Israelis and anyone in a marginalized community that has been impacted by the violence have understandably turned inward, seeking comfort from those already within their own communities. And while this has undoubtedly felt like the safest option for many, it also makes it harder to break out of our own echo chambers, listen to the perspectives of others and have our own perspectives heard. In a time when many feel misunderstood or even demonized by people outside their own communities, it’s more important than ever that we try to understand one another better.
In anticipation of the first anniversary of this awful day, we turned to you with questions. We at Hey Alma want to know how the lives of our audience members have shifted over the last year. One of these questions was: What do you wish people outside your community understood about how you’re feeling? What we received was a wide spectrum of responses, from wanting people to understand that Israelis are not their government to the idea that Jews need more support from their non-Jewish friends to the plea that anti-Zionist Jews are Jews, too.
In sharing these responses, we hope to show you that you are not alone in feeling misunderstood by people outside of your direct circle. We also hope that you will take the time to read and digest the perspectives here that you don’t necessarily agree with. Sit with them, think about them and empathize with them. Isn’t that what you’d want someone else to do for you?
And if you ever find yourself in need of a new kind of Jewish community with space for all, looking for it on Hey Alma isn’t a bad place to start.
What do you wish people outside your community understood about how you’re feeling?
“It’s really isolating to feel no support from my non-Jewish friends.”
“Before October 7, I never understood why my parents mainly socialized with other Jews. Now I do.”
“I feel so many things. First, I feel it all in my body — my heart feels like a heavy black hole. It is a physical pain. I feel like I am in two different worlds on social media — one that is acknowledging this pain and a second that seems completely oblivious to it. In my day to day fusing those two worlds as I go to work is disorienting.”
“I wish some of my supportive gentile friends would understand how hurtful it was when in the aftermath of October 7 they messaged me saying how scared they were. As if it was up to my Jewish ass to comfort them. If they would say something in the line of, “We are going to protect you if you need it,” I would never hold them to their word, I would just be really, really grateful for false promises.”
“I wish people knew that Jews are human beings. I wish people knew that Israel literally means the Jewish people and that we are in some parts inextricable from our homeland. I wish people could hold the suffering of multiple people and groups rather than pit us against each other like sport. I hope something changes. I hope Israelis and Palestinians know peace soon. I hope the diaspora doesn’t feel so scary soon.”
“I wish people understood my family arrived here not by choice, they were kicked out of Iraq because they were Jewish, they arrived here after the Holocaust and losing their family and community because they were Jewish, and I didn’t choose to be born and to live here and just because I do it doesn’t make me dispensable or an agent of the Nakba or ethnically inferior to the Jews that were lucky enough to be born in the diaspora.”
“I wish that people outside our community knew that even if I didn’t know a hostage or another Jew personally, we still have this familial relationship and the grief I’m feeling is the same or more as grief I’d feel for mourning a family member.”
“I wish people knew that every Jew feels like a brother or sister. It’s not halfway across the world. It feels right next to me. It feels in my heart.”
“I wish people understood how cruel they are really being, and that everyone really does want an end to this war — the majority of Jews don’t want suffering for any people, why must you wish it on us? And I wish people understood their hypocrisy and could see that there are movements that need help in their countries, on the land their ancestors stole, if they feel so passionately about perceived injustices. Why this movement? Why these people? Why can’t we just live in peace? Why are people so hateful?”
“I wish the non-Jewish community would understand that we are hurting. That our pain is just as valid and worthy of empathy as everyone else’s. I wish they would listen to us when we say phrases are antisemitic, or that their actions contribute to putting Jewish people in danger. But really, what I wish the non-Jewish community would have, is a desire to see Israelis and Jewish people as human beings worthy of being cared about. The dehumanization of the Jewish people over the course of the last 12 months is despicable and unacceptable. The least the world can do is see us as human beings and not wish for our deaths.”
“I wish non-Jews knew how much it sucks and how hard it is to keep going.”
“I wish people expressed the same empathy for all innocent civilians.”
“I wish people outside of my community would see humanizing others as a strength and not a weakness. When we uplift human life, all lives gain value. When we dehumanize others, we too become disposable.”
“I wish those outside my community understood that mourning the hostages doesn’t mean I support the Israeli government. I wish many inside my community understood that my anger and sadness over the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians does not mean I support Hamas, and also that while any loss of life is tragic, the scale of loss is not the same for Israelis and Palestinians. I wish I knew the stories, lives and worlds of all of the Palestinian civilians murdered in Gaza and the West Bank. I wish I heard their mothers’ words like I heard Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s. Their mothers and families loved them, too.”
“As an Israeli-American, I wish more American Jews understood that most Israelis, and especially the hostages’ families, see what happened as a reason to end the war with a hostage deal now, not as a reason to keep it going. It feels infuriating and perverse to watch community leaders and organizations exploit the hostages’ names and pictures to directly contradict and undermine their families’ demands for a deal, as if they don’t exist and can’t speak for themselves. I’m begging American friends of Israel to realize that there’s a difference between supporting the government and supporting the people, and right now the two things are in conflict. Listen to the people, not the propagandists, and most of all listen to the hostage families. Israel is out on the streets in the hundreds of thousands demanding to save the hostages and end the war, because that’s the only way, against a government determined to make sure that what happened to the murdered hostages keeps happening again and again. Which side are you on?”
“I wish more people understood how pointless and painful it is to treat the war like a sports match where you support one team or the other. No one, no one, no one wins in a situation like this.”
“To those outside of the community, anti-Zionist Jews do in fact exist. We hold the values of our ancestors and the experiences of persecution we faced and seek out to end injustices and perform tikkun olam. Never again means never again for anyone.”
“I wish people outside of our Jewish community had the courage to stand with us, to speak up for us, to mourn with us, to be outraged with us, to protect us, to stretch out their hands in allyship, without fear of retribution, without hesitation, without apology. We need affirmation and support and friendship.”
Click here for more from the Hey Alma community on how this last year has changed us.
