22 July 2014

Operation Protective Edge

I've recently had an epiphany. I'm rather embarrassed that it's taken me so long to realize this, because now that I've thought about it, it seems like a pretty simple truth. But nevertheless, I've only just put it all together: Terror is never justified

That sounds so obvious, the very word "terror" renders it an evil that shouldn't be used to manipulate entire governments. But I had always figured that as long as there were people out there trying to justify terror, there must be cases in which it is, indeed, justifiable. 

But there aren't. And the line between acts of self-defense and acts of terror is not as thin as the media is making it seem. 

Since I began this blog, I've tried to shy away from taking a political stance. Based on the fact that I've made Aliyah and drafted to the IDF, I assume it's obvious that I support Israel, but I understand that there are many things I don't understand, and so I've avoided politics as best as I can. It's easy to remain apolitical when the conflict is so far away, when it seems like this is all happening to other people. But now it's here, skirting dangerously close to me, and I can't pretend to be anything other than completely against the terror that Hamas is wreaking on my country. 

A few days ago, I wrote an OpEd piece for the Jewish Exponent about what it's like living in Israel right now, about the pit I feel in my stomach when I read a newspaper headline and know that at any time, this conflict could come waltzing into my life in a very real, very personal, very heartbreaking way. And now it has. 

Sunday morning, 13 members of the Golani Brigade were killed in Gaza. Over the next few days, the IDF released the names of those killed, and the country mourned every one of them. But I learned two of the names before they were released to the media. Just a few hours after their deaths, I began getting frantic text messages about two lone soldiers who were among the 13 killed. I never met either Sean Carmeli, z"l, or Max Steinberg, z"l. But we are a community of lone soldiers, and this loss is something that all of us feel excruciatingly deeply. These boys were friends of my friends, we shared a background, they held the same values and passions as I do. Suddenly, the posts on my Facebook newsfeed went from generic posts supporting Israel to "I miss you, brother." Though I didn't personally know them, many of my friends did, and seeing their pain so close to me makes me feel it.

Those words, "I miss you, brother," won't stop wrenching at my heart. 

Coming to Israel and drafting was a choice for these boys, these soldiers, and they are nothing short of heroes. But they shouldn't have died. None of the 28 people killed since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge should have died. 

I support Israel's ground incursion into Gaza because I refuse to wait for Hamas to advance their weapons before we fight back. I support it because although the Palestinian death toll is much higher than the Israeli one, we're not waiting for them to even out before we take action. I will never condone the tragic civilian deaths on either side, but Israel should not be attacked, not by Hamas and not by the media, for successfully protecting her citizens.  

And my epiphany was right, terror is never justified. When Hamas stops preaching terror and threatening kidnappings, when they stop silencing the civilians of Gaza who do want peace, then maybe this conflict will become something more than just seemingly futile killings. I want this to end because it's actually my friends who are fighting this battle, it's people I care about as if they were family. But Sean Carmeli, z"l, and Max Steinberg, z"l, and the rest of those killed did not die so that Israel would tolerate hundreds of rockets a week being shot at innocent civilians. We will not justify Hamas's terror, nor will we ignore it. Israel will continue to defend the Jewish homeland without crossing the line into terror, we will continue to oppose extremists while acknowledging that not every Palestinian is an extremist. We want it to end, but we will do what we believe is right even in the face of misguided and, in many cases, misinformed international pressure.

It's frustrating not being a combat soldier right now. My job has very little to do with the current operation, and so I'm stuck here watching the beginnings of a war with no way to stop it, no way to contribute. But I'm part of something bigger. My unit is the one communicating with the civilians of Gaza, we are the ones who create and distribute fliers warning people to evacuate their homes before an attack. And even bigger than that, I'm part of an army that will do anything to protect my friends who are being torn from childhood and thrown into war. I'm so proud of every one of them. I'm proud of those fighting and those in combat support, and I'm proud of Israel. I've never been so grateful to be a part of something I truly believe in, to be a soldier in the IDF.

Max Steinberg, z"l
Sean Carmeli, z"l
To all of my friends, stay safe.

18 July 2014

A Quick Update

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but I just wanted to thank everyone who has sent me messages of love and support since the situation in Israel has started heating up. I can't even begin to explain how much your words mean to me and to all the soldiers of the IDF. Below is an OpEd piece I wrote for the Jewish Exponent about what it's like living in Israel and being a soldier right now. Hope you enjoy!

http://jewishexponent.com/opinion/2014/07/a-lone-soldiers-eye-view

07 March 2014

"I Carry Your Heart With Me, I Carry It In My Heart"

Looking back over my blog posts, it's fair to say that I complain a lot about the army. It's boring sometimes, the bureaucracy can be overwhelming, I clean a lot... You know, the usual stuff. But for all the complaining I do, I actually have it pretty easy. I've wanted to make Aliyah since I was 10, so even when I inevitably have things to whine about, I'm whining with the smug elation of someone who waited literally eight years to complain about those things. When you fulfill your dream, you're left with  this profound happiness and satisfaction that make inconveniences like being stuck on base for 21 days or waiting for a bus that's over an hour and a half late seem absolutely trivial. Even the hardships that are slightly more than trivial don't seem to matter so much. When my budget forces me to choose between buying vegan food or a warmer blanket for base, or when I have to sew a button on my uniform myself because my mommy isn't here to do it for me, of course I see that fleeting image of my life if I lived at home or went to college instead. Of course I feel that tinge of sadness. But it's only a tinge, and it's quickly and easily subdued by the thought that Oh my God I'm deciding what to bring to my army base, or, I'm sewing a button on my IDF uniform! Yes, there are moments and thoughts that sometimes make me sad, but it's a sadness that comes about only because I'm finally living the life I waited eight years to live. As you read my blog, you should take all my complaints with a grain of salt, because no matter how often these trivial difficulties arise, I can't honestly say that army life, or even life in Israel in general, has ever actually been hard. 

Except for once. 

There was one time, one week in the entire year and a half I've been in this country, that my fulfilled dreams and profound happiness didn't outweigh the hardships of living here. 

Tomorrow will be one year since my cousin Lauren passed away from brain cancer, and one year since the first and only time I hated living in Israel. 

What I've heard most about Lauren since she died is that she had an unmatched ability to connect with anyone on an individual level, to give a special piece of herself to everybody she met. And since she had such deep connections with everyone, a lot of people took her death really hard, and really personally. It wasn't just the inspiring woman with a beautiful and fiery soul who died. It was much more personal than that. It was Lauren the cousin who passed away. It was Lauren the daughter, Lauren the mother, Lauren the sister, the niece, the friend, the sister-in-law, the aunt, the Eagles fan, the synagogue congregant, the enthusiastic Facebook user, the childhood friend, the patient, the Israel supporter, the mentor, the life of the party; it was all the pieces of herself that she gave to everyone she loved and everyone who loved her.  If she had been just any one of those things, her death would've been an incredible loss. But she was all of them. And it's the pieces of herself that she never had the chance to give, all the pieces that she would have given if her life hadn't been cut so tragically short. If the number of people who attended her funeral is any indication, Lauren touched more people's lives than probably even she could ever imagine. 

But that number isn't a good indicator. Because there are some people who were forever changed by Lauren and who loved her very deeply, but still couldn't be at her funeral. 

During Lauren's funeral, I was sitting in my room on kibbutz, my knees pulled up to my chest, facing a computer screen. I watched over Skype as my family members delivered eulogies, as my own sister spoke of feelings that I didn't yet have the time or tools to register. I listened as the rabbi chanted a broken El Malei Rachamim and I held back a wave of sobs every time my Internet failed me. I watched from 6,000 miles away as her casket was lowered into the ground. I heard my family's tears over my computer speakers. I watched people huddle around Lauren's daughter Ava as she released a new mournful wail with each shovel of dirt that filled her mother's grave. But I couldn't hug my little cousin. I couldn't comfort her or offer her my shoulder for support. And for the first time ever, I truly regretted moving to Israel. 

Logic has no place in the grieving process. If it did, I wouldn't have found myself after the funeral writing in my journal that I'm a selfish coward. Those were my exact words. "Is that why I wanted to move to Israel?" I wrote. "So I wouldn't have to face the heartache and the pain and the suffering that comes with being close to the people I love?" I didn't just make it harder for me when I doomed myself to be far from the people who could help me through this. In my selfishness, I effectively relieved myself of any responsibility to be there for the people who need me. That train of thought morphed into another: "Was it worth it? Did I even know the price of moving to Israel before I paid it?" I had known I was going to miss birthday parties and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and Passover Seders -- but celebrations are so easy to plug into from afar. How did I not think about this? Am I really so naive, so simply stupid, that I never even considered the possibility of tragedy? I realized that when anything ever happens in my family, I've put myself in a position where I'll be the last to know. The hardest to reach. The least likely to be able to come home. 

And as soon as I started hating where I was, what I was doing, and the decisions I had made, I went to an even darker place. I convinced myself that my eight years of yearning and longing and dreaming were based on a delusional fantasy, on a 10-year-old's complete inexperience with reality and heartache. I began to despise the army. I refused to take a test and my commander threatened to put me in jail. The worst part was that I had no one to talk to about it. I have people in Israel that care about me as if they were family, but in my bitterness towards the country, I found that it wasn't enough. I spent the entire week of shivah alone in a sour whirlpool of self-pity and unfocused rage. 

And then, a few days after shivah ended, I was on my computer again, reading all the messages that people were posting on Lauren's Facebook wall. I looked at all of her pictures. I read all of the things that she had posted throughout her battle with cancer about finding an inner strength that everyone around her already knew she had. And then I found something she posted on my wall. I found this. 


And this. 



That's the piece of Lauren she gave especially to me. When I was younger, she was the cousin who made me feel ten feet tall, even though I was the baby of the family. She was the first to treat me like an adult, a friend. When I decided to follow my heart to Israel, she gave me a new piece: She gave me her support and her unconditional pride. She bragged about me to her friends on Facebook. She listened when I called right before I made Aliyah, when I was questioning if it was the right thing for me to do. She stood up for me when I didn't know how to stand up for myself. She spent two minutes of a long-distance call telling me about her health, and ten minutes asking about my new life. It felt so wrong to me that I wasn't at her funeral when my piece of Lauren was so special, but then I remembered that she loved that I was in Israel. She admired me -- her own word!! -- for giving up basic comforts like being able to mourn with my family in order to live in and serve the Jewish homeland. I found a weird comfort in realizing that she probably expected me to not be at her funeral. And I realized that I had gotten to do something even more meaningful to me than attend her funeral. You see, the army has many strictly enforced rules about when and why soldiers are allowed to leave the country. You can't go before you're eight months into your service. Emergencies only apply to immediate family. You need at least a month's advance notice. You can't leave during a course. Literally not one of the exceptions applied to me in February of last year, and yet in what I swear was a case of some kind of divine or supernatural intervention, I found myself at home in Philadelphia for an entire week. She was confined to bed, she could barely speak, and sometimes looked like she was in pain, but it ended up being Lauren's last full week of consciousness. Of course it was hard seeing her like that. There were few physical similarities between this bedridden Lauren and the Lauren who came to my going-away party to see me off before I moved. But I got to say goodbye. I got to tell her about the army and watch as her eyes lit up with the familiar love and pride in her family that I had seen in her my entire life.

And I realized that she wouldn't have wanted me to go to army jail for refusing to take a test. She wouldn't have wanted me to minimize the relationship I have with my almost-family in Israel. She wouldn't have wanted me to regret this thing that I'm doing -- this thing that she was so proud of. Lauren's death forced me to face serious issues that in my blessed and inexperienced life, I had never really had to face before. But the things she did and the person she was in her life showed me that I'm strong enough to handle those issues. 

That realization didn't make handling her death any easier. When someone like Lauren dies, it can never be easy. But as soon as I stopped feeling guilty and calling myself names and convincing myself that my family felt I deserted them, I could focus on Lauren and on comforting my family and myself. I found that I really am strong enough to handle this, though it's the hardest thing I've ever had to handle. There are times when I still get flashes of it - these waves of regret, this inexplicable physical sensation of my heart literally being pulled back to the life I had in America, my life in the place where Lauren was always just an hour-long drive away. But I just have to remind myself that although the cost of what I did was high, nothing can ever diminish the pride that Lauren felt for me or the pride she made me feel for myself. I've set myself up to face a lot of heartache in the future, but Lauren has shown me that I can't ignore my dreams or the causes I believe in just because they're going to be hard. If I'm doing the right thing for the right reasons, I'll always find a way to make it through even the most trying of times. 

Tomorrow will be one year since the world lost someone so incredibly beautiful and compassionate, but every day of my life, I can feel her guidance and her love and her spirit. Every single person who held even the smallest piece of Lauren's soul knows that her gifts would cross galaxies to comfort the people who love her. 

I'll never stop thinking about you, Laur. I'll never stop being grateful, and I'll never stop wanting to make you proud. I love and miss you more than anything. 

Lauren Pearl Halper, z"l








"I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart),
I am never without it."
- e. e. cummings






11 February 2014

Listception

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Ok, that makes sense. Cavemen needed to hunt, so they invented the spear. Eskimos needed to keep warm, so they invented the igloo. Hungry busy people needed a quick, easy meal, so they invented Hot Pockets. But I have a sneaking suspicion that some inventions were not birthed by necessity. I think that sometimes, there's a much stronger force at play and it can probably take credit for more inventions than necessity can: boredom. Or, more accurately, I think that boredom is the mother of necessity (thus being the grandmother of invention, if you were finding this extended familial metaphor difficult to follow). Think about it: Alexander Graham Bell was sitting home alone, he needed a way to talk to his friends, he invented the phone. Thomas Edison was sick of sitting in the dark after his candles burnt out, so he invented the light bulb. Ben Franklin's plans were rain-checked, so he grabbed his kite and his house keys, went for a swim, and voila! Electricity. Boredom is responsible for some pretty groundbreaking inventions because the human mind is capable of incredible things when left to its own devices.

I myself have some firsthand experience with boredom. Anyone who has ever been on guard duty for upwards of 8 hours will tell you that boredom is to be expected. That's not exactly a bad thing -- a boring guard shift is most certainly preferable to one with a lot of action. And when you're facing such spectacular tedium for such a long period of time, that's optimal procreating time for boredom. 

Now, the nature of the invention depends entirely on the nature of the bored person in question. When faced with overwhelming monotony, I personally make lists. In the past year and two months that I've been in the army, I've had lots of guard shifts, and therefore have made lots of lists. I gave you a little preview in my blog entry Top 10 Reasons Why The IDF Is Like Harry Potter, but that was only the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. I create these lists constantly. I haven't really posted anything about my daily life since I finished my course, and perhaps I will one day, but until then, I feel like writing about what I think on a daily basis is almost just as good. So as a product of my current state of boredom, I hereby present to you...

Listception; 
or, The Top 15 Lists Created By Becca When She Was So Bored It Was Borderline Dangerous

1. The 6 Most Common Nicknames Given To Me By People Who Think "Becca" Isn't A Name

2. 10 Life Skills I Learned During The Year That I Worked At Bed Bath and Beyond That Are Weirdly Applicable To The Army

3. Top 5 Reasons Why My High-Ranking Officer's Ring Tone Should Not Be "Sexy Lady" By Shaggy

4. The Top 1 Reason Why I Hope My Officers Don't Read My Blog

5. 26 Of My Friends Who Would Actually Have A Chance At The Hunger Games and How They Would Fare If All Pitted Against Each Other

6. Top 5 Mustaches Featured On The Faces of The Palestinian Bus Drivers I Work With Daily

7. 12 Most Creative Recipes for Potatoes I've Seen Since Drafting

8. The First 10 Things I Would Do If I Discovered That I Was Sabrina the Teenage Witch

9. 15 Hebrew Words and Phrases That Are Hilarious When People Try To Translate Them Into English

10. 6 Reasons Why Hercules Is The Best Movie To Watch More Than Once In A Row If You Only Have Room For One Movie On Your Phone

11. Top 4 Bodily Functions You're Exposed To When You Spend A 12-20 Hour Guard Shift With Three Boys

12. 250 Productive Things I Could Be Doing Instead of Making Lists

13.  20 Reasons Why My "Red Hot Chili Peppers" Playlist Is The Best For Passing Time

14.  Top 15 Times My Friends In Israel Made Me Feel Like The Luckiest Person In The World

15. The 100 Best Times to Use The "I'm American, I Didn't Understand" Excuse

So there you have it. A brief glimpse into the extraordinary capabilities of the human mind when it's forced to occupy itself. Don't get the wrong idea, a lot of my army service has been really interesting, and serving Israel has provided me with some amazing opportunities. But being in the army also means that sometimes I'm bored, sometimes I have to watch Hercules three times back to back, sometimes I have to look for things to make me laugh so that I don't go crazy.

Depending on how much longer I can put up with these guard shifts, there may be a Listception part II coming soon. Until then, you should try watching Hercules. Or maybe an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch

17 January 2014

A Letter to the Man Who Called Me A Fascist


Dear Sir,


You may not remember me. A while back, you attended a protest outside a venue on Broad Street, in Philadelphia. That venue was hosting a fundraising dinner gala for the FIDF, or Friends of the IDF. The FIDF is an organization that - among many other things - gives support to lone soldiers like myself. I assume you knew only that the event was pro-Israel. You arrived early, the event started at 6 PM sharp, and you were already waiting outside with signs and slogans when I arrived. You may not recall my arrival; it must have been a long and busy night for you as hundreds of event attendees came from all over Philadelphia and New Jersey. In case you have forgotten, I was the soldier. I came in my uniform as one of the representatives of the IDF. It was cold (I've adjusted very nicely to the weather in Israel and just can't seem to adjust back), and as I walked by you, clutching my mother's arm for warmth, you and I made eye contact. I saw you eyeing my outfit - my olive green uniform seemed to pop from among the sea of business attire. You glanced back up at my face, narrowed your eyes, and hissed, "Fascist."

The main reason why you should not call me a fascist is that I am not a fascist.

Another reason why you should not call me a fascist is that name-calling is mean. You looked at my uniform and decided that I was something that I'm not, and then made it offensively obvious what you thought. That's on par with me looking at your scraggly long hair and stylishly mismatched clothes and saying, "dirty hipster." Would you have liked that? I have to assume that you wouldn't. If you went to elementary school, and I'm going to guess that you did, as you seem to consider yourself well-educated enough to form an opinion about some pretty complicated political issues, then you too learned that name-calling is mean. We also learned that "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all." But we're not naive, there is a validity to protesting that which you think is wrong. And though we may disagree, if you think Israel is a fascist state, then by all means, protest and be heard. But don't undermine your own cause by stooping to the same level as a 5-year-old boy who pulls his classmate's hair and calls her stupid. 


Which brings me to the third reason you should not call me a fascist: I am a human being. Not only am I a human being, I am a teenage girl clutching my mother's arm for warmth. Does that scream "fascism" to you? Or beyond that, does it seem to you that calling me a fascist is going to bring about the desired results? You may take issue with Israel, but as a single solitary soldier, I lack much of the power that it would take to "Free Palestine," as your banner was calling for. And as a 19-year-old with relatively little self-defense experience, I lack many of the skills that it would take to fight you off if you turned out to be one of the more violent protesters. So not only did you not accomplish the goal you set out to accomplish when you hurled your insult at me, you also scared the **** out of me. It's not that you looked especially threatening, but I'm scared when the mailman comes and I'm home alone -- why would I not be scared of someone who so publicly disagrees with my very existence as a soldier? Your cause has been known for having some extremists, you can't take it to a personal level without giving me reason to worry. And I'm with my mother, God dammit! Sure, you may not have known she was my mother, but she was. She is. And while you may only be trying to make a political statement, a mother is a mother and will go into Mama Bear mode when you seem to pose a threat to her young. I don't want to get into politics, it's the simple humanity in this situation that bothers me. I may represent the State of Israel as soon as I button up my uniform. But being a soldier does not stop me from first and foremost being a human. When you call me a name, you're not offending Israel, you're offending me. And you don't know me at all. 

The last reason why you should not call me a fascist is that I'm not sure you know what fascism means. I looked it up to make sure that I did, and Dictionary.com defines it as a "governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism." Truthfully, I can't hold you responsible for this one. If I didn't know what a fascist was, I might also suspect that I am one. But in all seriousness, Israel has many faults, and I'm not blind to them. But some very basic facts about Israel make you seem a little uneducated, the first of which is that Israel is a democracy. That's rather undeniable, no? The convoluted voting process in Israel (that is, by the way, very stereotypically Israeli) makes having a dictator seem rather impossible. The second basic fact would be that if Israel tried to oppress all criticism, you would be jailed. So the fact that you can attend a protest and spout your beliefs against Israel, and the fact that you could also do so in Israel, is in and of itself in defiance of your "Israel is fascist" theory. Thirdly, Israel is not nearly organized enough to "regiment all industry, commerce, etc." Fourthly, though I couldn't expect you to know this, my unit in the army literally has the sole purpose of making sure Israel stays safe while Palestinian civilians get their non-fascism-compliant rights. In fact, some other units of the IDF laugh at my unit, calling us extreme leftists. But the very existence of my unit, which a quick Google search would bring to your attention, rules out the possibility of a fascist regime. 

In conclusion, I want you to know that you had your desired effect, if your desired effect was calling a teenage girl names and scaring her a bit. If you had higher aspirations, I'm afraid you were a bit off your game. Again, all politics aside, I applaud you for exercising your right to protest. History has proven that sometimes the simple act of demonstrating your beliefs can be enough to change the world. Far too many people today see something they think is wrong and choose to be a bystander. And I'm not going to tell you that you're on the fundamentally mistaken side of the conflict, because although I may believe that my cause is more humane and more well-researched than yours, objectively that may not be so. But I will tell you that if you want to be heard, you must learn how to advocate effectively and with a clear purpose. After all, you had far more than just your cause at stake. You risked your personal safety. You almost invoked an attack from Mama Bear. 

Sincerely,
Becca

P.S. I've attached some photos from said event to jog your memory as to who I am and/or for the enjoyment of the people who read my blog. I apologize that you do not make an appearance in any of my photos.