On the morning of October 7, I received a panicked call for help. A well-worn soldierly instinct that I cannot quite name compelled me to grab my handgun, race to my car, and speed South from my home in Jerusalem.
I may not have realized it at the moment, but that instinct was inextricably linked to an experience I had as a teenager in my hometown of Kiryat Gat. I was 17 years old. It was a late winter morning when I returned to school after having been suspended for one of my adolescent escapades.
As I was about to cross the street to enter the building, I saw a group of some 30 classmates, the best and brightest of the upper grades, about to board a bus. I asked where they were going; they told me they were on the way to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
I barely knew what that place was about, but I felt compelled to join them. I boarded the bus with them and hid behind the bags thrown onto the back seat. At the end of the journey, I emerged from the bus with a smile on my face. The principal spotted me right away and was furious. He called my father.
I stood at his side as they had a speakerphone discussion about banishing me home by taxi. I steadfastly refused to go, and the outcome was that I made it to Yad Vashem, where I fully immersed myself in a fateful chapter of Jewish history that was seared into my bones that day.
Smoke from kibbutz homes stirs up chimneys of Auschwitz
More than two decades later, I left my car along the desert stretches that had been transformed into killing fields along the Gaza border. I saw smoke rising from the burnt kibbutz homes of Be’eri, and I felt that I was witnessing the chimneys of Auschwitz.
I was in a moment that had chosen me. But I also knew that it was not just me in the crosshairs of history but the entire Jewish nation. It was, and is, the moment to identify as a defender of human civilization. To choose a side. And that we, as Jews, could become naturally aligned with all peoples across the world, including our Palestinian neighbors, if they chose to stand up for humanity.
My heart sank into darkness as I walked through the roads that had been transformed into savage battlefields.
I took a ceramic vest and a weapon from defenders who had fallen, and I knew it was my sacred duty to take up their war.
I thought of my children, ages six and four, and I realized it was possible I might never see them again. If I did not survive, they would lose their father and a piece of themselves. But I also knew that they would preserve the identity and values that I was fighting for with my life.
Now, in the weeks and months that have followed, I continue, with all of our armed forces and our people, to wage that war. I persevere in the path of my own life. I am a reserve officer in the IDF and the CEO of a nonprofit organization, Israel-is, which promotes international dialogue.
In the intervals between my military service, I travel the world to meet with leaders and activists from all fields and walks of life.
In my conversations with supporters of Israel, such as Douglas Murray and Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, I hear voices of clarity and shared purpose. It is the same spirit that draws the myriad of volunteers who land at Ben-Gurion airport to bear witness and to travel the country to pick fruit and pack lettuce. We all know that we are touching history with our own hands.
I have never felt more Jewish and more Israeli. These intertwined identities are at my core as a combatant in the war that we must all win.
I feel that, as a nation, we are on the cusp of cultivating a new leadership and a new language. I believe our aspirations are greater than just a survival instinct. The change that is possible can affect us even more deeply than the politics in which we have become so entrenched over the past year.
That change will demand time and thought to articulate properly, but I believe it will happen, just as my instincts guided me when I was 17 years old. I didn’t know then what compelled me to board that bus in Kiryat Gat, but it turned out to be the first step forward in discovering my place along the journey of Jewish history.
The writer is CEO of Israel-is, an NGO that advances dialogue between young Israelis and their peers worldwide. He serves as a reserve officer in the IDF search-and-rescue unit. In previous civilian positions, he has guided leadership development programs with a focus on civic engagement, Jewish identity, and social mobility.